Suburban Nation - Andres Duany [25]
Affordable housing in a wealthy neighborhood: two row houses sit among mansions in Annapolis
TWO ILLEGAL TYPES OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING
In addition to the Annapolis town houses pictured, there are two other models of affordable housing that can be reclaimed from America’s older neighborhoods. Both are currently illegal in most suburban zoning codes. One is the timeless custom of living above the store. The lingering memory of industrial pollution blighting residential areas has created a subconscious suburban reflex against providing apartments above commercial space. But since there is no longer any evidence of skyrocketing mortality rates, the arguments for mixed-use buildings become hard to fight. Upstairs apartments provide customers for the shops, activity for the street, and nighttime surveillance for the neighborhood. They also represent one of the most economical ways to provide housing, since the land and infrastructure costs are covered by the shops; the housing can be supplied for the cost of construction alone. The only possible additional expense stems from the local parking requirement, but wise municipalities will waive this rule, since residents need parking primarily when stores and offices are closed, their lots empty.
The apartment above the store: the most efficient way to provide inexpensive housing is against the law in most of suburbia
Not only does the apartment above the store create affordable housing, it also adds population to shopping districts that are otherwise dangerously empty after hours. Additionally, it contributes much-needed height to retail buildings, which with only one story fail to adequately define street space. All of those new Videosmiths, Eckerds, and Boston Markets have parapets that are too low to create a feeling of enclosure on the streets they face. By requiring new stores to be topped by affordable housing, and by subsidizing its implementation, municipalities can create spatial definition for their streets and bring a sense of security back to their downtowns.
Another form of apartment-above-the-store that is witnessing a resurgence is the store-below-the-house, otherwise known as the “live/work unit,” which is really just a row house with a ground-floor store or office.y The main advantage of this building type is that it allows a homeowner to finance both a home and a place of business with a single mortgage. At Seaside, these units—which hold shops, artists’ studios, and a café with the best espresso in northern Florida—surround the neighborhood’s public square. As increasing numbers of Americans choose to work at home, one can imagine that the live/work unit could again become a staple of our communities.
The second all-but-forgotten form of affordable housing is the outbuilding, also known as the garage apartment or granny flat, which is essentially a bedroom that has migrated out of the body of the house into the rental market.z The logic is straightforward: there are literally millions of unused bedrooms in this country, but they are not available because renting them out would violate the privacy of the homeowner. As an alternative, the house and the outbuilding create a wonderfully symbiotic system in several ways. The outbuilding provides affordable housing in stable single-family neighborhoods. Additionally, there is a built-in policing mechanism, since the landlord in the principal dwelling is personally responsible for the supervision of the often younger tenant. Also, rental payments from the outbuilding help pay the mortgage on the main house, thus bringing homeownership within closer reach of the middle class. In an interesting