Housing Near Fort Leonard Wood: Pulaski County, MO

Pulaski County has not adopted a housing-mitigation ordinance, impact fee, or inclusionary-housing requirement. What it does have is a 2026 regional study documenting a real housing shortfall driven by Fort Leonard Wood -- useful context for anyone buying land to build new housing in the county, even though it is a planning roadmap rather than a legal requirement.

This page covers what's specific to Pulaski County. For the general explanation, see the national guide.

What "housing mitigation" actually means in Pulaski County right now

It's worth being direct about this: Pulaski County has not adopted a housing-mitigation ordinance in the way some fast-growing counties elsewhere in the country have -- there is no development impact fee earmarked for affordable or workforce housing, no inclusionary-zoning mandate requiring a share of new units to be reserved at below-market rents, and no linkage fee tied to commercial or institutional growth. Land-use decisions here still run through the county's general no-zoning framework (see our Pulaski County hub for the full picture), so a housing development is not funneled through any mitigation-specific review layer that doesn't already apply to any other kind of construction.

What exists instead is a documented regional planning response to a real problem: Fort Leonard Wood, a roughly 62,911-acre US Army training installation, drives enough active-duty, civilian-employee, and contractor housing demand that the Meramec Regional Planning Commission commissioned a dedicated Fort Leonard Wood Off-Installation Housing Study, with a request for proposals issued in January 2025 and a final report delivered February 27, 2026. That study covers the full FLW region -- Pulaski, Phelps, Laclede, and Texas counties, plus the cities of Waynesville and St. Robert -- and was explicitly framed as a roadmap for regional leaders, installation personnel, developers, and property owners rather than as a new set of rules.

What this means if you are buying land to build housing near the base

For a land buyer or small-scale developer, the study's existence is itself useful information: it confirms a documented, planning-commission-level judgment that the region needs more off-post housing than it currently has, which is a different starting point than most rural Missouri counties can offer. That said, a regional roadmap is not the same as a fast-tracked permit, a guaranteed water/sewer extension, or a funding source for infrastructure -- Pulaski County's underlying land-use process (no zoning, no countywide building code, city-by-city permitting) does not change because the study exists. Anyone evaluating a parcel for new residential construction near St. Robert or Waynesville should treat the study as market validation and a planning reference point, then run the same due diligence (septic or sewer capacity, road access, floodplain status) that applies to any other Pulaski County parcel.

It's also worth tracking the on-post side of the picture, since the two markets interact: a December 2025 groundbreaking added new homes in the on-post Woodlands neighborhood, and in 2026 Senator Josh Hawley pushed legislation to fully fund replacement of Fort Leonard Wood's aging military family housing after securing over $113 million in federal appropriations in prior years. More on-post housing capacity could, over time, ease some of the off-post pressure the 2026 study documents -- or the base's overall footprint could keep growing faster than either side can keep up with. Either way, this is a housing story driven by a specific federal installation's needs, not by a county mitigation policy, and it is worth revisiting the Meramec Regional Planning Commission's published materials directly for the most current numbers before making a development decision.

Housing Mitigation Requirements Near Fort Leonard Wood, Pulaski County

What "housing mitigation" actually means in Pulaski County right now

What this means if you are buying land to build housing near the base

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