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Lexington Planners Hear Presentation
The Lexington Planning Commission is beginning the process of drafting an ordinance that would allow cottage housing developments within the city.
Cottage housing developments are a group of small, single-family dwellings that center around a common area. They are similar to condominium projects, in that the units are typically sold individually, along with the land underneath them, and the owners pay a fee for use of the common areas, which are maintained by a homeowner’s association. These kinds of developments, a relatively new trend in housing, are primarily located in Washington state, in communities around Seattle, but have begun spreading to other states as well.
At its meeting on April 25, city planner Arne Glaeser presented an overview of cottage housing as an introduction to the Commission members on what they would be considering.
, page B14 In the presentation, he noted three lots within the city that were big enough to potentially fit a cottage housing development.
The first, located at 915 Thornhill Road., is 1.37 acres and is currently undeveloped. In 2013, Ross Chapin, an architect based in Langley, Wash., who specializes in cottage housing developments (or pocket neighborhoods, as he calls them on his website) submitted a preliminary sketch for a layout of the lot with an eight-unit cottage housing development. The project didn’t move forward, but Glaeser included the sketch in his presentation as an example of how multiple dwellings could fit on a lot of that size.
The second lot that Glaeser mentioned as a potential site for a cottage housing development was the lot at 201 N. Randolph St., the former site of the Sheridan House. The owners of the lot have not expressed any intent to put a cottage housing development on the lot, Glaeser noted, but he included it because it’s the same size as a development in Langley, Wash.
The third lot is located at the corner of Walker and Houston streets, and the owner, Max Ivankov of MaxMark Homes, LLC, has expressed interest in putting a cottage housing development on that lot.
Those examples, Glaeser noted, were the most “glaringly obvious” examples of lots within the city that are big enough to hold these kinds of developments. With only one owner having currently expressed interest, he didn’t know how many such developments the city was likely to see.
Glaeser noted that there were several things for the Planning Commission to consider when developing the ordinance, including the size of the units, the parking requirements for both residents of the developments and visitors, design standards for the units, and how to make sure the developments fit in with other singlefamily dwellings that it will neighbor.
“We want it to fit in with our neighborhoods, so I think we want some design control over this, but if we make it to such a degree that it looks like what we’ve got in some of these photographs, I think that would be rather expensive,” he said. “This is going to be something that’s going to be inserted into a pattern that already exists. But we have to sort of take that pain of ‘Yes, there’s something that exists and this is new.’ There’s going to be some friction, but we’re trying to create something new. We’re trying to provide a different type of housing product and also at a higher density than what some people are used to.”
Commissioner John Driscoll noted that the housing demographics of the country have shifted, and the majority of households are one- or two-person households, meaning these types of developments might be appealing. Commissioner Jon Eastwood said that he was “quite excited” about potentially adding cottage housing as an option in Lexington.
“It could just be a few lots, but even there, you’re getting a non-trivial number of units and meeting goals that are very clearly articulated in the comp plan and we’re committed to,” he said, “And when you think about the demographic trends … with the changes in the average structure of household formation in the U.S., and you think about this as a fairly new movement, those things could intersect in ways such that demand for housing like this could, over the coming decades, change notably. It could be a small-scale thing that is good for our community and for a few people, but it could end up being more important than we could imagine.”
To help aid the Commission’s development of the ordinance, Glaeser said he would provide the members with a copy of the city of Winchester’s cottage housing ordinance. Winchester is one of the few localities within Virginia to have created an ordinance for cottage housing.
Discussions on the ordinance will continue at the Planning Commission’s meeting on Thursday.
