I'm excited about
Green-built Cluster Subdivisions.
(SEE STATS on Asheville area communities below.) I am attracted to the idea of siting WNC HealthyBuilt® Homes on smaller parcels of land, and setting aside additional LAND that could have been allocated to individual lots to common shared open space for eco-friendly residents. I know our eco-developer clients are, too. So, when I saw Randall Arendt's book
, Conservation Design for Subdivisions, A Practical Guide to Creating Open Space Networks. I just had to pick it up.
Randall Arendt has me fascinated. REALTORS® --if your clients really appreciate simple explanations of how subdivisions around open space and how cluster housing can work to everyone's advantage-- grab this book! In today's GREEN market you and your clients will benefit from what Arendt has to share.
Cluster housing achieves a "density-neutral" plan in a way that respects the equity of landowners and the rights of developers to create the full number of house lots allowed under zoning. Could this be the remedy for balancing conservation and development objectives, and offering an opportunity for developers and conservationists to meet in the middle, creating more livable communities in the process?
Many people here in Asheville think it could be. They have been working on an interconnected net
work of conservation lands throughout our area. For many years, Asheville's Riverlink (see graphic) has been piloting a 17-mile greenway linking the French Broad and Swannanoa Rivers into a 17-mile continuous greenway with separate walking and biking trails anchored on the south at the NC Arboretum and on the east by the Blue Ridge Parkway and on the north by UNCA. The goal is to revitalize the area bringing back traditional community-based enterprises such as arts, crafts, health/wellness, recreation and entrepreneurship. . .and possibly ...cluster housing.
As Arendt points out:
"The key to conserving natural resources and cultural features within new developments is to rearrange density on each subdivision tract as it is being laid out, so that only half (or less) of the developable land is cleared, graded, and turned into lawns, driveways, streets, and cul-de-sacs. In this way, homes are built in a less land-consumptive fashion allowing the balance of the property to be permanently protected and added to an interconnected system of green spaces and greenway corridors criss-crossing towns, townships, and counties where these principles are incorporated into the basic design standards for new development."
Greater Asheville, N.C. AREA STATS
Eco-Friendly Residential Communities : 14+
These include my some of my favorite communities...Hickory Nut Forest Conservation Neighborhood, Drovers Road Preserve, Walnut Creek Preserve, Three Creeks, Creston, River Run...to name a few.
Typical price ranges: Green-Built Residential Properties $250,000 to $5,000,000. Lots in Eco-Subdivisions: $100,000- $1.2M
Urban Infill Projects: 10+
These include urban infill projects from the small (5 units/properties) to larger cluster /condo develpoments (50 units+/-). Typical price ranges: Mid $200s to $2M
Private Communities in NC: 200
For details please check back or email me.
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JaneAnne, I wrote a blog a few months ago about cluster housing in terms of zoning and density I am all for it. It does tent to leave more green space or park land that the traditional "lot developments" Steve