• An activity taken up in addition to one's regular work or profession, usually for enjoyment; a hobby.
• Archaic: A distraction or diversion.
A shy reader asks via email:Land use/transportation as a hobby? Could you be more specific?
Maybe you can help me with an observation:
Why is the garage the most prominent feature on a house? I mean, it is first thing you see and it occupies such a large portion of the front of the house. My suspicion is that this is the most efficient way to build as much house on a small plot of land (i.e. the ranch style subdivision). Personally, I find it annoying. I don't want to see the garage. I would prefer to have the garage accessed on the side of the house (i.e. corner lot house) or have the garage detached and recessed to the back of the house.
Snout houses... don't get me started. Oh wait... you did get me started. Well then, you asked for it.
First, the short answer: Planners and developers conspire to promote this ugly pattern. Planners initiate the downward spiral by misapplying zoning to promote their urbanist goals and supposedly save money for municipalities. Developers under those restrictions are severely limited in the housing types they can build and still make a profit. The result is snout houses.
Here's how I explain it:
I've noticed one trend that runs right through the
center of every planner driven theory of development
for the last half century. They all seek to
maximize the proportions of public space. Even
traditional suburban residential designs now
typically dedicate three times the area of 50
years ago. No wonder the sense of community is
weakening; we are progressively disenfranchising
any sense of ownership.
----
Snout houses are the result of planners backing private property behind gates and walls and garages.
29 comments:
Wow, that image on Wikipedia from Markham, ON is frightening.
Rob,
The "snout house" is a very efficient design. At all but the highest population densities, the garage will be the primary entrance to the house, especially when you have cargo. This argues for an attached garage or carport, especially since a free-standing garage or carport will invariably be more expensive because of the need for two additional exterior, load bearing walls.
Having the garage facing the street also makes sense because with a side or rear entry garage you have to pave hundreds of extra square feet of land, which costs money and renders the land useless for other purposes. Placing the garage in front of the house saves another 400 or so square feet of land at the cost of reducing the number of front facing windows (and increasing the number of windows facing the side), which may or may not matter depending on the site.
Yes, with cheap land, it is possible to replicate obsolete designs for housing, but why. The attached, front facing, garage makes lots of sense (having it stick out sometimes does, sometimes doesn't depending on the site).
I disagree. Curb cuts are wasteful. Therein starts a land use spiral. The streets get wider, the on-street parking less available, less land for each lot, higher density, builder margins shrink, housing less affordable.
Yes, land is no longer cheap. Ask why first before confusing cause and effect. Snouties do not save land, they intensify land use ratios.
Student
Another thing to look at in that picture of Markham.
Notice the houses are only 3 pastel colors.
Had a buddy move into an identical joint in Kanata Ont (outside of Ottawa) years ago. Houses were white, cream, or light yellow. We come back about 2am from the strip joints hammered and he cannot figure out which one is his since he had just moved in.
They are all the same color. They are all the same shape. There is no front or side yard to look for bikes and besides it's 2 am so it is dark out. Everyone had their cars in the garage.
He starts to panic as he might try to open the wrong front door at 2 am.
It was ugly until we used some logic to get it down to 1 side of 1 street and work from there.
Every time I drive the 101 from San Jose to Monteray I look at these track homes in Gilford with the cars in the driveway (cause there is no storage without basements so the garage becomes a basement)and I wonder what kind of a fool pays 3x the national rate to live in that particle board POS where the ground shakes every other week.
Heck, my wife refused to let me have a drive up garage. Had to have the doors on the side so they were not as visable. Didn't matter it made backing up in the dark in a snowstorm a pia. Looks count. These snout things look like short fat trailers without the wheel skirts.
H.
As much as I hate to agree with The Dawg about anything related to housing, he has a point about street-facing driveways. Running an alley behind each row of houses and putting garages in back takes up a little bit more land but it allows for a ton of on-street parking. See much of residential Seattle, for instance. Of course you can really only do that if you're building on a grid, not cul de sacs.
However, I think there's a market effect at play too. Putting the driveway in front and eliminating on-street parking makes it a lot easier to maneuver a car in and out, especially with the kind of land barges that people like these days. If you can get enough driveway/garage parking so that you don't have to park on the street, a "snout house" is very practical. Ugly, but practical.
