Are we "neo-traditional?" ;) | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Shava Nerad (shavanetwork-services.uoregon.edu) | |
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 23:18:21 -0600 |
This article is reproduced without permission from today's Eugene Register- Guard. It's an AP wire story. All the typos are mine. 'Friendly' new goal for housing By the Associated Press TACOMA -- Talk about going back to the future. Architects and developers trying to build a sense of community into neighbor- hood developments are looking to the past for ways to make it happen. Lots might be smaller and the homes equipped with front portches to encourage neighbors to meet and talk. Garages are recessed behind homes. There are greenbelts and parks, and design covenants and codes to restrict property uses. "The last 30 years of growth have been isolated and sterile," said San Francisco architect Peter Calthorpe, a leader in the neo- traditional neighborhood movement. "We'll never be able to do the same job as old neighborhoods that had 70 years to develop," Calthorpe told The News Tribune of Tacoma. "But we're satisfying a basic nostalgia and more import- ant, people's fundamental needs for stronger neighborhoods." When Carrie Whalen and her family shopped for a home last year, she wanted a sociable place with parks, front porches and an atmosphere reminiscent of pre-World War II urban neighborhoods. She looked for a community that encouraged walkers instead of drivers -- like the Tacoma neighborhood she grew up in. "We all knew our neighbors when we grew up, and we still keep in touch," Whalen said. "I never found that living in an apartment or a duplex." She and her family wound up at Northwest Landing, a 3,000- acre Weyerhaeser development, 15 miles south of Tacoma. "What settled us were the goals for the community," said Whalen, 36. "They wanted us to stay and retire." Chuck Valley and his family have been in Sunrise, south of Puyallup, since 1993. "We moved here from a Bellingham neighborhood where there were no sidewalks and a neighbor who kept piles of dirt in his back yard with no lawn," Vallley said. "Here you see lots of people walking around or riding bikes, and I don't have to worry about someone taking apart their transmission on the front lawn." Neo-traditional neighborhood developments, usually a minimum of 1000 acres, often are designed to have corner stores within walking distance and schools and jobs nearby to discourage lengthy commutes. "We're trying to make neighborhoods more pedestrian-oriented," said Greg Strong, manager of The Burnstead Co. of Bellevue. He has developed Heritage Park, a collection of 80 neo-traditional homes in Tacoma. "In the old days, when these houses were in vogue, neighbors were a little more friendly," he said. "We wanted to create more of that sense of community." About a dozen such communities are planned in the Tacoma area. Those already in the works contain new homes that cost between $135,000 and $230,000.
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