New Urbanism gives Denver homebuyers more choice

There was a not too recent time when new home buyers in and around Denver faced a choice: an expensive older home which may require remodeling, but has strong curb appeal in a charming neighborhood, or a non-descript, beige shaded, newly constructed home in a not quite so charming new development.  Thanks to a design movement called new urbanism, home buyers in and around Denver now have the choice of a newly constructed home with curb appeal in a charming new neighborhood that has benefits found in older neighborhoods.  New urbanism is a design movement that began in the late 1980s, but which is only now beginning to inspire new development on a large scale.  Denver and surrounding areas host multiple new urbanist developments, including the largest in the nation, Stapleton. How are new urbanist developments different from the traditional subdivision, and what is it really like to live there?

Prospect New Town in Longmont, like all new urbanist communities, is designed to be walkable

Connection and Walkability

In contrast to the trend in new suburban development which is usually about isolation: getting as far away from your neighbors as you can afford--new urbanist developments are about connecting with your neighbors and with the community.  As such, these developments contain design features intended to encourage people to get out and walk and to interact with their neighbors.  To encourage pedestrian use,  new urbanist developments include interconnected wide sidewalks separated from the street by a landscaped buffer, and narrow streets which slow down traffic to provide a safer walking environment.  To provide a more pleasing streetscape,  homes in new urbanist neighborhoods have alley-loaded rear garages (attached or detached), so that the front of the house is the prominent feature, “humanizing” the scale of the street. 

Can neighborliness and community involvement be engineered?  New urbanist developments  try to do just that by including a front porch on every home and multiple neighborhood parks.  According to Gretchen Blair, a homeowner in the Westminster new urbanist development of Bradburn Village,

To encourage social interaction among neighbors, new urbanist communities have revived the porch as the feature of the front of the home--instead of the dead looking garage. Prospect New Town, Longmont

Architectural Interest

Most new housing developments are filled with very similar looking houses painted 15 shades of beige.   New urbanist developments are designed to avoid this “cookie cutter” look by offering homes with architectural interest and a wide (in some cases extremely wide) color palette of exterior paint.  Most new urbanist developments in and around Denver offer homes in classic, perennially favorite styles such as craftsman, farmhouse, Victorian, prairie, and even a remake of the Denver square. For architectural interest, one development in particular stands out.  Prospect New Town in Longmont includes homes in classic styles, but also offers outrageous modern homes, condominiums, and town homes clad in eye-popping colors such as chartreuse, neon red, yellow, orange, and purple. 
   
“When we started looking for a house, we knew we wanted something different than the standard, all-beige subdevelopment, we just didn't know what.  We happened upon Prospect by accident and the minute we drove in we were sold on the community!  We called our real estate agent and said ‘Never mind everything else, just show us everything available in Prospect’.  We really loved everything about it, the different architecture, the tree lined streets, the parks, the varying colors”, says Prospect resident Christie Evenson.

Mixed Use

One of the most defining features of new urbanism is the combination of different types of housing as well office and retail space within the same development.  The mixed use nature of new urbanism is in strong contrast to most suburban developments, which are strictly residential and offer only one of two types of housing.  Including retail and office space in new urbanist developments means residents can walk to shopping, dining, and in some cases their work, all from their homes.  Each new urbanist development has its own “downtown” area. Stapleton has multiple large areas devoted to retail and office space which include big box retailers such as Home Depot and Petsmart as well as small, independently owned business such as a beautiful, European flavored flower shop.   Residents in Prospect New Town can walk to a great BBQ restaurant which is in the heart of the development, a yoga studio, a gourmet food store, and a wine shop, among others.  Bradburn Village residents are often found eating at Ted’s Montana Grill, Coldstone Cremery, or enjoying a latte while working on their laptop at the neighborhood coffee shop which has a free wireless hub.  Belmar in Lakewood has so many shops and restaurants, the list it too long to describe.  The combination of retail and office space with  residences is actually against the law in most suburbs; cities have zoning which requires that housing be separate from other uses.  As new urbanism becomes more popular however, many cities such as Westminster are changing their laws to allow for this type of development.  

New urbanist communities mix homes, shopping, offices, and restaurants like this pizza place in the Holiday neighborhood of Boulder