The demand for senior housing is no longer up for debate. According to the National Investment Center, to maintain current market penetration rates among the 80+ age group, the U.S. needs an additional ~156,000 senior housing units by 2025, ~549,000 additional units by 2028, and ~806,000 by 2030 — reflecting a massive demand-supply gap.

But the problem is not demand. It’s feasibility—and it shows up much earlier than most teams expect

Senior housing projects often fail long before design development or construction pricing begins. They fail at the feasibility stage, where well-intentioned assumptions collide with zoning codes, accessibility requirements, and outdated planning standards. In practice, three main constraints shape whether senior housing ever gets built: parking, accessibility, and density.

Understanding how these forces interact, and testing them early, is critical to delivering the housing seniors actually need.

1 - Parking Requirements that Do Not Match Reality

Parking is often the first feasibility hurdle for senior housing. In many cities, conventional multifamily projects are still required to provide 1.5–2.0 parking spaces per unit, even though senior housing communities often function closer to 0.3–0.6 spaces per unit, depending on care level and transit access.

In most senior housing communities, car ownership is significantly lower than in conventional apartments. Residents rely more on shared transportation, shuttles, caregivers, and family visits. National surveys show that only about 60% of adults over 65 drive most days, and driving frequency declines sharply with age.

Some municipalities are already reducing parking requirements for senior housing to reflect this reality. In New York City’s updated zoning code, parking requirements are eliminated for senior housing in transit zones, acknowledging the lower vehicle dependence of older adults. In Washington State, recent parking reform legislation even prohibits mandatory parking for senior housing in certain permit conditions.

Despite this, minimum parking requirements often force developers to oversupply parking. This directly impacts the building footprint and massing, construction cost per unit, and the ability to meet open space and setback requirements.

Early scenario testing allows teams to compare parking ratios, evaluate surface versus structured solutions, and understand how parking assumptions reshape the entire site. Without that visibility, parking quietly erodes feasibility before the project ever has a chance.

2 - Accessibility and the Hidden Cost of Efficiency Loss

Accessibility is essential in senior housing. It is also one of the most underestimated drivers of feasibility risk.

Senior housing requires:

• Larger unit sizes to accommodate mobility devices
• Wider corridors and doors
• More elevators and vertical circulation
• Increased non-revenue-generating amenity and service space

These requirements significantly reduce net-to-gross efficiency compared to conventional multi-family housing. While market-rate multifamily projects often achieve 80–85% efficiency, senior housing typically falls in the 65–75% range, with memory care communities often even lower due to staffing, life-safety, and circulation needs.

Yet many early feasibility models still rely on multifamily assumptions, creating unrealistic expectations for yield and cost recovery. A 10–20 % efficiency gap can dramatically change how many units are needed to support construction, staffing, and operations.

When accessibility is treated as a design-phase problem, the consequences show up later as redesigns, budget overruns, or projects that simply do not pencil.

Housing floor plan generators like TestFit allow teams to create standardized unit libraries and apply different accessibility parameters from the start. This makes it possible to test unit mix scenarios and efficiency ratio while complying with accessibility requirements from day one.

Accessibility does not just change layouts. It changes the math from the beginning.

3 - Density Limits that Ignore How Senior Housing Functions

Similar to parking ratios, multi-family density regulations often fail to reflect how senior housing actually works. Many zoning codes focus on units per acre, height limits, and floor area ratios.

What they do not account for is the space senior housing needs beyond just dwelling units. Dining rooms, medical offices, activity spaces, and community areas are not optional amenities. They are core program elements.

This creates a paradox. A site may technically comply with zoning while still being financially infeasible. For example, a site zoned for 40 units per acre may allow senior housing on paper, but once shared services and non-residential space are included, the achievable unit count may fall below what is needed to support staffing and operations.

In practice, senior housing often requires more building area per unit, while density limits restrict how many units can be built to offset higher construction and operating costs. The result is a project that fits zoning but fails financially.

Teams have to understand how all the zoning requirements, such as height, setbacks, and footprint, affect yield holistically, rather than relying solely on stated density limits. In many cases, real estate feasibility studies for senior housing reveal not how to make a site work, but when a deal should be killed entirely.

When Constraints Compound Each Other

Parking, accessibility, and density do not operate independently. They compound.

The math is simple, and that’s the problem.

Required Parking Spaces = Units × Parking Ratio

A 100-unit senior housing project at 0.5 spaces/unit requires 50 spaces. If a jurisdiction applies a conventional multi-family standard of 1.75 spaces/unit, that jumps to 175 spaces.

At the same time, density caps limit how many units you can build: 

Max Units Allowed = Site Acres × Allowed Units per Acre

If zoning allows 40 units/acre, 100 units already requires 2.5 acres before setbacks, open space, and buffers.

Accessibility compounds the issue further. On a 2.5-acre site, that 10–20% efficiency loss means significantly more building area is required to deliver the same 100 units, often exceeding allowable footprint or height limits.

This is why linear planning approaches often fail in senior housing. Adjusting one variable without understanding its impact on the others leads to false confidence early and painful corrections later. Senior housing feasibility requires integrated, scenario-based testing that reflects how these constraints interact in the real world.

Tools like TestFit help teams explore parking scenarios, unit mixes, density tradeoffs, and efficiency impacts in minutes rather than weeks—all in real time. That speed enables better decisions, fewer redesigns, and ultimately, more senior housing delivered where it is needed.

Senior Housing Goes Beyond Multi-Family

Too often, senior housing projects begin with generic assumptions borrowed from multi-family development. By the time those assumptions are challenged, teams have already invested significant time and money. Senior housing does not fail because demand is unclear. It fails because feasibility is misunderstood.

Every assumption made in the earliest stages shapes whether seniors will have access to safe, supportive housing in the future. Getting a better handle on the 3 constraints—parking standards, accessibility requirements, and density limits—helps ensure more housing can be built for the community.