Posts tagged missing middle
Establishing "Multifamily" for the Better
Establishing "Multifamily" for the Better

What makes New Orleans neighborhoods so great is the same things that make neighborhoods great around the world: variety.

While most of the country was busy zoning their neighborhoods into single-use enclaves of uniformity, New Orleans, as it does, was busy ignoring national urban planning trends and standards. In this case, it was a good call.

As a result, we have retained our multi-use, finer-grained urban fabric of building use and type, and have reaped the benefits, being a top choice to live, work and vacation for humans in general.

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Developer Guide, Construction & Permitting, Design Principles, Historic Projectsben allenmultifamily, missing middle, new orleans zoning, new orleans architects, new orleans commercial, new orleans residential, new orleans neighborhoods, new orleans mixed use, new orleans development, new orleans restoration, new orleans renovations, new orleans homes, zoning changes, urban development, URBAN PLANNING
Why Missing Middle Development is Good for New Orleans: A 3-Part Blog Series
Why Missing Middle Development is Good for New Orleans: A 3-Part Blog Series

If you are interested in small to mid-size developments in New Orleans or other historic core neighborhoods, this blog series includes valuable lessons of the past, present and future development challenges and opportunities! 

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Developer Guide, Design Principles, Historic Projectsben allendevelopment, new orleans, new orleans housing, missing middle, real estate investments, Architecture, zoning, affordable housing, creative problem solving
Farm the Neighborhood You Want To See
Farm the Neighborhood You Want To See

Why should this excite New Orleanians?  All we have is a big ol' historic super-grid with an immense array and variety of lot sizes plugged into a series of big ol' amenity centers pumping value into areas blanketed with some of the most amenable urban zoning in the country.  Your Sharpie will run out of ink checking all the boxes.

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Developer Guide, Design Principlesben allensmall developer, missing middle, architecture, city planning, historic neighborhoods, new orleans, zoning, parking, lot size, city grids, multiple principle buildings, good development, appropriate density, entrepreneur, small business, mother-in-law suite, residential, commercial, louisiana, real estate, real estate investments, small change, affordable housing
Getting Back to the Middle
Getting Back to the Middle

We based parking requirements on absolute peak demand - so that even on Black Friday, everyone, by law, gets a parking space.  Developers were forced to buy more land, and provide worst-case scenario parking, for free, in order to build.  With more than ample parking everywhere, more people choose to drive for trips.  Traffic engineers note the roads are getting congested, and design larger, wider roads to provide capacity.

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Sustainability, Developer Guideben allenmissing middle, development, urban development, residential development, density, zoning, parking, historic housing, real estate, affordable housing, duplexes, single-family homes, housing solutions, house sharing, house design, mixed-use, architecture, Studio BKA, New Orleans
Scaling Down Development
Scaling Down Development

There are a lot of problems with our current approach to residential development.  For something in such perpetual demand, it's amazing that the market has not been able to figure out a good way to supply it.  We need quality housing in large quantities.  Note, that adjective: quality.  As we saw in 2006, housing built with no attention to quality or sustainability of place is not truly in demand; it created a valueless bubble that then collapsed. 

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Sustainability, Developer Guideben allenmissing middle, scaling down development, residential development, architecture, creative problem solving, new orleans housing, housing issues, housing solutions, urban development, human scale, trends, housing bubble, sharing economy, house sharing, ikea