<p>"When Brian and Colleen Ducey’s two adult children moved out, their large empty home on a quiet dead-end street in Seattle suddenly lost its homey feel.</p>
<p>“We had a big, 2,500-square-foot home that we weren’t using,” says Brian, 58. “We had a very large yard. We felt tied to it every weekend trying to make it look halfway decent. … It was a great house, but too big.”
They looked for something smaller, but their only options were condominiums — until they saw an ad for an unusual new development just across city limits in Shoreline, Wash.: Eight cottages around a central garden. The first view from the access drive was the gable of a commons building and colorful rooftops jutting up behind it.
One look at the charming cluster of small homes (less than 1,000 square feet) and the Duceys put money down, sold their house and moved in five weeks later.
“It’s like the ultimate for us,” Brian says.
After decades of living large — mini-mansions in sprawling subdivisions the size of cities — some Americans are retrenching and showing a new appreciation for small, cozy and neighborly."</p>
<p>Kind of reminds me of Circle 4 in Sunriver…for those that know Sunriver…</p>
<p>It’s called “co-housing” around here… I love the cottages and it would be great if you were surrounded by friends and other like-minded people. What if the like-minded people sell and people you really dislike (loud, obnoxious, etc.) move in, and there you are, cheek-to-cheek??? :eek:</p>
<p>We lived in a cluster of 13 new houses (well spaced apart) with commonly owned wetland and grenbelts. While 12 of the neighbors were pretty good about taking care of the common areas, the green haired punk who lived in the thirteenth house and his punk buddies were trying to make everyone’s life harder. It only takes one bad apple…</p>
<p>Personally I prefer either urban… or very rural… the tiny cottage smack in the middle of 35 acres, though I consider deer vermin (or else dinner) vs a tiny apt downtown on top of a commercial establishment with so much within walking distance that a car is totally unnecessary.</p>
<p>I think a pocket community makes a lot of sense as we age; it can be sort of like a retirement community where everything needed is easy to access. I, however, refuse to do anything sensible. :)</p>
<p>I really am so ready for a smaller house. I will never be ready for neighbors…at least any closer than the ones I have. I like to be able to see their houses and not hear their noise. If they are pigs about keeping the place up, then I don’t want to be able to see their houses either…</p>
<p>I live near the cottages referenced in the article. There was a lot of pain and suffering when the zoning went through (to reduce the lot size from allowing 2 houses to 6). While there are a couple of the communities in the city, they never really took off like the developers anticipated - the city actually put in a moratorium on new developments.
The homes are incredibly small and for those of us who have had yard space (it is a suburb, after all) and the privacy it brings, being so close to others isn’t a big draw.</p>
<p>The article fails to discuss the impact to the existing neighborhood - especially when it comes to the 2nd vehicle. The development has room for one car/house and the 2nd has to be parked off-site, leading to extra cars on the neighboring streets. We’re not talking about an area that has small lots to begin with, so moving 6 homes into an area that previously would have held 2 is a big deal.</p>
<p>IIRC, when they originally sold, they went for about the same as a older home that was 3x the size on a .25 acre lot.</p>
<p>There’s something similar here in Wilmington…I toured the development last week with my mom. The houses are indeed tiny, 1000 square feet or so. That doesn’t sound all that small (many folks in Europe live in half that) but it means you can never really get away from whoever you live with, esp. if you are retired and both of you are home all day, every day. And even if you love them, sometimes you want to be at the other end of the house…much easier in 3000 sf. </p>
<p>Not to mention every time you go in or out, you will have to spend 10 to 15 minutes shooting the breeze with your neighbors. </p>
<p>We recently moved to NJ and here “pocket neighborhood” means a smaller development of very consistent homes, i.e. same general style and lot size. We are in such a neighborhood and quite like it. There are four cul de sacs, each with four homes, each home with around 1 acre and then there are common areas between the cul de sacs that are maintained thru association fees. The roads get plowed when it snows and the entrance and common areas look nice. So far we’ve liked our neighbors. One house on our cul de sac has a young family and they are putting in a big pool right now. The other two houses are empty nesters or soon-to-be empty nesters like us. It is too much space for us, no question, but we like how it’s configured. A lot of nicely flowing common area space on the first floor, not so much the bedrooms. So the house doesn’t feel like lots of disjointed rooms. </p>
<p>Oddly, it would have been more expensive here to find a nice smaller home in a good location than a larger, slightly holder home in a good location.</p>