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RealEstateJournal I Print_Griendly 12/17/2007 01:03 PM
<br />"Preposterous," she says. "t was rolling my eyes."
<br />While the plan was ultimately approved, it wasn't unanimous. "We might be prejudiced," says Jim Herreid, one of two
<br />commissioners who voted against the plan. "But we just don't like cul-de-sacs because they restrict the ability to get around
<br />town easily."
<br />For all the criticism aimed at them, cul-de-sacs do seem to have one last defender: the free market. Real-estate brokers say
<br />that despite the recent opposition by policy makers, homes on cul-de-sacs still tend to sell faster than other homes --and
<br />often command a comfortable premium. Ralph Spargo, the vice president of product development for Standard Pacific
<br />Homes in Irvine, Calif., says his company charges as much as 5% more for a home located on one. (For a house that sells
<br />for the April 2006 national median price of $223,000, that works out to about $11,000).
<br />Rochelle Johnson, a 38-year-old real-estate agent from Lakeville, Minn., who grew up on a cul-de-sac, says she doesn't
<br />worry about the "isolation" --she welcomes it. From her home on a cul-de-sac in a development called Wyldwood Oaks, Mrs.
<br />Johnson says the minimal amount of traffic gives her the peace of mind to allow her two children to play soccer in the street.
<br />"I don't know why somebody wouldn't want to live on a cul-de-sac," she says.
<br />While suburban planners aren't trying to retrofit existing cul-de-sacs, they are making a concerted effort to make sure that
<br />new developments don't repeat some of their perceived faults. In cities like Boulder, Colo., and San Antonio, where
<br />suburban-style development is still taking place within city limits, new regulations have narrowed street widths in some new
<br />developments to make them easier to cross by foot. In a host of cities in Oregon, including Portland, lawmakers have
<br />shortened the acceptable length of street blocks to about 500 feet, down from 800 to 1,000. And in Rock Hill, S.C., which
<br />changed its rules in March, developers who build cul-de-sacs are required to cut pedestrian paths through their bulb-like tips
<br />to connect them to other sidewalks and allow people to walk through neighborhoods unimpeded.
<br />By reducing cul-de-sac construction, developers say, local governments are depriving them of one of the most popular --and
<br />lucrative -- housing types at a time when the housing market is slowing down in many regions. In Ames, Iowa, developer
<br />Chuck Winkleblack of Hunziker & Associates says new regulations on cul-de-sacs there have reduced choices for buyers. In
<br />the 1980s, when his company built a neighborhood called Northridge, there were 23 cul-de-sacs in the 410-home community.
<br />By contrast, Northridge Heights, a project set to be completed in 2009, calls for 350 single-family homes and 150
<br />townhouses and apartments with only two cul-de-sacs. "I had to beg and plead to get those in," says Mr. Winkleblack.
<br />Trade-Offs
<br />Although the campaign against cul-de-sacs continues, lawmakers are making some concessions. As a trade-off for limiting
<br />them, cities like Nashville, Tenn., are letting developers put more homes, including townhouses and apartments, on less
<br />land. And in some places, measures being planned to increase traffic flow have been beaten back. In late 2004, when
<br />residents of two upscale subdivisions in York County, S.C. -- Eppington and Knight's Bridge, with homes in the $500,000 to
<br />$600,000 range --got wind of a plan to connect them, by roads, to a proposed development called The Reserve, which had
<br />lower-priced homes, residents of the wealthy areas pressured the county council to nix the proposal.
<br />In the meantime, Beth Bowlds, a speech pathologist and mother of three living on a cul-de-sac in McKay's Mill -- a
<br />subdivision in the Nashville suburb of Franklin -- says she understands the traffic issues cul-de-sacs can create and why the
<br />local planners have taken steps to limit them. Yet when she and her husband were shopping for a home two years ago, she
<br />was immediately drawn to the cul-de-sac anyhow. "It's nice having your little corner that's not as public."
<br />Email your comments to rieditorla~dowiones.com.
<br />-- June 05, 2006
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