Highland_Haven/Open/Transfer/20240211 - to City - Deck/Description of PUD.md

Highland Haven proposes to develop a tight-knit community on the southern side of Fort Atkinson. The 1.3-acre site, currently comprising two adjacent lots in the Town of Koshkonong, is proposed to be merged and annexed into the City of Fort Atkinson. The larger of the two lots currently holds a neglected single-family home slated for demolition.

Instead of traditional single-family homes, this Planned Unit Development (PUD) project embraces a community-focused design. It features eight modestly sized houses (~1600sf) situated around a shared courtyard and a communal greenhouse. This layout prioritizes efficient land use and environmental conservation. Moreover, it supports, and hopefully enhances, the neighborhood's existing small-scale atmosphere while addressing the housing needs of historically underserved demographics such as young professionals, new families, seniors, and empty nesters.

Despite their closer proximity compared to typical single-family homes, the L-shaped configuration and detached garages provide opportunities for more private outdoor spaces between dwellings. The objective is to minimize unused spaces--minimizing the typical 'No Man's Land' between houses in a typical suburban development. To enhance intimacy and privacy, the houses are designed (and outlined in the association's bylaws) to limit the number of windows facing directly towards a neighbor's property.

In addition to fostering personal privacy, the project places a strong emphasis on community interaction. The shared courtyard and greenhouse/shed create a neighborhood within a neighborhood, encouraging a sense of belonging and collective ownership. Initiatives will be implemented to promote shared ownership of common tools, fostering a cooperative spirit among residents.

To separate these more public areas from the private homes, a layering of native prairie grass landscaping will be used. Aside from acting as a privacy buffer, these native grasses will enhance local biodiversity while requiring less maintenance. There has also been an effort to save some of the more mature trees on the lot, as well.

In a departure from the 'garage-scapes' of a typical suburban development, the project proposes consolidating parking around shared driveways. The narrow driveways are deliberately designed to slow down vehicular traffic, promoting a pedestrian-friendly environment. This intentional design choice aims to increase community engagement, creating a safer and more inviting space for residents to interact.

By incorporating a modular house design and employing prefabrication methods like factory-built panelized walls, along with collaborating with local subcontractors, our aim is to maintain construction costs at a reasonable level. Our intent is to try and offer more affordable housing options for the community.

The design is influenced by Fort Atkinson's agricultural heritage, incorporating a variety of siding materials, roof orientations, and varying setbacks & spaces. This approach mirrors the eclectic mix of structures that organically accumulate on a typical farm over time.

Our goal with the Highland Haven project is to transform an underused area into a community-centric development. We aim to achieve this by creating a denser layout to optimize land use, while also emphasizing intimacy and fostering a pedestrian-friendly environment for residents.

Thank you kindly for your consideration.

• Introductions
  • Milwaukee Ave
  • JW Schultz Construction
    • Hoard Rd and Banker Rd
  • OpeningDesign
• Started with a phone call
• Many Beams

• Pocket neighborhoods.

• Encourage social interaction

  • organize 6/8/10/12 houses around a shared communal function.
    • Shared courtyard
    • Greenhouse
    • Shared kitchen
    • Shared Greenhouse

• Pedestrian Friendly

  • Tame the presence of the car.
    • Shared driveways and parking lots - consolidate where the car is
    • Narrow driveways to slow traffic
    • When garages and driveways are consolidated, more space for the pediestrian

• Human Scale

  • Bringing the buildings down to the scale of the person
  • Using density to achieve more intimate proportions
  • creating a place that makes you want to linger
  • a place that makes you feel cozy and safe

• Mixed Land Uses

  • Bringing uses traditionally separated, closer together and intermixed.
    • relying less on the car.
  • Locating the pocket neighborhood in infill locations near commercial districts
  • Or bringing uses such
    • Community gardens or parks
    • greenhouses
    • community kitchens
      • Into the pocket neighborhood.

• Environmentally Friendly

  • There's only so much land to go around.
    • Let's use our existing stock of land as efficiently as possible.
  • Use of sustainable, green building materials.

• Sense of Place

  • Refers to the unique character and identity of a particular location.
    • one that is uniquely it's own.
  • Realized through building forms and building materials.
    • shaped through culture and historical factors over time.

• Privacy and Security

  • Using the spatial layout of the site, the house, and the landscaping
    • to create an environment that feels safe and private.

• City and County Zoning

  • On the edge of the Town of Kosh, and City of Fort At.

• Existing Conditions

  • To get a sense of how much land is under utiltized.
  • Gives you a sense of the condition of the remaining house and garage

• Site Plan

  • size of the houses
  • house and garage are laid out to create individual private courtyards
  • Share Driveways
    • condolidate the car
    • narrow, single lane driveways to slow traffic down.
    • Communal spaces
      • Share courtyard
      • shared greenhouse/shed
      • save trees

• House Nesting

  • Where the more open side of one house, faces the more closed side of the other.
  • That is, if one house has windows facing it's neighbors, the neighboring house will not have any.
  • This will be written the condo's by laws as well.

• Lot sizes

  • The lot lines are intentially not split down the middle do one house can use the existing space between the houses.

• Floor Plan

  • (3) bedrooms
  • storage above the garage
  • large concrete pavers
    • help with run off absorption

• Elevations

  • Various materials
  • Batten board & corrugated metal panel
  • Corrugated roof

• Landscaping

  • Proposing native grasses
    • Low maintainance
    • More inline with native habitat
    • Tall grasses provide a privacy barrier between the house and more public areas, such as the community courtyard

• Barn Accretion

  • Taking design clues from Wisconsin's farming history
  • Taking design clues from the adhoc expansion of a farm over time
  • with different building forms and materials... that seem, however, to resolate with one another, through their patina.

• Renderings

  • Various materials and roof orientations
  • Native grass landscaping

• PUD Exceptions

  • lot sizes, and setback, etc.

• Pocket Neighborhoood common themes

  • skip

• BLACK APPLE -BENTONVILLE, AR

  • site could fit (8) units
  • 2000sf
  • Communal courtyard
  • Community building
  • various materials, and building forms

• AN SA VILLAGE -BEIJING, CHINA

  • site could fit (12) units
  • 1600sf
  • no parkiing at all
  • quite dense, but very intimate
  • unique spaces

• KELLER COURT COMMONS -PETALUMA, CA

  • site could fit (9) units
  • 2000sf
  • Shared kitchen and outdoor areas
  • gates/fence for perceived security/privacy
  • differing materials

• RIVERHOUSE -HEALDSBURG, CA

  • site could fit (8) units
  • common fireplace
  • common kitchen

• OPPIDEA

  • A dense version
  • site could fit (15) units

• Highland Haven