This is IMO the latest danger to modern cities. It is about recreating urban cities in suburbs!!! Granted, its better than sprawl but still, it competes with the city. And they quote so many idiots in this article talking about they like this development because it is "urban" and they can "walk everywhere."
What they should really say is, "the city of Louisville has great urban neighborhoods where you can walk to all shopping, etc, but we do not like them because they are diverse and the houses are historic." These are people who like old school architecture but dont want to take a chance at living next to a minority or heaven forbid a gay! So they build an "old school" house in the burbs and call it urban living. Bah-humbug (and heres the article)
Development transplants urban style to suburbs
Project aims to reflect older Louisville neighborhoods
By Chris Otts
cotts@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
It's still a year away, but Cissy Walker, 53, is eagerly awaiting her "dream day."
She would start the day working from the basement of her new $379,000 Federal-style home, helping her husband, a real-estate title abstractor.
Then she would take her grandsons for a walk to a nearby park, stroll to the market to pick up something fresh to cook for dinner and have a front-porch conversation with her neighbors before heading inside.
One part of her dream already is in place: the house. It will be at least a year before parks, restaurants and shops spring up around it. But Walker says it will be worth the wait.
She and her husband, Scott, 49, are among the first residents of Norton Commons, a 600-acre "traditional town" development in eastern Jefferson County that promises the look and feel of an urban Louisville neighborhood in the suburbs.
"I think we're the antithesis of suburbanism, from the architecture on," said David Tomes of Traditional Town LLC, a group of local developers building Norton Commons.
Seven years in the making, Norton Commons is an attempt to build a pedestrian-friendly town with an urban atmosphere -- with a mix of houses, apartments and townhouses, pools, parks, playgrounds, restaurants, shops and a school all within a few minutes' walk.
It's just beginning to take shape, with work started on about 50 houses and only a handful of residents.
It will take about 12 years, said Charles Osborn III, another of the project's developers.
Builders are about to break ground on retail space in the village center with the hopes that markets, coffeehouses and restaurants will open next summer, he said.
Norton Commons -- one of more than 700 "New Urban" communities built or planned around the country -- was designed by architect Andres Duany, who in 1981 helped create Seaside, Fla., the country's first New Urban community.
New Urbanism is an increasingly popular countermovement to suburban sprawl that spread across U.S. cities after World War II, said John Norquist, president of the Congress on New Urbanism, a Chicago-based nonprofit group.
It discards suburban zoning that leads to winding streets, cul-de-sacs and separated retail areas that force residents to drive -- even to get milk.
It took 18 months to get a separate zoning ordinance enacted for Norton Commons, Tomes said.
Norton Commons homes mimic those in older neighborhoods in Louisville, such as Cherokee Triangle, Crescent Hill and Old Louisville.
"Look at the Cherokee Triangle. We fight tooth and nail to preserve every inch of that," Tomes said. "Yet there wasn't a law on the books that would allow us to re-create that."
Metro Louisville planning director Charles Cash said the city prefers the development of complete communities, where people have more access to retail closer to their homes.
"People want a contemporary lifestyle with the conveniences of the great American small town," Cash said.
The houses will not be cheap -- with prices ranging from at least $200,000 to several million dollars, he said.
Townhouses will start at $160,000, and apartments will be built later, with rental rates still undetermined, he said.
But Louisville developer Chris Fuelling said New Urbanism could work for people who prefer small yards and who like to walk, but he said there's still plenty of demand for large houses on big lots.
"I'm finding that people just want a lot of land, and they don't want houses stacked on top of each other," said Fuelling, who co-owns Fuelling Built Homes.
Rick and Trish Garlock, owners of The Treasured Child toy store in La Grange, are planning to open a store in Norton Commons. They are looking at buying a "live-work" space in the village square, where they will live in a 3,000-square-foot apartment above their store.
The couple lived in Europe for several years, Rick Garlock said, where such neighborhoods were common.
"You got in your car once a week maybe. You went out the front door and there was the butcher, a grocery shop where you got fresh fruit, a clothing shop," he said. "That kind of lifestyle is appealing."
Cissy Walker said she is already forming neighborhood friendships. The Walkers felt isolated in their old house, which sat on 5 acres in the Fox Trail subdivision of La Grange.
"We had neighbors in La Grange who had been there for two years, and my husband had never even spoken to them," she said.
For her husband, Scott Walker, the new house, with only a few feet of grass between it and the sidewalk, is a welcome change.
"I was a little tired of taking care of the yard," he said of old house. "I just didn't have the weekends free to maintain all that."
Gaylon Owens, 42, a resident physician who just moved to Louisville with his wife, said Norton Commons was perfect for them. They moved from a Memphis, Tenn., neighborhood similar to Louisville's Highlands.
They wanted to live in an urban neighborhood, but they also didn't want the maintenance an old house requires.
"We were kind of depressed, like, where are we going to go?" said Owens, who is completing his residency in internal medicine at University Hospital.
They were planning on getting an apartment until they heard about Norton Commons, he said. They just moved into a $370,000 Federal-style house across the street from the Walkers.
Owens' wife, Kristi, a resident oncologist, is due to deliver a baby girl in October, he said.
"We like the idea of being able to go to a park in our neighborhood or take the baby carriage and go down the street to the ice cream parlor," he said. "I know it sounds kind of corny. But it's better than getting in the car to go somewhere."> |
0 comments:
Post a Comment