The Debate: Tall, Skinny Town Homes
Sharon Pian Chan of The Seattle Times has just written an interesting new article on the rise of townhome development here in Seattle. This new “movement” has sparked some major debates in our city over the last few years - mostly focused on the dilution and denegration of design and craftsmanship. These are the townhomes we all love to hate with poor materials and skinny asphalt driveways that replace usable open space.
To make things worse, most of these new developments are not subject to environmental or design review. Vlad Oustimovitch, a West Seattle architect and a former design-review board member, sums up the effects of this process in his own neighborhood - “instead what we got was a very vanilla, cookie-cutter” development.
Developments like these are just one of the many reasons why GreenFab is determined to develop projects that provide healthy, inspired and affordable living. We value private and community open space as well as safe and walkable neighborhoods.
As the article points out, developers are not the only party to blame, our own planning department, permit and code review process almost encourage these types of developments.
GreenFab is following this trend closely and will be posting updates as changes develop.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE “TOWN HOMES SPARK NEIGHBORHOOD DEBATE”
Source: Seattletimes.nwsource.com
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I came across this interesting competition that was done down in Portland to address the Townhome issue. It came up with some really nice ideas.
http://www.courtyardhousing.org/
I’m really suprised that nothing has been done up here along this line.