Winston,
I agree, the colors are awful. I think the worst are the peachy, pink stucco houses that seem to be so prevalent in Western Canada. Dark colored stucco (if allowed in a development) is usually an upgrade and costs more.
Have you ever tried to park in one of these developments? I had a friend who lived in one in Calgary and there was only one spot on the cul-de-sac that wasn't taken up by a driveway.
What amazes me is that these cookie cutter homes don't even come with any fencing or landscaping. If there is room for a deck at all, it usually consumes most of the "back yard" and is elevated to look directly into the neighbors yard.
The problem is that all of these young homebuyers like shiny new things and don't want to spend more money for an older house, likely in poor condition, closer to the city centre.
Meanwhile, the rest of us who choose to live close to work, recreation, shopping, etc. are left footing the bill for essential services that need to be built to these new communities.
sorry that was meant to be addressed to H Simpson. Keep hitting the wrong keys this morning...
Rob, you need to look at it from a practical point of view. The average family these days has at least two cars, but typically more like four, even if at least one does nothing but sit and rust. They need somewhere to park those cars, but can't afford a large lot with a full side (or rear) garage, because they spent all their money on the cars and on the entertainment system that is going to go into the house. So the house has to fit onto a small lot, which means that the first floor will be almost nothing but garage, because you can't put the garage on the second floor, and you can't put it in the basement, especially when there is no basement. So it becomes the dominant feature on the first floor, which is convenient, because it makes it easier for the family to load/unload all of their stuff into it, until it gets full to the point where the cars won't fit in it and get parked out in the driveway or on the curb instead.
You see? It all makes perfect sense.
Off topic, but isn't that what life is all about?
Container ship hit the Bay Bridge, the major link between SF and Oakland (and the rest of the East Bay). Ship took a decent hit - 160 foot gash along it, those on the bridge didn't even notice... they didn't bother to shut the bridge down, even briefly.
Of note: This is the bridge that is getting replaced. Not earthquake safe... seems plenty strong to me, but...
Also - somebody is losing their job over this one. I know a ship that size handles like a pig, but it's not like the bridge was moving. Harbor pilot on board when the collision occurred. Come to think of it, probably more than one person losing their job.
Article for those interested, includes a nice shot of the ship.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/07/BAH3T81G7.DTL
Rob,
Given that each house has a garage, you need to have either alleys or curb cuts to access the garage (remember, given a choice most people want one). Both take a fair amount of land, but the alley approach takes up more and isn't that aesthetically pleasing when a neighborhood gets dense. Really, it seems that you're objection is to dense suburban development, which can be ugly or nice depending on the skill of who's doing it. In my neck of the woods, this is happening because it's so hard to get permission to build anything that you may as well try to maximize revenue per acre on what you can develop. This isn't necessarily the same as maximizing density, in fact, I've seen developers opt to develop at lower densities than they're entitled to from the city because they want to be able to sell their product.
Winston, you keep making the same assumption; higher density is inevitable. My assertion is that higher density has been forced.
You know, there is another solution to the suburban density issue: more people per house. But then, I suppose one of the reasons people move to the suburbs (or especially the exurbs) is in order to "get away from it all", with "it all" being their fellow humans.
Remember those houses where they used to have a nice main entrance with large stairs and a separate, not quite as nice, entrance for the servants hidden somewhere? This house looks a little bit like that, except that the main entrance is the garage. The fact that this is inconvenient for people on foot, perhaps old or handicapped or carrying heavy grocery bags, as the door is far, is not taken into consideration, because the car seems to have priority and it is assumed that that's how people get there. The space occupied by the car would be more useful as a room, but the notion of "converted garage" implies that people are out of place in that space even though it is inside the house, and on the floor that is the most convenient because it is more or less at ground level.
The prominent garage makes sense, it is there to house your second largest "investment". Should probably come with a see through door so that folks can admire your investments.
I refer to these suburban ubiquities as the "garage with attached house" phenomenon.
I wanna live in a Bucky dome.
