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Blogs are great. You post your thoughts and people respond and then more people respond and a little conversation starts to happen and the community is stronger for it. At least, that’s what we hope.
So, we’re looking for feedback. Always. We can’t get enough of it. Right now there’s a lot of guessing by a lot of people about what will succeed in urban settings and we certainly don’t have all the answers. We figure, the more we can engage dialogue, the more we’ll learn about how to do it right.
Case in Point.
We’re trying to figure out how to accommodate both parking and accessibility and good livable, enduring design. The car won’t go away but we want to mitigate its negative impact on our communities. The garage works for some products and locations (B Street West, for example) but not all. So, we’re exploring the livability of attached houses with a shared underground parking area: everyone would have a space, just not right under or next to their own house (ie. our estimates are that the houses would be approximately 50-150 ft from their designation parking space in a shared garage).
On the Pro Side.
The community gets a more pedestrian-friendly product. Spaces between buildings can be used for landscaping and paths vs. interior streets.
The overall architecture doesn’t suffer from the constraints of garages and accessibility issues. We get to be more creative and weigh in stronger on the relationship of the architecture with the entire area vs. its relationship with the automobile.
Allows higher density bringing more people to the urban core and a smaller eco-footprint.
Floorplans can be more flexible without the attached garage.
Preservation of natural beauty. The specific site we’re looking at has four incredible oak trees in the center that would make for an incredible community open space. While it is possible to use other designs that would still preserve these trees, there are tradeoffs with some of the other variables above.
On the Con Side
Residents would have to walk from the parking spot to their house via a common (landscaped) area.
Obviously, we’re leaning more towards the pro side but we don’t necessarily have the full picture yet.
Any and all comments are welcome.
10 responses so far ↓
1 uneasy rhetoric // Oct 24, 2006 at 6:49 pm
I think the shared parking concept is a good one. Yes, residents will have to walk a little farther, but I think its a small price to pay if it improves the overall quality of the design and makes the living spaces more comfortable.
If having to walk 150 feet to get to your car is a major consideration for you, urban living might not be your thing.
Unfortunately, one other consideration to make would be the amount of storage available to the units. Nowadays, despite miniaturization and feng shui, we are a culture of crap. I’m sure we all know someone who doesn’t have enough room in their garage for their car. Sadly, I’m guilty of that one (granted, some of the stuff in there belongs to the landlords).
2 cole // Oct 24, 2006 at 11:15 pm
Moore did it at a fine scheme near Williamsburg…
Duany has done it, rather spectacularly at Windsor in Florida and elsewhere…
takes space and some design, which all in all is rather lacking in Sacramento…
All you have said is true…however…
A Woman with small children sure as hell needs to drop them off near some kind of door to the home…same with groceries…before parking her car around the bend…
Trucking kids or cans of pork and beans up three flights of stairs to your super duper flat on Russian Hill gets real old, real fast…
always had detached garages, except in SF where the garage was unaccessible except with a 4×4…
3 Levi // Oct 25, 2006 at 12:33 am
To help you give input in this project I think its best if we are a bit more specific on the projcet we are looking at.
This project is on the West Sacramento side of the Tower Bridge about the same distance from the bridge as the famed Saca Towers.
We have a 1.3 acre site (the current home of the Local 17 Union hall) Its a beautiful site with four of the coolest oak trees you have ever seen. (saving those of coarse) We are working with Ron Vrilakas as our architect to design a for sale atached condo project.
The concept we are thinking of right now is a row house feel home with three levels and a porch on the front. There would be no windows on the sides or backs of most of the houses (comments welcome on this topic) The fronts however will be very open and full of windows. The interior of the site will have about 45% open space with a large area around the oak trees and green belt spaces to access the units by foot.
The parking and storage areas for each unit would be housed in a partially underground parking garage or podium and acessible by handicap ramp and staircases.
The footprint of each unit would be about 17X40 and the houses would be 2 and 3 bedrooms.
Now this is the fun part, I think that we could sell these roughly 1200 square foot houses for about 340 - 370 K. Of coarse this is not yet verified and just a guess based on costs on our other projects.
I think they would be really neat homes but this is a concept that we have not yet seen put together in a way we like.
Right now we are looking for input on if this concept is worth exploring.
Please feel free to ask questions if you need help understanding the concept we are playing with.
4 Micah // Oct 25, 2006 at 12:58 am
What about asthetic? Does anyone have input on the period or style that is lacking in the Broderick neighborhood? Cole has a good point–the majority of the units will have street access and a front porch entry for dropping the chillins and grillins off. It is great to hear input from you guys. Keep it up.
5 uneasy rhetoric // Oct 25, 2006 at 1:12 am
Levi — you’re about 40k out of my price range ;-). Actually, that sounds interesting. Based on your description it sounds like normally you’d be building the typical 3-level rowhouse with individual garages (if I remember correctly, those are usually 2-car in-line garages), but what you’re considering would allow you to improve the amount of living space and/or open space by quite a bit, especially if you’re building less than 2 cars of parking per unit.
