TND knowledge, packaged to go

Question: What do you do when builders, planners, developers, and public officials come from all over the American heartland to inspect your large, partly built traditional neighborhood development? Answer: Package everything you know and offer it for sale. That’s essentially what Whittaker Homes in St. Peters, Missouri, has decided to do. Whittaker broke ground on New Town at St. Charles, a 747-acre traditional neighborhood development (TND) designed by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company, in the fall of 2003. Since then, the development northwest of St. Louis has become one of the leading projects of its kind in the nation’s midsection. More than 600 houses have been sold, and by completion a decade or more from now, New Town may have as many as 5,700 residential units in many sizes, types, and price levels. “In the last year, probably 50 to 70 developers, and officials from at least 20 cities in the Midwest, have come to our development,” says Greg Whittaker, president of the company. “There have been people from Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky.” comprehensive package Consequently, by year’s end the company expects to introduce “New Town in a Box,” which is touted as “a comprehensive package of materials that provides customers with nearly everything they need to start a new urbanism development.” A fact sheet states: “The basic package includes a sample agreement between developer and city, a house-purchase contract, a series of community governance documents, a marketing package, house plans, and a tour of New Town.” Also included will be material testing information and recommendations. “We’ve spent $1.5 to $2 million in product research, documents, and architectural fees,” Greg Whitaker says. “We took eight months to build wall sections, see how they weather, etc.” Depending on how extensive a package a developer buys, the price will range from $50,000 to $200,000. A developer would have to review some elements of it with architects, lawyers, or others in the developer’s home state to ensure that all the applicable codes are met, Whittaker says. The name “New Town in a Box” doesn’t sit well with Jacksonville, Florida, attorney Doris S. Goldstein, who since 2000 has been selling a package of TND legal materials under the name “New Town Law.” In September Goldstein released a revised and updated set of model documents, intended to aid lawyers writing covenants, restrictions, and other contracts and agreements for TNDs. Goldstein, a Harvard Law School graduate who has worked with Seaside and more than 20 other new urbanist communities since 1986, said her documents are extensively annotated to explain the purpose of various provisions and how they might be modified for a particular community. Under a licensing agreement, she provides her materials to attorneys who then adapt the documents to the law of the jurisdiction and to the project. “My documents allow an experienced real estate attorney to get up to speed very quickly,” she says. Goldstein has discussed with Whitaker Homes what she sees as a conflict posed by Whitaker’s use of the name “New Town in a Box.” So far, Whittaker hasn’t budged. “We have a federal trademark for ‘New Town,’” Greg Whittaker told New Urban News.