Topeka apartment development is being driven less by population growth than by a long-running shortage of newer rental housing: the city’s own studies found demand for more than 1,000 additional rental units even as the population held roughly flat, and Topeka is now using housing incentive districts, a housing trust fund and zoning changes to get those units built. For existing owners, the question is which segments of the market new supply will compete with, and which it will leave alone.
This article walks through the numbers behind that demand, the tools the city is using, the zoning changes adopted and proposed in 2025 and 2026, and the specific projects in the pipeline, then looks at what it all means for older buildings.
Topeka’s population and housing stock
Topeka is the capital of Kansas and the county seat of Shawnee County, as the Kansas Historical Society’s Kansapedia entry on Shawnee County notes. The Census Bureau’s QuickFacts for Topeka estimate a July 1, 2025 population of 125,795, a decline of 0.6% from the April 2020 base of 126,609.
The same profile shows 54,837 households in the 2020 to 2024 period, an owner-occupied housing rate of 59.0%, a median gross rent of $979 and a median household income of $56,956. The median value of owner-occupied homes was $144,200, low enough that many renters in Topeka have a realistic path to buying, which shapes the competitive landscape for apartments.
The 2020 Census gives a fuller picture of the stock. Topeka had 60,054 housing units, 10.2% of which were vacant, and renters occupied 45.2% of occupied units, or 24,354 households. A city with flat population and double-digit vacancy might not seem to need new apartments. The city’s housing studies explain why it does.
What the housing studies found
Topeka’s July 2020 Citywide Housing Market Study, prepared for the city’s planning department, found that nearly 6,000 housing units, or 11% of the stock, were vacant. At the same time, it identified a need for 3,650 units of workforce housing, 2,000 for sale and 1,650 rental, along with about 1,400 market-rate rental units. The city’s Planning Commission later summarized the same study as projecting a need for about 4,000 affordable units and 3,650 workforce units over 20 years. The study’s executive summary frames the problem as a mismatch between what exists and what households want and can afford.
A later housing needs analysis the city prepared to support its incentive districts, using data through October 2022, updated those figures. It put net demand at 2,367 units, 1,287 for sale and 1,080 rental, and noted that the city had averaged 267 new units per year since 2019. It also described a rent mismatch:
- Units renting for roughly $400 to $700 a month were in greater supply than demand.
- Household affordability exceeded supply in the ranges above $1,000 per month.
- In other words, Topeka had more cheap, older units than needed and too few newer units for households able to pay more.
That second point is the key to reading the pipeline. Much of the new development is aimed at households who can pay more than the city’s median rent but cannot find newer product, while a separate stream of subsidized projects targets lower-income renters.
How much Topeka has actually been building
Production has been modest. The city’s Development and Growth Management 2023 annual report recorded 113 new residential units in 2023, up 17.7% from 96 in 2022. The mix has shifted, however. Non-single-family units made up 64% of new units built since 2020, compared with 39% between 2010 and 2019.
Over a longer horizon, the Greater Topeka Partnership has pointed out that average annual new housing permits in Shawnee County fell by roughly two-thirds, about 66%, between the five years before 2008 and the most recent five years. That decline is the backdrop for nearly every incentive and zoning change the city has made since.
Topeka apartment development incentives
Because rents in Topeka are moderate and construction costs are not, many new projects need public support to work. The city has leaned on three tools.
Reinvestment Housing Incentive Districts
Kansas’s housing incentive district law allows a city to capture the increase in property taxes from a new development and use it to reimburse eligible costs such as infrastructure. In 2023, the Legislature’s Senate Bill 17 renamed the program from the Rural Housing Incentive District Act to the Reinvestment Housing Incentive District Act and changed which cities and counties could use it, according to the Legislature’s bill summary. Topeka has used RHIDs on several recent projects:
- In May 2026, the City Council approved an RHID and development agreement for Johnson Betts Meadows, a 176-unit project on SE 31st Street that includes 106 project-based vouchers, with RHID reimbursement capped at $4.6 million.
- In April 2026, the council considered an RHID for Windward Estates, 40 market-rate units in 20 duplexes at SE 45th Street and California Avenue.
- The Union at Tower District downtown also uses city RHID funding alongside other sources, described below.
Tax increment financing and the Neighborhood Revitalization Program
For rehabilitation projects, Topeka has combined tax increment financing with its Neighborhood Revitalization Program, which rebates part of the property tax increase on improved property. In April 2026, the council approved this combination, along with a development agreement, for a 47-unit rehabilitation of Capital City Townhomes.
The Affordable Housing Trust Fund
In July 2026, the city approved $931,947.50 in Affordable Housing Trust Fund assistance for three projects that together provide or preserve 229 housing units, according to WIBW. The largest is a renovation of the 200-unit Highland Park Townhomes, along with 24 apartments in another project. Trust fund dollars are small relative to the cost of new construction, but they often fill the final gap in preservation deals.
The projects reshaping downtown and south Topeka
The single largest project in the current pipeline is the Union at Tower District, a 250-unit affordable development by The Annex Group near SE 11th Street and Quincy Street, downtown. According to REBusinessOnline, the roughly $60 million project is financed with $35 million in Shawnee County bonds, 4% housing tax credits allocated by the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation and city RHID funding, and full completion is slated for January 2027. KSNT reported in April 2026 that the first building was expected to open in spring or early summer 2026.