Well well well, countrywide now only 1.13 away from the strike price of 12.50, this after reaching a high of 17 plus on Oct. 26th. After hours it lost another 24 cents. I tell ya, you gotta love shorting this stock, and it's pretty obvious that there is a lot of market manipulation going on. I wonder how many CW execs cashed out on Oct. 26th?
10/12/07 MOZILO ANGELO R Sold 139,916 $18.38 2.57 Mil
10/11/07 MOZILO ANGELO R Sold 139,918 $18.36 2.57 Mil
10/10/07 MOZILO ANGELO R Sold 139,918 $18.74 2.62 Mil
10/10/07 MOZILO ANGELO R* Sold 139,918 $18.77 2.63 Mil
10/09/07 MOZILO ANGELO R Sold 139,918 $19.87 2.78 Mil
10/08/07 MOZILO ANGELO R Sold 139,918 $20.14 2.82 Mil
What a piece of shit...was in such a hurry to unload that he even did it twice in one day?
Rob,
I have a slightly different take on this as a designer. First note that I do everything I can to minimize the garage. It should never present itself as the focal point of a house. I would say part of the problem is lack of individual design. The other problem is zoning, but for a different reason than you stated.
Here in Burlington, VT the city zoning regulations regulate the amount of lot coverage allowed in order to preserve "green space". Generally you can only cover 35% of the lot with built objects, including paved areas for parking. This leads to making the house as large as possible and the driveway as small as possible in order to maximize the livable space. This results in the garage being right up front close to the road.
Once again some public official tries to regulate a perceived problem and it results in a larger problem. Instead of using good design and common sense the politicos create more problems.
Snout houses took off big here during the 1990s. Prior to the Texas housing bust, houses had detached garages. The market collapsed in 1985, and once they started building again in 1995 it was a whole new design. No more decent size lots, no more detached garages. This, even though land was a lot cheaper. Of course, with new 4-bedroom houses selling for $80k, the developers needed to find ways to scrape out profits.
The current snout houses are built better than the 1978-era houses, though. 30 years ago they built houses here using cheap-ass rot-prone siding and cedar shingles. Whole subdivisions sprouted up with tinder-dry wooden roofs. Now, even the cheapest new houses have Hardie siding, brick veneer and asphalt shingles.
Density is great. More people should live together in the same dwelling even if they don't have to. Just ask the residents of Ciudad Boliver in Bogota or Cite Soleil, Haiti-- I bet they're just lovin' that density.
Arcologies and hyperstructures are the wave of the future...
The Shimizu TRY 2004 Mega-City Pyramid is a proposed project for construction of a massive pyramid over Tokyo Bay in Japan. The structure would be 12 times higher than the Great Pyramid at Giza, and would house 750,000 people. If built, it will be the largest man-made structure on Earth. The structure would be 2,004 meters (6,575 feet) high and would answer Tokyo's increasing lack of space.
Transportation within the city would be provided by accelerating walkways, inclined elevators, and a personal rapid transit system where individual driverless pods would travel within the trusses.
Housing and office space would be provided by 30-story high skyscrapers suspended from above and below, and attached to the pyramid's supporting structure with nanotube cables.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Try2004
@Lou Whole subdivisions sprouted up with tinder-dry wooden roofs. Now, even the cheapest new houses have Hardie siding, brick veneer and asphalt shingles.
Ah, Lou, back in the day, only the cheapest California houses had asphalt shingles...and now they all have them or a tile roof. Cedar shingles cost more 20 years ago.
My biggest beef with developers is in lot design, not just in Cali but everywhere. Awhile ago when I was looking for a new house with my ex-fiance we were looking at larger lots and much larger houses than either of our current homes (we're currently in 1k-1.4k f2 in more established neighborhoods.) We only looked at 1+ acre lots and were planning on moving from better (closer) neighborhoods into exurb territory.
It was bizarre because 1+ acre lots weren't the semi-square lots we were coming from, they were oblongs. The houses weren't much further apart than the neighborhoods we were planning on leaving...the lots were "maybe" 200-250 feet wide and enormously long!
I thought this was a California phenonmenon until I visited my aunt and uncle in their new home in Maryland. They are living in the ex-exurbs on a 3 acre lot in a semi-mansion (6k+ f2 house) and you could throw a softball from their front door to their neighbor's front door. Of course the lot was extremely deep, you couldn't throw a softball from the front of their lot to the back of it and it takes them 3-4 hours to mow the lawn on a riding mower.
