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‘Cottages on Greene’ pitched as something new and daring for EG |
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Wednesday, 25 March 2009 |
BY ABBY FOX
An unusual kind of housing proposal, unusual for its small scale and its commitment – one-third of the total project – to affordable housing, was introduced to the planning board last Wednesday night in a pre-application conference.
The board gave a warm initial reaction to Cottages on Greene, consisting of fourteen new condominiums (15 in all) intended for Greene Street, off Main Street East Greenwich, five of which are proposed as deed-restricted affordable housing.
Last year, the applicant, 620 Main Street Associates, had proposed a commercial development, but recently changed their mind as the economy declined and tenants were hesitating to commit.
The new development’s theme, like the former, is to build within a smaller square footage than you typically see, but still be well-designed. The plan is for small, two-bedroom homes of two types, 820 or 839 square feet, made up of single family, duplex and triplex buildings, to include a single family home that’s standing on Greene Street now, but not the old dilapidated garage, which will be demolished.
The Cottages will have a common courtyard and a community garden, said architect and urban planner Don Powers, and is designed to fit seamlessly into the neighborhood.
The homes classified as strictly “affordable” will not be rented; they’ll be sold, the applicant said, at an estimated price of $200,000 to $210,000, or even less, depending on what grants are received, and they will be taken by people on a waiting list of the East Greenwich Housing Authority. The affordable homes’ exterior won’t look any different from the market-priced homes, they said, and all will have condo maintenance fees.
Member Chuck Newton asked if the development was one-of-a-kind for East Greenwich and architect Don Powers replied, “To be honest, yes. We want to demonstrate that density shouldn’t be the only metric used to evaluate a project; it’s more about design.”
Though the project is more high-dense than usual, as the fifteen condos are at a density ratio of one-unit-per 2,587-square-feet-of land, according to the town’s planning staff report, 620 Main Street Associates and Powers made the case that the allowable density should be higher than is permitted now.
The town’s report said that what’s normally allowed is one unit-per-4,000-square- feet, or in the case of Greene Street, nine units, whereas 15 are being proposed.
Powers said afterwards that the town’s conception of density, based solely on how many units take up an acre, and not how much square footage the development actually takes up, is too narrow. By the town’s standards, the Cottages on Greene are dense, he said; but if you consider the smallness of their square footage and the individual rooms, it’s not that dense, at least not uncomfortably so. And there’s plenty of room (24 spaces) for parking.
The board was so enthused with the project, despite the density issue, because it said it liked how the project fits into the downtown and works to meet the town’s affordable housing need, and the board invited the applicant to come back soon to continue the comprehensive permit process, and submit a master plan.
“I think this is a fantastic development, a great addition to East Greenwich,” said Planning Board Chair Brad Bishop, thanking the applicant for the level of detail given, more than what’s usually provided at a pre-application conference. The affordable housing units are “a very valuable piece,” he added, as “East Greenwich has a way to go” when it comes to providing affordable housing. The town is 292 units short of reaching the state’s mandated affordable housing goal, according to planning staff. East Greenwich currently has 228 affordable units; and if the Cottages on Greene are approved, the town’s affordable housing stock will increase by 4.48 percent, according to the town staff report.
Bishop said at the meeting that it was worth pointing out that “affordable housing” is not necessarily “housing for people with no means,” but it’s for teachers and fire-fighters and other employed people looking for a stable, reasonably-priced place to nest. “I’m strongly in support of this project; it’s been carefully thought out,” he said. David Iannuccilli, one of the principals of 620 Main Street Associates, along with his brother Len and Joseph Palombo, added later that the project would be far from subsidized housing. It’s meant, he said, for people with good credit and jobs who are looking for something modest and well within their means. The regular-priced units are expected to go for $250,000 to $275,000, Iannuccilli said, which by popular definition isn’t “affordable,” though it is within more people’s means than many Rhode Island homes are.
The next week, Bishop elaborated that the project would be a “fantastic transition from commercial to residential zones,” and would work well in a neighborhood in the Hill and Harbour area, which has many examples of houses in close proximity to each other, in connected neighborhoods. The development could have been “in the form of a mass building with many units,” he said, while instead, it’s a “collection of individual buildings, that feels more like East Greenwich, small-neighborhood, single family homes.”
Zoning change sought
The residences are proposed for an area zoned as Commercial Highway, so a zoning variance is required, the staff report states, but that doesn’t appear to be an insurmountable obstacle. “As presented, staff supports this proposal,” the report reads. “It provides a neighborhood look and feel and transitions nicely between the dense commercial development at East Greenwich Square and the single family R-10 neighborhood to the west. The development emphasizes pedestrian access. It has attractive single family homes for sale. And while the site is not one of the sites identified in the town’s Affordable Housing Plan, the proposed development meets an identified need as stated in that plan.”
What’s the idea?
Powers said this week that the idea is “sustainable site planning”: building with a smaller footprint on the land, making efficient use of what’s available, but presented in a “form that’s not offensive to what people are used to,” with a look that blends in with houses nearby.
Small “cottage scale” homes are ones “people haven’t seen in 100 years; it was fairly current 100 years ago when houses were built smaller and more efficiently,” he said, and Powers would like to bring that style back into the mainstream, at least in New England, where they are less popular than they’ve been on the West Coast.
In older houses Powers is referring to, rooms do “double duty,” such as a dining room serving as an alcove, or a hallway that can also work as a changing room. The cottages’ living rooms are more like 12 by 13 feet, not the more customary 18 -by-18 you commonly see in post World-War II homes.
“Since 1940, the average home size has grown from 1,500 square feet to 2,200 square feet, as the average household has gone from six family members to 2.2 family members,” he said. “That’s a 400 percent increase in the amount of space we all need.”
Donald Powers Architects has “gone back to older home plans, pre-war plans, and looked at the sizes of dwellings and how it was they had a family of six live in a 1,500-square foot house, comfortably,” he said. “All the spaces are there. They’re just smaller. They overlap and provide double duty.”
By harkening back, “We’re challenging market assumptions about what is adequate,” he said. “We’re at this great moment where it suddenly makes sense to people to be smaller and consume less. The environmental and financial conditions have created a market for being more frugal and more efficient.”
On the tricky issue of density, Powers is parting company with the town in its sense of what is appropriate and acceptable. Density “as a numerical value is a completely inadequate way to determine whether something is appropriate or not,” he said. “Obviously some of the most valuable real estate in the world is very dense, and it has to do with the quality of life that density imagines. One of our hopes is to show people that they don’t need to fear density for density’s sake. They don’t need to fear density, but bad design. Good density allows people to be closer to services and out of their cars and creating social interactions, and we should be looking for ways to provide density in its good form, and that means opening ourselves up to a value judgment and not just a numerical number.”
His argument seems to have worked out so far. “Everybody who’s seen the project so far feels it’s a good fit,” he said.
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