My Built Environment: Good, Bad, and Really Ugly

I thought I would take a few minutes to update everyone on the progress of my development project. My partner and I have have been spending a lot of time over the course of the last few days looking at layout options, sorting out how much property we are actually purchasing, and looking at performas. The idea we are shooting for is to do something a little different than the norm. We don’t want to plop a street through the middle of the property, and place lots lots on both sides, instead we want to create a community. We want to have the homes face outdoor spaces that are created by the homes themselves. We want the garages accessed by alleys, with the fronts of the homes facing greenbelts. Our inspriation are the projects created by The Cottage Company. I have included a picture here from one of their projects.

Last week, before Thanksgiving we had a meeting with the county. This will be an interesting project, as it will be entitled in the county, but since it is within the growth management area, we have to follow city rules. We are also under the guidance of the northwest sub-area plan. In general, I think the county is supportive of our idea, but it will take some variances as the county hasn’t seen a project quite like this. I have taken there comments in mind and have continued refining our concept plan to keep the spirit of what we want to do, but make it a little easier to entitle. The biggest comment we had was for the need for a public street access for the project. I wasn’t totally surprised by this, but was hoping we could get away without a public street.

I will keep you all informed of the progress.

It just occurred to me, that I have never shown the final product for the Rigden Farm townhomes. To the left are several pictures taken at the dedication last spring. The landscape was not finished yet, but the units were a hit with everyone in attendance. The carriage units also sold fairly quickly. Next spring or summer I will take pictures of the final product with the landscaping all green!

On Friday night, at an awards ceremony at the local Marriot Hotel, Fort Collins Habitat for Humanity received two awards for its entry in the parade of homes this past fall. They received Best Floor Plan and Best Exterior Design and Landscaping in the under $300k category. This is a home that was designed by myself at Vignette Studios. This home has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a living and dining great room and open kitchen all packed into 1,250 square feet. This home was designed with a 2 car garage, which was required by the nighborhood covenants (pretty common here), as well as stone wainscotting. Because this particular home was on a corner lot, and was in the parade of homes, we did splurge on a wrap around porch, though we do include front porches on all habitat homes.

This is another plan in a long line of homes I have designed for Habitat where I have strived to show that affordable homes don’t have to skimp on design or style. Below is a picture of another home I have designed for them, a 1,500 square foot 4 bedroom 2-story home. Since Habitat Homes don’t come with Air Conditioning, sometimes homeowners install window sized coolers.

Some of you know that my business partner and myself have trying to find a piece of property to develop for the past year. We took a run at a great piece of property earlier this spring that would have been a very ambitious project. Ultimately we didn’t get the property, which was probably a good thing. Shortly afterwards, we found a great 5 acre piece of ground in North Fort Collins. It is located within the northwest subarea plan of both the county and the City of Fort Collins.

By zoning, we can only get 9-10 units on this property, including the existing home. I am excited about this project as it will allow us to do some experimentation with a development style this town has not yet seen. We also want to be as green as possible with this development, while still being fiscally responsible. Some of our ideas are a community wide geothermal system, or photoveltic system. We shall see. I will keep the readers abreast of the process as well as some of our ideas.

I have always found the public approval process to be an interesting process. You spend months working with various staff members, other consultants, neighbors, and anyone else involved in a development project. During this time most if not all issues are worked out, clients spend large sums of money, and usually you get staff to support your project, working through the issues, etc. Then you go to a public hearing. Since these public hearings are usually quasi-judicial, the applicant is not allowed to speak or work with either a planning commission member, city council member, or what have you.

You get to the public hearing, and you get 15-30 minutes to make your case after months of hard work and negotiations. There is also public input, some discourse among the ruling body, then they make a decision. In some jurisdictions, this goes totally against the grain of the direction you have gotten from staff, and you get denied. Sometimes it goes the other way, and staff gets overruled.

I have been thinking lately, that this process is a little unfair. Why spend all the time, trouble, and money to work through all the issues for months, only to get derailed in a short hour or two public hearing. Why can’t you work with the ruling body throughout the process so they are involved, and truly understand what is going on. This does happen with public projects. There are always workshops with staff and city council (or other body), meetings, etc. But with private developers, there is no such options.

Seems to me this process needs to change.