Making the case for the cottage community
FALLS CHURCH, Va.—Emptyne ste rs Bonnie and Andrew Sakallaris decided to down size when they realized they were spending all their time in about one-third of their 3,500- squarefoot house in Fairfax Station, Virginia.
Instead of swapping their five-bedroom home for ac on door moving to an active adult community, the couple did something different: They chose a newly built single-family house in a pocket neighborhood, a community of just 10 residences where at least one homeowner must be 55 years or older.
“We saw a rendering of the Railroad Cottages in Falls Church and immediately liked the concept of a small group of houses that could create a sense of community ina walkable urban environment ,” Bonnie Sakallaris said.
In general, the homes clustered in a pocket or cottage neighborhood have a shared common space, said Theresa Su ll ivanTwi ford, a real estate agent with Pearson Smith Realty in Falls Church who began working on the Railroad Cottages project about six years ago.
The Railroad Cottages co mm unity,Twi ford said, is the first new cottage neighborhood in Northern Virginia. Local governments and developers are studying whether to replicate it to address the“missin g-middle” housing problem—the lack of homes in the market for middle-income people.
While developers found creative ways to cut costs by building on less land, they acknowledge that more work needs to be done to make the houses, which range from $750,000 to $800,000 in Railroad Cottages, more affordable.
“Ideally, this idea could be implemented at a variety of price points and for different purposes such as workforce housing or for adults with intellectual or physical disabilities,” she said. “That can only happen if jurisdictions take the lead and tune out the noise from typical neighbor pushback.”
The Railroad Cottages are named for the street they' re on, Railroad Avenue.
All 10 Railroad Cottages, which s ur - round a courtyard and are connected by a boardwalk, have sold. The 1,490-square-foot houses each have two bedrooms, three bathrooms and a parking space in a carport adjacent to the community.
The homeowners share a similarly sized common house with a
kitchen and entertainment space and a guest bedroom and bathroom upstairs.
“People like the idea of owning a smaller, smarter, more energyefficient home, which is a good fit for an agerestricted community where the buyers want a low-maintenance lifestyle ,” said Jack Wilbern, architect of t he Railroad Cottages and a partner with ButzWilbern Ltd. “They also like the idea of knowing their neighbors, so we designed the homes to make it easier to have serendipitous contact with the neighbors and yet have privacy when you want it.”
The Railroad Cottages each have a front porch and the kitchen in the front of the house so neighbors can see one another when they walk by, Wilbern said.
“If you live that closely together, you also need to make sure you' ve tempe red those community opportunities with privacy,” he said. “We laid out the houses so that each has a patio or a deck on the back that' s visible through your windows but private from the adjacent house. The homes are closer together in the front but they're as far as 20 feet apart in the back.”
Railroad Cottages resident Chris Saxton said she chose the community because of its friendliness.
“Everyone says hello and gets along here,” she said. “We're excited to start using the common house to meet for coffee or watch movies together.”
Saxon also said she feels safe in the community, partly because she knows her neighbors and partly because of the design around a central courtyard.
“The carport has lots of lights and the boardwalk is lit up, so it feels safe to come in at night,” Saxton said. “Each house has an emergency box so that if we need the police or fire company, we can call automatically and the outside of the house also lights up.”
The common house includes a battery backup system so residents could shelter in place together during a major storm or power outage.
Cars connection
For the past six decades, subdivisions have been built around the concept of separating single-family homes from industry, said Ross Chapin, principal of Ross Chap in Architects in Langley, Washington, and author of “Pocket Neighborhoods: Creating Small- Scale Community in a LargeScale World.”
“The idea is that everyone wants independence and privacy, yet to be connected by their cars to the wider world ,” Chap in said. “We end up marooned on our own little island, surrounded by houses. That's fine when there are little kids and dogs to connect us, but kids leave and dogs die and loneliness has become epidemic.”
The solution, Chapin said, is to design communities that deliberately enc ourage communication and interaction with neighbors.
“I grew up in a small town in Wyoming, which felt like a pocket neighborhood,” Twiford said. “When I saw one of Ross Chapin's pocket neighborhoods in Washington (state), I loved the idea of creating something like that in this area.”
Interaction among neighbors also is fostered by putting the cars to one side of the community and having all mail delivered to the common house, Twiford said.
Part of the pocket neighborhood concept is to design ways for people to meet face-toface more often in their daily lives, Chapin said.
“The common house eliminates the need for people to own a home for all contingencies,” Twiford said. “Instead of having a house with lots of extra bedrooms or a huge space for entertaining, the common house has an entertaining kitchen stocked with all the glasses and dishes people need. It has a guest bedroom and bathroom that can be reserved for overflow guests, too.”
The common house is open to all residents and the neighbors can decide among themselves when and how to use it.
“We see it as an organic place to gather, where residents can have potluck dinners, organize a book club, or just go to work or relax whenever they like ,” Twiford said.