Upper Valley Housing Coalition

Anne Duncan CooleyRobert White, ASLA

Building upon interest from the Cottage Development Conference of October 2007 - We wanted to apply Cottage Housing to a variety of sites in the Upper Valley for demonstration purposes.

In-fill development in an existing neighborhood or village centeradaptive reuse of an existing developed siteredevelopment of an existing site/structuredevelopment on a vacant parcel outside the village center.

Identify opportunities and challenges inherent to Cottage Housing.

Develop some templates for various types of Cottage Housing.

Identify economic, regulatory, market and other considerations for opportunity and challenge if we are to promote Cottage Housing.

Create interest and connections between land owners, builders, developers, architects, engineers, landscape architects, planning commissioners and professional planners for future Cottage Housing development projects.

Build upon the Katrina cottage model

The day:Invited parties arrived at the charrette and were treated to food, descriptions to the sites and the development objectives.

Teams included: Architect Landscape Architect Civil Engineer Town Planner Community Lay Planner Developer/builder Housing advocate Property owners interested parties

Charrette team working session.

Hartford, VT site.

Summary: Rehab. of school: 4-8 units Duplex: 4 units (2 bldgs.)Sf cottages: 4 unitsTotal: 12-16 units

Hanover, NH site.

Summary: Du/triplex: 9 units (3 bldgs.)Sf cottages:13 unitsCarriage house: 12 unitsTotal: 44 units

Lebanon, NH site.

Summary: Multi Family bldgs. 25 unitsDu/triplex: 15 units Sf cottages: 25 unitsTotal: 65 units

Norwich, VT site.

Summary: Du/triplex: 14 units (7 bldgs.)Sf cottages:6 unitsMixed use: 5000 SfTotal: 20 units

SIZE, SCALE AND COST DESIGN, PERMITTING AND “FIT”

Project size matters for cost Given the fixed costs of development, it is a challenge to provide even the smallest sized (400-750 sq ft) cottage housing within the affordable range for the medium household income ($50,000 annual income; $140,000 housing price) in projects with less than 40 units.Given the above, Cottage Housing should be part of a mix of housing sizes, styles, types and prices to integrate with larger neighborhood projects.While “the market” hasn’t really built these houses – there is precedent and interest.

A variety of changes may be needed in local regulations to support the development of Cottage Housing including:

parking, allowable density, % open space.

Backyard cottages, aka Accessory Dwelling Units, are a viable option for in-fill housing on existing single-family lots in village centers.Density and “impacts” of smaller houses are proportionately less than full size dwellings Small houses and cottages can fit into a variety of neighborhood settings

The charrette participants are very excited about using the concepts of Cottage Housing in future projects.

The proposed projects are being redrawn in SketchUp for 3d visualization and as an educational piece for future advocacy.

Property owners learned a lot from the process and several are considering next steps

Town planners were very interested in the lessons on zoning and regulatory issues

Stay tuned for a hands-on report and community workshop later in 2009

Planned Developments Density Bonus Cluster DevelopmentLimiting the Footprint, Second Floor and Overall Size of Housing Waivers for Setbacks and Building HeightDetached Accessory Dwelling UnitsVariety of Housing Types and SizesInclusionary Zoning

It’s An Evolutionary Process – Cottage Housing

regulations and planning process should recognize the continuing evolution of cottage housing and be written with enough flexibility so that builders and communities can work together to create great projects.