No frills New Urbanism

A Texas project is selling a lot of homes at an affordable price, while maintaining the essence of the New Urbanism. Before breaking ground on Plum Creek in Kyle, Texas, Steve Tucker of Benchmark Land Development went on a tour of famous new urbanist projects like Harbor Town, Kentlands, and Celebration. “I realized this was all wonderful and beautiful, but not affordable,” he says. “Our goal was to create a new urbanist community that was affordable.” Given the market, where new home prices are centered in the $100,000 to $150,000 range, keeping costs down was pretty much a necessity. “It’s easy to add all of the accouterments and make it more expensive,” says Sean Compton of Bosse, Compton, & Turner, the planners. “We’ve focused on getting the vertical elements without spending a lot of money.” At the same time, the strategy is to stretch the home prices at the high end. That has resulted in single home prices ranging from $95,000 to $300,000. The homebuilder at the low end, Milburn Homes (a subsidiary of DR Horton, one of the nation’s largest), is selling homes for as low as $86/square foot, and starting at 1,100 square feet. Another builder, Plum Creek Homes, a subsidiary of Benchmark, is building the high-end homes. Home prices in Plum Creek average $146,000. Legacy, another national builder, will soon join the project and construct mid-range housing. The strategy has been successful. In the last year and a half, 138 houses have been completed, and another 150 are under construction, all of them sold. “We’re averaging 15 to 20 home sales per month,” Tucker says. “That’s about 50 percent better than we projected.” To date, only single homes have been sold, but the developer will soon introduce duplexes and townhomes. Beating the competition Plum Creek’s immediate competitor is an adjacent conventional suburban development where home prices start about $90,000 and average $100,000. That development is charging less per square foot, yet is only selling half as many units as Plum Creek, Tucker says. “For $100,000 a buyer gets a garage and a front door in a conventional development. Here they get nice architecture, a livable porch and a cute house,” says Tucker, who has had two decades of development experience with conventional projects. “From a developer’s perspective, this is a whole lot of fun. It’s rewarding to drive down the street and see good architecture instead of garages. But the best thing is that we are generating better economic value.” When complete, the entire 2,100-acre project is planned to include up to 4,800 homes, a mixed-use town center, a transit station, industrial/office development, two schools, and a public golf course. Instead of backing houses up to the golf course, like conventional golf course communities, Tucker plans to locate homes across the street. The course will then become a park-like asset to the entire community, he says. “I’m convinced we’ll still get good premiums for the houses across from the golf course.” fiber-cement siding No vinyl siding is used in Plum Creek, because this material is not common in the Austin area, Compton says. All of the homes in Plum Creek are clad in HardiPlank, a fiber-cement siding which is installed like wood and painted. The siding adds color and gives the homes better proportions compared to typical vinyl houses — and differentiates Plum Creek from many other moderately priced TNDs. The houses can generally be described as cottages, colonials, and four squares. “We tried to keep the houses simple — not overly stylistic,” says Compton. Architectural guidelines were created by Looney Ricks Kiss, a Memphis firm experienced in traditional neighborhood development. Porches are required to be six feet minimum, and most are eight feet deep. “Everyone was asking for an upgrade to the eight-foot porch,” says Compton. “The market is saying ‘we want a porch and we want a usable porch.’ ” The sales staff emphasizes the value of porches. Buyers are given two square footage figures: indoor square footage and total living area. “We sell the idea of the porch as an outdoor living area,” says Tucker. “We tell them that the porch is part of the total living area, and they feel good about getting the extra square footage,” he adds. The houses and porches are built on concrete slabs, like 99 percent of homes in the area, Compton says. Builders, however, were required to raise these slabs up at least 12 inches. Topography was also used, when possible, to lift houses up higher from the sidewalk. Roof pitches are generally the same as in conventional suburbia. Windows include the relatively inexpensive, flat muntins. The eave details and proportions of homes are better than what is available in conventional suburbia. Many of the first homes had a brick front and HardiPlank in the sides and back. “This was a vestige of Milburn’s conventional suburban homes, and it didn’t quite look right,” says Compton. The builder conducts extensive buyer feedback interviews, and consumers consistently stated their dislike for the brick front. Buyers also rejected wrought iron railings, which clashed with the simple architectural style of the homes. “They have since removed the brick front and wrought iron and gone with a more genuine, traditional look — rather than the faux, one-side-brick design.” As a bonus, Compton adds: “This change probably saved money.” Also due to buyer feedback, Benchmark has completely eliminated front-loaded homes. In the beginning, 50 percent of houses were front-loaded. That was quickly reduced to 20 percent, and now all homes are served by 12-foot-wide alleys. Reducing infrastructure costs The cost-saving efforts extended to the infrastructure, as well. The pocket parks scattered throughout Plum Creek are informal, low-cost and functional. Preexisting groves of trees give the parks character while lowering landscaping costs. “We use natural features to the best advantage and do without spending a lot on man-made features,” Compton says. Street landscaping was another area where Benchmark cut back, selecting smaller, fast growing trees — and planting these farther apart than is typical in higher priced TNDs. “This is an area where we probably went too far,” says Compton. “Now the developer is buying somewhat bigger trees and shortening the space between them.” Residential streets are 27 feet wide with a 50-foot right of way, compared to the usual standards in Kyle of 30 foot wide streets and a 60-foot right of way. In an area where quarter-acre lots are the norm, Plum Creek has been able to break the mold in lot size as well. Most of its lots are between 4,000 and 6,000 square feet. The 4,200-square-foot (35 by 120 feet) lots have sold particularly well. The narrower streets and lots reduce costs and improve aesthetics, Compton says. Like many TND developers, Benchmark spent a lot of time educating and working with city officials, especially because Plum Creek is the first full-scale TND in south Texas. Reduced street widths took a lot of negotiating. Accessory dwellings, alleys, and mixed-use buildings also were other flashpoints, Compton says. “These were all foreign concepts, and we had to do a lot of explaining before officials were willing to allow these elements in Plum Creek.”