Out of curiosity, how is the courtyard/maintenance thereof of a shared with courtyard legally handled in Europe? I suspect it's difficult to have a multiple different buildings, with different owners, sharing a courtyard in the US, unless there's some sort of HOA arrangement
I'm very much looking forward to your post! I think the governance structure of the shared courtyard is a key blocker in the US. For example, most of the Sunset and Richmond in SF could form courtyards today by knocking down the fences for their yards, but they don't.
Interesting! Definitely imagine it'd be a bit of a underwriting hurdle here in the states -> you're asking banks to underwrite a large commercial loan, on a property where an HOA can in theory place a lien, or if managed poorly, can materially reduce rents. Would probably be easier to deal with in condo buildings (once sold not your problem), but that brings its own nightmare of condo defect laws
One thing we learned from the New Urbanists and traditional neighborhood development is that when you're doing something new, different, and desirable it will become "luxury" even if it didn't start out that way. Case in point is Seaside FL, which started as a pretty ramshackle beach town with innovative/retro design principles and has become very expensive (because it's so nice!).
My suspicion is that the first ~20 years of a new courtyard housing movement will mainly be serving the upper 20% of income households, and we should manage expectations. (A small, 10-20, percent of the units are feasibly subsidized capital A affordable. But even if the first tranche of sales are "mid-market," if it is nice, then resales will quickly move to the top of the market.)
Such Oosten type of development is pretty common in India, though not so spacious mostly. Underground parking is common too I don't know why you argue against that.
Euro blocks developed over decades and centuries. You can't expect that time frame now.
When this was built there was a minimum parking mandate that is now no longer in effect in TOD areas (this is one)--so they would no longer have to provide this much parking.
Yes, this was going to be expensive regardless, but they could have built it in a way that support long-term affordability. If the block had been parcels and been chunked into 10 buildings averaging 20 units each, some of the buildings could have been rentals, some could have been luxury condos. And they would not have had to do the costly underground parking (which also degrades the outdoor space) nor the pool and gym, necessarily.
There are small multifamily buildings that are built all the time in NYC on smaller parcels, so we know it's feasible to do when parcelization supports it
Out of curiosity, how is the courtyard/maintenance thereof of a shared with courtyard legally handled in Europe? I suspect it's difficult to have a multiple different buildings, with different owners, sharing a courtyard in the US, unless there's some sort of HOA arrangement
Yes in Denmark they have a courtyard guild … a very social type of HOA that works very well. I’ll write on it for a future post
I'm very much looking forward to your post! I think the governance structure of the shared courtyard is a key blocker in the US. For example, most of the Sunset and Richmond in SF could form courtyards today by knocking down the fences for their yards, but they don't.
Interesting! Definitely imagine it'd be a bit of a underwriting hurdle here in the states -> you're asking banks to underwrite a large commercial loan, on a property where an HOA can in theory place a lien, or if managed poorly, can materially reduce rents. Would probably be easier to deal with in condo buildings (once sold not your problem), but that brings its own nightmare of condo defect laws
One thing we learned from the New Urbanists and traditional neighborhood development is that when you're doing something new, different, and desirable it will become "luxury" even if it didn't start out that way. Case in point is Seaside FL, which started as a pretty ramshackle beach town with innovative/retro design principles and has become very expensive (because it's so nice!).
My suspicion is that the first ~20 years of a new courtyard housing movement will mainly be serving the upper 20% of income households, and we should manage expectations. (A small, 10-20, percent of the units are feasibly subsidized capital A affordable. But even if the first tranche of sales are "mid-market," if it is nice, then resales will quickly move to the top of the market.)
Such Oosten type of development is pretty common in India, though not so spacious mostly. Underground parking is common too I don't know why you argue against that.
Euro blocks developed over decades and centuries. You can't expect that time frame now.
Underground parking
-adds a ton of cost
-reduces the area of permeable surface (ground where you can grow trees, have a garden)
-incentivizes driving over walking
-will be obsolete in a few years when AVs and Waymo are ubiquitous
I don't think your recommendation for smaller parcels would pan out like you hope it would.
It would probably eliminate this type of development all together.
1) The housing was going to be expensive, since it is in New York.
2) Rich households have cars, so they need Parking.
3) Building and designing everything at once made the building cheaper, especially the underground Garage. How do you build it in parts?
The real problem are the prices in New York, which are downstream from Zoning and building regulations in all New York, not a particular development.
When this was built there was a minimum parking mandate that is now no longer in effect in TOD areas (this is one)--so they would no longer have to provide this much parking.
I think a reasonable parking solution is to have a rear attached parking garage that is accessed through a discrete garage entrance https://x.com/UrbanCourtyard/status/2010477969509400633?s=20
Yes, this was going to be expensive regardless, but they could have built it in a way that support long-term affordability. If the block had been parcels and been chunked into 10 buildings averaging 20 units each, some of the buildings could have been rentals, some could have been luxury condos. And they would not have had to do the costly underground parking (which also degrades the outdoor space) nor the pool and gym, necessarily.
There are small multifamily buildings that are built all the time in NYC on smaller parcels, so we know it's feasible to do when parcelization supports it