Reflections on Housing Matters Symposium 2026
- PCHTF
- May 1
- 2 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Housing Matters Symposium was held April 30, 2026 at the Iowa Events Center. Thank you to all who attended and to our presenting sponsors AARP Iowa and the Des Moines Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO).
Listen to Housing Matters Symposium as a podcast
Thanks to the generocity of our speakers, you can listen to audio from Housing Matters Symposium as a podcast. We will be uploading each session as an episode soon, so be sure to subscribe on your favorite service so you don't miss anything!
Listen online at pchtf.org/podcast or through Spotify, YouTube, or (coming soon) Apple Podcasts.
Keynote speaker Charles Marohn
Talk of a “housing crisis” pervades North American cities—be it about off-the-charts rents in coastal cities or hyper-vacancy in the Rust Belt. Charles Marohn discussed the deeper dysfunctions beneath these symptoms. He called for building a more antifragile housing ecosystem in which the bar to entry is low and every neighborhood can undergo incremental change over time.
Presented by Charles Marohn, founder of Strong Towns.
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Housing Sites of Opportunity
PCHTF teamed up with local planning firm Confluence to investigate underutilized types of land available for redevelopment of housing, then to visualize Missing Middle Housing developments that could be built there. Housing Sites of Opportunity exist across our metro, and this project lifts up strategies and partnerships to help take advantage.
Presented by Abbey Eckberg and Jane Reasoner, Confluence; introduced by Johnny Alcivar, PCHTF. This session is presented in partnership with Capital Crossroads.
Our new report is available now at https://pchtf.org/missingmiddle
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Develop the Developer Launchpad
Building small scale projects in established neighborhoods is a challenge, especially for emerging developers. Last December, PCHTF graduated its first cohort of developers through a multifamily housing boot camp. Now, select graduates from that program will embark on a multi-month development fellowship with DEV Partners. We shared what’s next for the fellows and future opportunities to participate in this program.
Meet the fellows in our recent blog post or learn more about Develop the Developer Launchpad at https://pchtf.org/dtdl
This session was presented by Julian D. Neely, PCHTF and Danny Heggen, DEV Partners.
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Incremental Development Showcase
We introduced developers working on innovative infill projects that are bringing new housing options to local neighborhoods. Their presentations highlighted the benefits of neighborhood-scale incremental development and the challenges that come along the way.
Moderated by Toby O’Berry, PCHTF, with Mike Stuart, Tiny Homes of Iowa; Carrie Woerdeman, Central Iowa Community Land Trust/HOME, Inc.; Scott Cutler, Cutler Development; Dan Drendel, Slingshot Architecture.
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View video related to this presentation
HOME Inc. shared a new video highlighting the first homes made available through the Central Iowa Community land Trust.
