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.)
Interesting read. I’m all for more courtyard urbanism, but I have two questions about its feasibility:
1. Is courtyard urbanism still being delivered in European cities at scale, or is it all a vestige of centuries-ago finance and regulatory practice?
2. Many hands building this incrementally sounds great. But how does this work in practice? Each property owner’s incentive is to maximize their development capacity, not to preserve some fraction of their land for a commons/courtyard.
Zoning and land development regulations?
That’s not how these pre-zoning, beautiful neighborhoods emerged, though.
Hi Jesse, these are great questions. TLDR response is (1) no, courtyard urbanism is not being delivered in Euro cities at scale (and has not been since the ~1920s), and (2) in practice “many hands” means the city subdividing land into small parcels again like they used to , before minimum lot size requirements.
Long answer:
For most of the nineteenth century, courtyard blocks were not master-planned. Blocks were subdivided into many narrow parcels and built incrementally by small builders. Each builder constructed a shallow building that touched the lot lines and opened toward the interior of the block (the building code encouraged this). Because every parcel followed roughly the same geometry—party walls, similar building depths, windows facing inward—the courtyard emerged almost automatically. No single owner had to “preserve” open space; the block’s form was simply the result of many buildings solving the same light-and-air code requirement within a zero-lot line zoning paradigm.
During the twentieth century, that development ecology largely disappeared. The courtyard block as a FORM survived in many European cities, but the PROCESS that produced it was replaced by large-parcel development. Several things drove that shift. Modern zoning codes introduced minimum lot sizes and setbacks that made party-wall construction difficult or impossible. Building codes increasingly required two stairs and other safety features that favored larger floor plates and centralized corridors. Parking requirements further pushed projects toward bigger sites and structured garages. At the same time, real-estate finance consolidated around larger developers and institutional lenders that prefer bigger, single-parcel projects. The cumulative effect was to make small-lot multifamily construction impractical even in places where the physical form remained desirable.
Reintroducing fine-grained development doesn’t require inventing a new urban model so much as restoring the conditions that once allowed it. Cities can start by permitting VERY SMALL URBAN PARCELS AGAIN—lots on the order of 30-50 feet wide that can support small apartment buildings. They can legalize zero-lot-line and party-wall construction, which allows buildings to share structural walls and use land efficiently. Allowing multi-unit buildings on those small parcels, rather than limiting them to single-family houses, is essential. Removing parking minimums is also important, since structured parking almost always forces parcel consolidation. Finally, codes that allow single-stair apartment buildings with shallow floor plates make it possible to build compact, point-access buildings that naturally face a courtyard.
If those ingredients are in place—small parcels, party walls, shallow buildings, and modest code requirements—the courtyard block can reappear without any single developer having to assemble an entire site. The form historically emerged from the rules of the system rather than from centralized planning. Restoring that development ecology is what allows many hands, building incrementally, to produce coherent urban blocks again.
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.)
Interesting read. I’m all for more courtyard urbanism, but I have two questions about its feasibility:
1. Is courtyard urbanism still being delivered in European cities at scale, or is it all a vestige of centuries-ago finance and regulatory practice?
2. Many hands building this incrementally sounds great. But how does this work in practice? Each property owner’s incentive is to maximize their development capacity, not to preserve some fraction of their land for a commons/courtyard.
Zoning and land development regulations?
That’s not how these pre-zoning, beautiful neighborhoods emerged, though.
Hi Jesse, these are great questions. TLDR response is (1) no, courtyard urbanism is not being delivered in Euro cities at scale (and has not been since the ~1920s), and (2) in practice “many hands” means the city subdividing land into small parcels again like they used to , before minimum lot size requirements.
Long answer:
For most of the nineteenth century, courtyard blocks were not master-planned. Blocks were subdivided into many narrow parcels and built incrementally by small builders. Each builder constructed a shallow building that touched the lot lines and opened toward the interior of the block (the building code encouraged this). Because every parcel followed roughly the same geometry—party walls, similar building depths, windows facing inward—the courtyard emerged almost automatically. No single owner had to “preserve” open space; the block’s form was simply the result of many buildings solving the same light-and-air code requirement within a zero-lot line zoning paradigm.
During the twentieth century, that development ecology largely disappeared. The courtyard block as a FORM survived in many European cities, but the PROCESS that produced it was replaced by large-parcel development. Several things drove that shift. Modern zoning codes introduced minimum lot sizes and setbacks that made party-wall construction difficult or impossible. Building codes increasingly required two stairs and other safety features that favored larger floor plates and centralized corridors. Parking requirements further pushed projects toward bigger sites and structured garages. At the same time, real-estate finance consolidated around larger developers and institutional lenders that prefer bigger, single-parcel projects. The cumulative effect was to make small-lot multifamily construction impractical even in places where the physical form remained desirable.
Reintroducing fine-grained development doesn’t require inventing a new urban model so much as restoring the conditions that once allowed it. Cities can start by permitting VERY SMALL URBAN PARCELS AGAIN—lots on the order of 30-50 feet wide that can support small apartment buildings. They can legalize zero-lot-line and party-wall construction, which allows buildings to share structural walls and use land efficiently. Allowing multi-unit buildings on those small parcels, rather than limiting them to single-family houses, is essential. Removing parking minimums is also important, since structured parking almost always forces parcel consolidation. Finally, codes that allow single-stair apartment buildings with shallow floor plates make it possible to build compact, point-access buildings that naturally face a courtyard.
If those ingredients are in place—small parcels, party walls, shallow buildings, and modest code requirements—the courtyard block can reappear without any single developer having to assemble an entire site. The form historically emerged from the rules of the system rather than from centralized planning. Restoring that development ecology is what allows many hands, building incrementally, to produce coherent urban blocks again.
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