Homeowners fight to keep a TND on course

Richard Parvey is an old hand at New Urbanism, and he’s hoping that a group effort by homeowners will save the Hollingsworth Park traditional neighborhood development TND) in Greenville, South Carolina. Eugene Kim and David Langenhan, two of his fellow homeowners in Hollingsworth Park, have the same hopes.

The three, along with other residents, have in recent months been trying to prevent the master developer of Hollingsworth Park from backtracking on its commitment to TND planning and design principles. As they see it, Verdae Development Inc., which controls the 300-acre Hollingsworth Park, told purchasers they would be part of a community possessing the hallmarks of a TND—traditionally styled houses; well-connected, pedestrian-friendly streets; a neighborhood commercial area; and no gates.

But after Parvey developed Hollingsworth Park’s first tightly-built section, Ruskin Square, Verdae executives took the development in a different direction— toward “pods” containing conventional sprawl products such as garden apartments with little relationship to the streets and sidewalks.

The homeowners, including Parvey, are speaking out, trying to persuade Verdae Development to adhere to TND principles in Hollingsworth Park. Parvey describes the homeowners’ effort as “community-led urbanism,” and would like to think that informed people, enthusiastic about traditional neighborhood design, can prevail over the power of a seemingly opportunistic master developer.

Parvey, who in the 1990s began his career by designing beach houses in Seaside, Florida, including the house featured in the Jim Carrey movie The Truman Show, was attracted to Greenville by the prospect of helping to develop an infill project in a great location.

Hollingsworth Park is part of an 1,100-acre tract that once belonged to textile magnate John D. Hollingsworth, the largest land owner in South Carolina. When Hollingsworth died in 2000, he bequeathed a fortune estimated at $290 million, including thousands of acres, to a trust known as Hollingsworth Funds. The trust later established a for-profit subsidiary, Verdae Development, with the aim of putting housing, retail, offices, parks, and other development components on the 1,100 acres in Greenville. The overall project is marketed as “Verdae.”

“It’s the best development site in Greenville”—surrounded by built-up areas, adjacent to two Interstate highways, and less than a ten-minute drive from downtown, says Parvey. He bought 32 acres in late 2006, and in March 2008 began construction of Hollingsworth Park’s first house—a cottage for his own family, designed by Allison Ramsey Architects of Beaufort, South Carolina.

After the downturn

By late 2009, builders had constructed seven other houses in the initial development phase, Ruskin Square, which has houses on narrow lots facing a two-acre park. With the national housing bust by then in full force, and with the dwellings priced from $470,000 to $700,000, sales came to a standstill. Most of the houses were designed by Allison Ramsey Architects, a firm that has produced houses for a number of TNDs.

Some of the builders “priced the houses higher than I had suggested,” Parvey says. “The land [price] was too high,” he adds. “There had to be a reset.” When the reset came, he says, “it completely wiped me out.” The upshot, according to Parvey was that “Hollingsworth Funds bought the note [on his Ruskin Square development] back from my bank at the end of 2009.”

Verdae executives “blamed the price point and the [TND] concept” for the dearth of buyers, Parvey says. Eventually Verdae brought in a tract homebuilder who began erecting townhouses starting at $224,000 and detached houses starting at $264,000. “It was market-driven,” Debbie Wallace, Verdae’s marketing director, told Better! Cities & Towns.

“They [Verdae administrators] pretty much abandoned the covenants and restrictions” that were intended to ensure Ruskin Square’s design quality, Parvey says. Homeowners such as Kim and Langenhan grew alarmed by the stripped-down look and questionable proportions of the new, cheaper dwellings.

Kim had moved to Greenville from Kentucky, where he greatly admired the thriving Norton Commons TND near Louisville (see photos on pages 1 and 7). He liked Parvey’s work and thinks some of the more recent houses reveal a watering down of the architectural standards.

To its credit, Verdae Development has succeeded in having construction begin on a 13-acre commercial area called Legacy Square, within Hollingsworth Park. A small YMCA facility, a dental practice, and offices are among the first tenants. Langenhan thinks the first buildings in Legacy Square show a “very promising direction.”

