In the American experience we assume that a house has windows on all four sides and sideyards to separate our house from that of our neighbor. It wasn’t until I lived in England and discovered that this most common type of housing in our country was referred to as “detached” housing in that country to differentiate it from the “attached” housing in which they commonly live. In England the dream of a young couple is to attain a “semi” i.e., a semidetached house, or what we call a duplex, while we in this richer country aspire to attain a detached house.
Attached housing in England, called terrace housing and frequently running for entire blocks, has its counterpart, called row housing, in the Baltimore- Philadelphia area of this country. By contrast, here in Southern New England we built, from the period of the Civil War up to the Depression of the ’30s, the unique three-decker, a copy of which will soon be encased in the new Heritage Harbor Museum and is still common throughout the Providence-Pawtucket-Central Falls area.
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Single person households now make up over one-quarter of the more than one million households in this country. These households as well as childless couples comprise a major market for those who want to own their own house but don’t have the time or ability to look after the outside, so they may opt for an arrangement with shared ownership of the outside of buildings and grounds with individual ownership of their units. Today we are familiar with condominium living, a form of shared ownership.
Although detached housing may have this condominium arrangement, it is more usual for houses to be attached in groups or clusters of what we now call “town houses” so that these units have only two or three sides with windows and the grounds are owned in common. A simple idea and a ready market, yet too many communities do not have zoning ordinances that allow cluster housing. Too bad since this is a way to reduce housing costs because of shorter runs of roads, utility lines and other infrastructure; preserve open space by using less land for housing; provide amenities such as swimming pools and tennis courts in this open space and that many could not afford if placed on individual plots; and, finally, it helps foster neighborliness because of shared experiences in the use of these amenities.
The town of Bristol was among the first communities in the state to recognize the benefits of cluster zoning and thus the first condominium cluster development of North Farm got its start in the early 1970s. Originally designed to have 400 to 500 units on an attractive 80-acre site, with a planned swimming pool and tennis courts on the 30 acres of wetlands, the subsequent developer bankruptcy and new rules governing construction in wetlands, and except for a community building, caused construction of 300 units to take place on the remaining 50 acres.
Does this house type provide for the efficient use of land? Consider that the average of six houses per acre is greater than that found in Providence, yet there is a five acre arboretum, nearly 10 acres of open meadow land, a swimming pool, tennis courts, community gardens, croquet court, as well as an office, barn and maintenance garage.
All one needs to do is to look at housing developments to the north and south of North Farm to find typically detached houses that are more expensive, sprawl over the land at one or two houses to the acre, have no common open space because all land is individually owned and have none of the amenities found in the clustered condominium of North Farm, amenities that bring neighbors together.
Clustered housing offers attractions that are difficult to replicate on individually owned lots and provide another option for certain homeowners. More communities need to make provisions for this “different” type of housing with which planning boards should be more familiar.
Chester E. Smolski is a retired Professor of Geography at Rhode Island College.
His column appears often.
