Rigden Farm Cottages

For the past 6 months or so, we have been hard at work developing a new concept for Habitat for Humanity here in Fort Collins. They had purchased a few adjoining multi-family lots that allowed a total of 8 units. However, with there experience at building the last multi-family building (see previous blogs), they did not wish to build any more. So working together we came up with an innovative concept that clusters 8 single family cottage homes on the 3 multi-family lots. Three of the units face a street, but the others are clustered around a central greenbelt.

In all, we developed three plans for Habitat. Plan C, the ranch plan, is designed for ADA accessibility, has a 2 car attached garage. The other two plans, A & B are story and half designs with a main floor bedroom and two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. All plans are designed for an optional basement that would could accommodate additional bedrooms if family size dictates. These two plans have a detached one-car garage that is accessed from an alley type private drive.

We are hoping that this concept will become a new model for higher density construction that provides some of the economies of scale as a town home design, but with being single family construction allows flexibility in family selection, funding, and sponsor assignment.

Fugglies March 2008

I found this during one of my wandering adventures the other day. Now I admit this isn't particularly ugly, but just plain stupid. In this development I found several blocks of homes that had an alley running behind them. That is all fine and good. Trouble is, most of the homes were built with front load garages, and not alley load garages. In this particular development, this is a waste of resources since the front load homes require a fairly substantial setback. This leaves the homes with a very small backyard. The few rear load homes that were built, had shorter front setbacks, and bigger backyards. The second problem is, this was just a waste of land and resources to build the alley, that won't get used for its intended purpose. Sometimes, I wonder what developers/builders and homebuyers are thinking.