Would it fly? I couldn’t say, but I don’t know if there are other examples of row house plus shared parking out there. Personally, I don’t think you’d have a hard time finding people who value open space more than garage space. And for craphounds like me, there’s always off-site storage. That’s what I did before we had a garage.
But is the concept worth exploring? Absolutely! Especially if it means laying less asphalt to service the vehicles.
By definition, most rowhouses wouldn’t have side windows, but I’ve seen developments where the end units did and did not. I guess that could go either way, depending on the needs of the construction (no doubt you could get a few extra Gs for units with bonus windows).
I may be prejudiced though. You’re talking about my favorite kind of development. Rowhouses meet the need for higher density housing and maintain a single-family feel, even if you have neighbors on one or two walls. They’re also a better fit for in-fill in established neighborhoods than large multi-family projects.
I do think Cole’s concern about mom and the kids is valid, but I also think that families could make something like this work much more easily than they could, say, a condo in the Towers. And as I’ve said before, the key to curbing sprawl is to build to attract families with children.
6 Ursula // Oct 25, 2006 at 11:36 am
As a woman with small children, I don’t think walking a few hundred feet from my car to the house is that big of an issue–at least not for me personally. We also do the Costco thing, which results in multiple trips up the stairs with all the goodies. (No garage dumps here.) My biggest concern as a parent/grown up would be safety/security. The shared garage idea is okay, but when we lived in Governor’s Square a few years back, there were instances of burglary in the shared garage–not necessarily residents, but perhaps a resident or two forgot to close the door?
I would also be looking for a safe space for the kids to play outdoors. That’s probably the only selling point the burbs have for us–space for the kiddies to play.
Meanwhile, I would love to see you do something creative and eco-friendly. That already piques my interest as a consumer…
7 cole // Oct 25, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Income of 90 to 120gs should cover mortgage/tax/insurance of $2700/month IF interest rates don’t go up…how many of those are around, who knows
are they interested in living in West Sac? next to the Hmong butcherin their pigs in front yards…who knows…
Takes a certain type to fight the parking deal, unless you’re a long legged girl driving an Alfa convertible giving your keys to the doorman and then meeting Richard Gere at your apartment on the 33rd Floor (Santa Monica or San Diego probably, Sacramento the twelth of never)
Mogavero grouped his parking at the CoHousing and it worked fine, but then again those folks are Pioneers who came west with Brigham Young…and then became Shakers…
So if you can latch on to the right type from UOP or Davis or some of the Old Hippies you might be in luck, it they have the cash…
8 CentralCity // Oct 25, 2006 at 12:42 pm
LJUrban & Co
looks like you have gotten plenty of responses , all good feedback as well. . .
I am a pretty simple guy myself , I would prefer underground ( if possible ) hidden parking . I always thought that when you opt to live in a more compact walkable urban environment you accept that there are certain things you can and will do without . The traditional garage being one of those things . I prefer a setup similar to Fremont Mews or 1801 L in Sac personally . If the car is made an option not a neccesity in your transportation needs then the garage can be made the same in a design livability perspective .
keep up the good work !
PS - Not sure im big on the lack of side or back windows , Im big on natural light and would rather have the option of blinds as opposed to no option/view .
9 Levi // Oct 26, 2006 at 11:26 am
Price Ranges…….
Very very good stuff guys.
I really like to hear feedback like this. I have one question that comes up by reading all of these comments.
Would you be willing to sacrafice size for a more affordable home?
It seems that we are getting alot of to expensive feedback here, I completley understand. after all it was only 5 years ago that my wife and I bought our first house on 24th and N for a mere 99,000. (seems impossible now)
Unfortunatley things have changed and no one is more bummed about it that us here at LJ Urban. We set out to build houses for working class people that care about the environment.
What we found instead was that when it comes down to construction costs plus land costs plus city fees plus everything else that goes into a livable neighborhood. We are having to sell at much higher prices than we ever set out to.
So……. Back to my question. If we were to deliver small (very well designed) houses with serene public outdoor spaces and underground parking, add in only 2 blocks from the river…..
To help you answer, let me just take a stab at what I think we could bring to market..
800 Sq ft 2 bedroom row house. Mosly likely 2 stories. and….
a price of about 275,000.
Personally I love it. I think it has Eco-Urban written all over it as in..
Smaller floorplan = Smaller footprint.
What do you think?
10 Iozzi // Oct 26, 2006 at 6:55 pm
I like garages to be behind the home, preferably under the home and/or underground. When I was a kid we lived outside of Pittsburgh, PA. Many of the homes had garages of the alley with the yard between the garage and house. Some of the homes put the home on top of the garage and most of the lot was front yard. There was also street parking, in front, for visitors. Since the Pittsburgh area is quite hilly, many of the garages were built into the hillside. The interesting thing is that these houses were designed that way because they were built before WWII. For inspiration on building homes that accommodate cars, but don’t make them the focus of our lives, that’s a good era to study.
I don’t agree that parking in the back is a problem with children. In fact it may even be safer. When a garage is off the street, where you have the majority of the traffic, the children are at greater risk. With a garage off the alley, there is less traffic near the garage. I’ve even seen communities with private gates at either end of the alley to keep out non-residents.
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