A sanctuary with schools and nature

“It’s wonderful to see kids in the town center,” town landscape architect Rip Weaver says of the Mt Laurel development in Shelby County, Alabama. Schoolchildren and their parents are among those breathing life into center’s several blocks, which include a fire hall, restaurants, offices, two churches, a hardware store, a grocery story, and live/work units, not to mention the Hilltop Montessori School. The center contains about 140,000 sq. ft. of leasable space, situated in two-story buildings and live/works, with another 40,000 to 60,000 sq. ft. yet to be built. The goal has been to have town center development or dense residential development extend to the Mt Laurel Elementary School “so that it won’t feel like [the school] is isolated at the edge,” Weaver says. When the developer, a diversified, multinational firm named EBSCO, broke ground in 1999, most of the county had no zoning. Shelby has become the fastest-growing county in Alabama, however, and early this year officials adopted subdivision regulations that Weaver thinks will have a beneficial effects on the shape of development. “The new regulations,” he said, “will treat the land better.” Mt. Laurel “is what the county officials want Shelby County to look like,” he says. Preserving the character of the sloping, irregular land has been a priority of EBSCO, which has built many of the houses higher than the streets, rather than scraping the lots flat. The development, which will have about 600 houses by completion in 2017, is currently absorbing 30 to 40 dwellings a year. “People come out, shop, walk the streets, and go to restaurants for months and months before they decide to buy,” Weaver observes. He attributes the slow decisionmaking to the fact that Mt Laurel “is so visually different from most new communities” in the South, which emphasize “big lots, gaudy houses, set back on huge pieces of property.” At Mt Laurel, some of the houses are within a few feet of their neighbors. Offsetting that, the community offers a lake, paths, and extensive woodlands that will be preserved, plus a walkable center.