Town homes: We can do better

Town house. For some, the term conjures a picture of narrow, multistory homes in affluent New York neighborhoods. Until the past dozen years or so, Seattle didn't have many town homes. We had single-family homes with yards, and then apartment buildings.

Growth management, Seattle's overall attractiveness as a place to live and cheap financing changed that. Now, Seattle has lots of town homes, more homeowners — and quite a few neighbors longing for the old days.

While some new town homes blend into the neighborhood or, even better, stand out as well-designed additions, others are reviled by the neighbors for mediocrity, canyon-creating fences, asphalt wastelands and impossible-to-navigate garage entries. The fault lies not just with imagination, but also with Seattle's development rules. We can do better.

Town homes will continue to be an important part of Seattle's ongoing development. The Puget Sound region could welcome an estimated 1.7 million new residents by 2040. Seattle will be absorbing new growth — most of it as new multifamily housing: condominiums, apartments and town homes. In the past eight years, the city estimates 8,000 town homes have been built in Seattle.

Town houses are not a bad type of housing. Town homes can be an affordable option for someone purchasing a first home. They come with small yards and close neighbors — great if you don't want to mow and want to know the people around you. They can also be an attractive alternative for downsizing empty nesters.

So why is there a pervasive sense around here that town homes are a scourge inflicted upon neighborhoods by uncaring developers?

When I talk to the developers who build town homes, they, like the unhappy neighborhoods, also have common themes: They do what the land-use code makes them do; they don't have buckets of money to try different designs; and when they find a design that meets the requirements spelled out in Seattle land-use code, they use it — over and over again.

Clearly, Seattle needs to use its land-use code to encourage great town-house design. Portland is in the midst of an intriguing experiment on how to do that. In 2007, Portland held a design competition for "courtyard" town houses. Two hundred and fifty seven entries were received from around the world, some more practical than others. The winners are terrific examples of great design.

Now Portland is figuring out how to take the next step and rewrite its land-use code to encourage developers to use these designs. One idea is to tell builders that if they use these preapproved designs, their applications to build will take less time to review, saving time and money.

That's just one example of creative thinking on better town-home design. On Saturday, I am hosting a community event, "Town homes — Can the patient be saved?" The event will start with a few examples of the good, the OK and the fatally wounded designs of town homes around here.

We'll hear from a panel of developers, neighborhoods activists, architects and planners with ideas for remedies.

Come be a part of this dialogue and join the team trying to save town homes from the wounds of unfortunate regulation and bad design.