Incremental development can be zero to three stories — here, we take it one story at a time.
In the last year, a group of collaborators outlined a solution to restrictive zoning requirements: the Maine PlaceCode, an ambitious open-source zoning code designed to legalize historic neighborhoods and promote similar development. The PlaceCode is a simple, digital-first library of zoning that emphasizes form—the way a building looks and meets the street—over use restrictions and arcane metrics like floor-area-ratio.
Read MoreJoe Silins is a small-scale developer based in Tucson, Arizona. Joe has a passion for environmental conservation. His career started in planning, then switched to part-time work at a local non-profit that connected people with the environment and part-time residential contracting.
With an interest in natural construction techniques, Joe decided to try out his first project: building a strawbale casita (i.e. accessory dwelling unit (ADU)) as a guesthouse in his backyard.
Read MoreJeff and John Dunbar are part of a growing movement of incremental developers building community and working to shape where they live.
Having returned to their hometown of Rockingham, Vermont after years of being away, the brothers were interested in reinvestment. “We saw the decline, and that not a lot was changing,” says Jeff. “We decided if we were going to live here, we were going to invest our energy and resources.”
Read MoreThere’s hardly a Main Street in the world that couldn’t use another graceful, elegant three-story mixed-used building: you know, like we used to build. I recently had the chance to sit down with Kiya and Denis Lachman to talk about their new building, 502 Deering Center, in Portland, Maine.
502 Deering Center is a the epitome of a polite, handsome building that does its job well, providing three on-street retail spaces and six upper story apartments. But how did that building get built, on a street which hadn’t had a new building like that in many years? What was the financing like? How did the neighbors feel about a new three-story building?
Read MoreWashington architect Cary Westerbeck spent most of his life in suburbia, far from anything dense or walkable.
“I didn’t even realize how important walkability was to me until later in life. And it’s funny, because I did embrace that in college. It was awesome to walk to clubs and shows and all the stuff you do when you’re 20,” he laughs. “When I was introduced to the concept of walkability, I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve done that, and I loved it!’”
Newly energized to invest in his neighborhood in the center of Bothell, WA, Cary used a standard 30-year mortgage to buy a .06 acre property in April 2014. He moved his family into the existing building in 2015 and set out to become a developer. But he quickly realized that he had a lot to learn.
Read MoreIncDev alumna Erin Claussen, Principal and Owner at Toledo Revival, is starting construction on the Hotel Royal in Toledo, OH in April. The property is 8,000 square feet of rehabilitated, mixed-use space in Toledo's Middlegounds neighborhood and contains 2,900 square feet of commercial space and three two-bedroom apartments. From Erin: "I attended a workshop in Memphis in 2017, and the info that I took home from there was so helpful, in addition to what I've gleaned from the small developer [Facebook] group. We are finalizing construction documents, have a tenant for our entire commercial space, and are currently seeking investors to secure construction loans."
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