There's no way apartments make up 50% of the housing units in Burnsville... while that may have been an actual city policy, I think it was more so that they had a City Council majority that was extremely hostile to rentals, even high-end luxury apartments (i.e. "future slums" if you're the kind of person who hates renters). The Council makeup shifted after a recent election (same Mayor for like 20 years though, but she is supportive of development, new urbanism, etc. AFAIK)
EDIT: it's closer than I thought, but not that close. See the Community Profile here (click on Housing tab)
https://stats.metc.state.mn.us/profile/ ... c=02393472. 11,577 single-family homes. 8,558 multi-family (5+ units, apts & condos combined). There are also 4,809 townhomes, probably a mix of owned & rental. It's certainly true that single-family homes make up less than 50% of the total housing units in Burnsville, but that's not really an accurate measure of ownership vs. rental, considering SFHs can be rented, and condos can be owned. After looking at a few community profiles, it is true that Burnsville has a lower share of SFHs than many of their peer suburbs. Much of that I think can be attributed to a handful of very large (300+ unit) apartment communities in Burnsville, skewing the overall numbers.