A project of that size matters in a city that produced 113 new homes in all of 2023. Even phased, 250 units at income-restricted rents will absorb a meaningful share of demand from households currently living in older, lower-cost apartments.
The south side is seeing a different mix. Johnson Betts Meadows on SE 31st Street pairs new construction with project-based vouchers, and Windward Estates near SE 45th and California is aimed at the market-rate duplex renter. A 24-unit townhome rezoning on SE 25th Street was deferred by the council in April 2026; planning staff had recommended M-1a zoning, which allows up to 15 units per acre.
Zoning changes adopted and proposed
Topeka has been working through a series of zoning code amendments aimed at what planners call missing middle housing: duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes and townhomes that sit between single-family homes and large apartment complexes. Some changes have been adopted; others are still under discussion.
Adopted changes
On February 17, 2026, the City Council approved an ordinance introduced by City Manager Robert Perez that removed limits on ground-floor multifamily units in certain commercial, downtown and mixed-use districts and allowed duplexes in some commercial zones with a conditional use permit, according to KSNT. Ground-floor housing had previously required special use approval in those districts.
The ordinance did not lift the restriction everywhere. According to KSNT, ground-level residential limits still apply along parts of Kansas Avenue from Sixth to 10th Avenue downtown and in north Topeka from Gordon to Norris Street, areas the city considers important for storefront activity. For an owner of an older mixed-use building elsewhere, the change can open a path to converting vacant ground-floor commercial space into apartments.
Missing middle in residential districts
The larger and more contested proposal concerns single-family neighborhoods. A February 2025 presentation by the Planning Commission’s Incentives Committee, titled “Duplexes, etc. in ‘R’ Districts Proposal,” laid out options to allow duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes in residential districts such as R-1 and R-2, either by building permit subject to special standards or through a conditional use permit with neighbor notice, a Planning Commission hearing and a final decision by the governing body. The standards under discussion included minimum lot sizes, alley access, architectural compatibility, height and size limits and caps on driveways and parking areas.
The same presentation summarized recent production: building permits from 2021 through 2024 covered 686 total units, including 100 duplex units and 317 multifamily units, a category that includes triplexes and fourplexes. In November 2025, the Planning Commission advanced Title 18 amendments that would allow two-family and multifamily buildings of up to four units in single-family zones through conditional use permits, according to KSNT. Public comment at committee meetings has been divided, and owners should check the city’s planning pages for the current status before assuming the change is in effect.
If it is adopted, the practical effect will be gradual. Conditional use permits are decided case by case, and small infill projects take time to assemble. The more immediate impact is on land value: lots in R districts near transit corridors, Washburn University or downtown could be worth more to builders if they can hold three or four units instead of one.
Why Topeka cannot cap rents, and what that means for incentives
Kansas law shapes the development picture in one more way. Under K.S.A. 12-16,120, no county, municipality or other political subdivision may enact, maintain or enforce an ordinance or resolution that would have the effect of controlling rent on privately owned residential or commercial property. That rules out rent control in Topeka.
The statute has an important exception. It allows a property owner to voluntarily agree to rent or price limits in exchange for local grants or incentives. That is the legal basis for many of the deals described above: when a project accepts local support such as RHID reimbursement or trust fund dollars, it can also accept income and rent restrictions as a condition. Federal programs such as housing tax credits and project-based vouchers carry their own rent rules on top of that. For existing owners, this means new income-restricted units in Topeka are tied to specific funding agreements rather than a citywide rule, and their rents are set by those agreements rather than by the market.
Demand drivers behind the pipeline
Topeka’s employer base is anchored by government, health care and manufacturing. The Greater Topeka Partnership lists the State of Kansas, Stormont Vail Health, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Mars Wrigley, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, BNSF Railway, Washburn University and Evergy among the area’s major employers. That mix is stable rather than fast-growing, which is consistent with a flat population and explains why demand for new housing comes mainly from replacement and quality upgrades rather than new arrivals.
For apartment owners, a stable government and health care workforce supports steady occupancy in well-run buildings near the Capitol, downtown and the medical campuses. It is less likely to produce the rapid rent growth seen in faster-growing metros, which is why so many of the new projects rely on incentives.
What new supply means for existing Topeka buildings
The pipeline is not aimed at every segment equally, and that shapes the impact on existing owners:
- Older, lower-rent buildings face the most direct competition from new income-restricted projects such as the Union at Tower District, which offer new construction at rents similar to what tenants pay in older properties.
- Mid-market buildings in good condition may benefit from the city’s finding that households able to pay more than $1,000 a month are underserved, since new market-rate supply remains limited.
- Small multifamily properties in established neighborhoods could see new neighbors if the missing middle changes take effect, but those projects tend to be small and slow to arrive.
- Buildings in RHID, TIF or NRP areas may see surrounding values rise as new projects complete, which can affect both property taxes and resale comparables.
The practical response for an owner of an older building is to look hard at condition and positioning. A well-maintained building with updated units can compete with new product on location and price. A building with deferred maintenance competes mainly on price, and that is exactly the space where subsidized new construction is landing.
To see how changes in rent and occupancy translate into value, our apartment building value calculator lets you test different scenarios. For local context, owners can visit our page on selling an apartment building in Topeka, and our Kansas market overview compares Topeka with other cities in the state.
