Urban Villages: Regulations and Reality

By CLAIR ENLOW
Journal A/E editor

A few years ago the term "urban village'' was known only to a handful of academics and planners concerned with urban sprawl, gridlock and environmental degradation. They hoped a vision of friendly, self-supporting urban neighborhoods would lure people out of their cars and into multi-use projects and infill housing.

Then "urban village" became a key planning concept for Seattle and the region as the city planners grappled with the comprehensive planning process mandated by the Growth Management Act and suburbs sought to shift the increasing costs of new infrastructure for housing.

Now, zoning codes encourage dense, mixed-use development in "urban villages" and more units per acre in the suburbs.

Depending on the location, density can mean anything from eight to 80 units per acre and housing types from single-family houses on smaller lots to attached housing to multi-family housing.

At the same time, growth boundaries are in place and undeveloped land is scarcer. It's also more expensive to build on, as strapped municipalities pass on the tab for roads, sewers and schools to developers.

It's all costing builders of traditional homes money, and making it very difficult to deliver the traditional house in the suburbs with an acre of turf at an affordable price.

Angry local builders have been heard to say: "'My industry has been killed."

But architect John Kappler says its not dead, just different. "The savvy developer is able to find the opportunities in this."

It comes as no surprise that those opportunities lie in housing that is more dense and closer to the centers of cities and suburbs. Kappler's firm, Kappler Thomas Harkey, is positioning itself to help build such projects.

Partners John Kappler, Steve Thomas and Scott Harkey, who until recently had their own housing design firms, have a client list that reads like a "who's who" of successful housing developers up and down the I-5 corridor: Intracorp, Polygon, United Development Corp., Quadrant, Dally Homes and John F. Buchan Homes.

Their experiments with density have paid off and point to new housing options.

"Our firm is intent on bringing together a wide array of expertise to complement and support the development of urban villages," said principal Steve Thomas.

He and his colleagues see their services as unusually broad in scope. "We get involved in the management process . . . into overall risk management," said Harkey.

How important is that fourth floor if you have to bring in a bigger water line to serve it, or if the single-family neighborhood behind it will tie up the project for seven years with appeals? These are questions important to Harkey's clients.

Kappler, Thomas and Harkey prefer to identify with the old tradition of architect as developer/builder. Making a housing project "pencil out" before the land is bought is a service that developers especially appreciate. "We're not going to be unique in the long term," said Kappler.

As for design, there's no mystery to successful "densification" according to the architects. It's just a matter of "breaking a building down into manageable pieces so it looks like homes," said Kappler.

Inspired by "expansive and energetic downtown districts," the Bellevue firm is now researching and promoting the development of mixed-use towers in downtown Seattle. The condominiums will be complemented by restaurants, coffee houses, retail shops and recreational facilities.

"Densification" is driven by intertwining factors that include the cost of land, declining real incomes for first-time home buyers, and the regulatory effects of growth management. But when architects such as Kappler and his clients talk about urban villages, they are likely to talk about demographics.

They are interested in the twenty-somethings, the baby boomers with empty nests, the single and the child-free. All of these groups are growing in number -- and those with careers are experiencing time pressures as never before.

Two-hour commutes

While regulations threaten parts of the building industry, the buyer's dream of a house in the suburbs may be dying of natural causes.

Four years ago, housing market research showed Kappler, Thomas, Harkey and their clients that potential home buyers were willing to drive for an hour each way in order to own a home. Since that time, traffic has stretched those commute to as much as two hours on some days. During the same four years, pressures to work longer hours have taken their own toll on home owners. If the commuter has to get back in the car to go out to eat, attend a meeting or pick up some cleaning, there is very little time left to enjoy the house -- much less mow the lawn.

Increasingly, commuters want out of their cars and into their lives -- work or play. For some that means working at home. For some it means living closer to work, and choosing a home accordingly.

But there's something else driving housing decisions by consumers. Mark Rome of Kappler Thomas Harkey calls it quality of life. For many buyers, quality of life includes culture. And the place to find culture -- from theater to museums to professional sports -- is in urban areas. Home buyers want to live closer to the places they play.

Some dream of being able to go to those places -- and to some shopping, services and restaurants -- without getting into their cars. These are the buyers that are ready for urban villages.

These buyers may be the same people who moved out of town 20 years ago with their young families. Now they want to leave the lawn and the commute and get closer to their sources of entertainment. And they like being able to "lock the door and take off" with security in place, according to builder Don Dally of Dally Homes.

It's increasingly common to find a buyer who maintains two homes -- one a condominium in the city and the other a weekend or occasional retreat far from the urban growth boundary.

Savvy developers are giving attached, multi-family and mixed-use housing in urban neighborhoods second and third looks. One of the proven locations for dense housing is Kirkland, a very hot market, according to Harkey.

For nearly 20 years now, the city of Kirkland has encouraged density in the center of town through zoning, development guidelines and the strategic placement of parks and public amenities. As a result, condominiums and mixed-use buildings have dominated development, and more are planned in the near future. Kirkland continues to develop its urban village with plans for a performing arts center.

In additions to new opportunities for shopping and entertainment downtown, Seattle has zoned density in as never before, making multi-unit housing easier to pencil out.

Put more simply, "Developers go where there is the least resistance," said partner Scott Harkey.

Harkey points to some urban villages on the map of Seattle's comprehensive plan. They are clustered around Lake Union and the ship canal, close to entertainment, water, city views and the neighborhood coffee shop.

Don Dally recently won the "Best Living in America" award from the National Association of Home Builders for Oxford Park attached housing at Klahane and has built housing in Lake Stevens, Kent and Des Moines. In the last two years, his focus has turned to Seattle.

"We're repositioning our market to be closer in," said Dally.

"Seattle is a beautiful city . . . I think it's a great way to live," said Dally, who plans to sell his own single-family Capitol Hill home in the next two years to move into a condominium closer to his Lake Union office.

Although some of Dally's condominiums sell for over half a million, many sell for under $100,000. Affordability is a big part of the overall housing picture.

"Everybody lives by their pocket books," said Kappler.

However, "An urban village is not a housing project," said Kappler. At its best, mixed-use, "densified" housing is nothing less than "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

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