But much else distresses the homeowners. Kim has complained that Verdae Development installed gates at an entrance to The Manor, a large-lot section of Hollingsworth Park. A physician who has schooled himself in New Urbanism, Kim has argued vehemently that gates were out of place in a TND.
Wallace defends the gates as a sensible feature for a location where $150,000 to $250,000 lots are connected to a four-lane highway.

Detested garden apartments

Early this year, contention between the homeowners and Verdae Development reached a new intensity when Verdae announced that a part of Hollingsworth Park designated for single-family homes would instead become a 17-acre complex of 241 garden apartments named “Tapestry at Hollingsworth Park.”

In an e-mail to Verdae President Rick Sumerel in February, Kim wrote, “This looks like any typical modern apartment complex with buildings ringing a clubhouse and pool and a lot of asphalt everywhere in between. This is another compartmentalized suburban sprawl type of development that is not integrated into the community. ... This is not Traditional Neighborhood Development.”

Kim and his neighbors tried to change Verdae’s direction by meeting with board members of the development company and Hollingsworth Funds; making a presentation to City Council members; and reaching out to city’s planning and development manager and to the nonprofit organization Upstate Forever. Despite the efforts, the City’s zoning and planning officials approved the apartment complex—while disapproving the gates planned for Tapestry’s entrance.

Parvey and Kim assert that Verdae Development committed a fundamental error at the outset of the 1,100-acre project by failing to have an experienced TND planning firm devise a master plan. “They don’t have a coherent master plan,” Parvey charges. “They never spent the money they needed to spend upfront to plan it.” Indeed, a look at what Verdae Development calls a master plan shows the site mostly as a collection of pods—separate development areas for such uses as offices and an Embassy Suites Hotel, dependent on motor vehicles.

TND or not TND?

Wallace told Better Cities that the 300 acres of Hollingsworth Park “were never marketed as TND. Only Ruskin Square was marketed as TND.” Parvey, Kim, and Langenhan say that’s untrue. Their version is supported by a large mass of evidence: A page on the Verdae Properties website states:

“Hollingsworth Park is a 300-acre traditional, walking neighborhood....” In a ribbon-cutting ceremony June 16, 2009, available on You Tube, Sumerel linked Verdae to “neo-urbanism, mixed-use, traditional neighborhood development., sustainable communities, walkable communities.”

An April 12 report by City of Greenville planning staff, states that the proposed design for Tapestry “reflects a more ‘suburban’ design than expected given the ‘TND’ designation of the Verdae composite map.”

“They love the benefits of being able to use the label of New Urbanism and TND,” Parvey says. Indeed, Wallace acknowledged that Verdae Development, with Parvey, did try to get at least part of Hollingsworth Park recognized by The Town Paper as a TND. The Town Paper rejected the request because Verdae was not consistent enough in employing TND principles.

In light of the Hollingsworth Funds’ enormous wealth, it is unclear why the trust has allowed its for-profit subsidiary to behave this way. “It is for-profit for a charity, which is somewhat unique,” says Kim. All income generated by the textile magnate’s estate is required to benefit Furman University, the Greenville YMCA, and other charities and community groups. “I feel like they’re selling out for the short-term gain,” says Kim.

“My conclusion,” says Parvey, “is that Verdae and the [trust’s] board need to take a fresh look at this thing and undertake the planning exercise that was never done. It’s extremely frustrating for the people who bought here.”

He notes that about half the people who recently purchased lots facing Ruskin Square have decided to have their houses designed by Allison Ramsey—a sign, he thinks, that they’re excited by the idea of a genuine TND.

Homeowners recently launched an organization called Hollingsworth Park Residents for Traditional Neighborhood Development, which is trying to persuade the developer—or the trust—to apply TND design principles to all of the 300 acres. A website, hollingsworthpark.com, has also been established.

The group has “toyed with the idea of a public awareness campaign and bringing in nationally known speakers,” Kim says. He adds: “Given the economic times, I am sure we are not the only TND going through these types of issues.”