Jesus, what's the point of 3 acres in that situation? There are very few fenced lots on the East Coast even on smaller lots, so what's the point in having all that land? (The mindset with fenced yards back there seems to be that "those people" are Californicating the rest of the country.
My brother has five acres in California which is (mostly) not fenced but he can't even see most of his neighbors homes (semi-hilly area) and my nephews are growing up being able to ride their dirt bikes on their own property.
My bro has a 15 minute commute, mine started out like that but has doubled, my uncle commutes an hour to his defense related job near D.C.
I just don't get it. If I was looking for property, I'd want what my brother has, not what my aunt & uncle have, even though they live in the "best" county in Maryland. And I do not wantz most of the currently configured large lot homes being offered.
@ Rob & Pleather Murse & the rest of EN posters:
I really should learn to STFU, y'all astound me. My mantra should be read and learn, read and learn, read and learn, read and learn, and while you're doing it, be quiet!
My apologies.
Pleather
re:Shimizu
So you are high above the city in the tritowers and all the sudden Godzilla climbs out of the bay snorting fire. Where do you run to?
You're screwed...
On a more serious note is how to get anywhere. I have been going to Tokyo for 30 years on business. Some folks have 2-2.5 hour commutes each way. They make sure they can catch trains to get them to their job.
The problem is the area you are talking about. It is fairly recent and the train infrastructure is not that developed. You can get around, but you have to get off 1 train, walk a couple blocks to another train line. This is a major PIA when it is raining.
Hey everyone thinks they are going to work locally. Well until their job moves (and they do over time).
Curious
re long lots:
What you are seeing is cheap-ass developers. They want big lots, but do not want the expense of putting in roads. Most towns have zoning code on minimum road frontage. So the lots are narrow and deeeeeeeeeep.
A 2nd reason is that a developer may want to rape all the trees. If he can strip the first 120' off the road on both sides it pays for all the site prep. Then he sits fat, dumb and happy and builds crap homes advertised with big lot sizes and/or sells the "developed" lots to other builders.
A third reason is the town may have a zoning law where there is a X minimum lot size, but half the land has to remain public. An example in my town is a 2a minimum, but the zoning clones want you to cluster build so really you only get an acre to sit on as your other half is down the street with everyone else as a peice of woods. But you still get to pay the taxes on your piece of those woods. So you get long narrow lots to maximize total lots off the street. On a 6a plot, that does not sound right.
Similiarly the zoning can be 2 acres of buildable land. Some developer buys 200 acres but most is a swamp and cannot perc.
The good land is next to the road as the town fathers were no idiots when they built it years ago.
So the developer will rig the plan to get the most lots with that will meet perc tests and add the swamp land behind them to make it look like large lots. Most folks are too stupid to care, they want bragging rights on how many acres they own. Well at least until August when they find out how many insects live on the back 4 acres. Again, you get long, narrow lots.
A fourth reason I have seen several times on the East Coast is that the builder wants to strip the trees AND more importantly the gravel beneath it. They can then backfill with cheap fill or drag some dirt from back of the lot. This way the land is paid for, the prep is paid for, and there is enough money in the cookie jar to pay the taxes until the lots start to sell. Costs the developer just about zip for investment.
The worse are the douchebags that stagger the homes on those narrow lots. Then you have one McMansion looking right into the house/deck of the houses on either side. It can look really creapy.
As long as there are Gomer Pyles to plunk down cash on a pos design like that, there is not much one can do.
Well a town can have zoning laws on percentage of tree culling without a variance and needing a gravel site permit. I have seen extreme douchbag developers try to get around this by trying to put a low income development in the middle of the high end houses just to invoke state snob laws to bypass the town zoning laws. Screw the homebuyers who usually are too stupid to investigate the development. They buy the big home figuring a couple more are going to be next door which will make theirs worth more. Then the public housing is built and they are screwed.
Win-Win for the developer only.
H.
Yeah those long narrow lots are greed driven. The developer spends less on roads and sewers and the municipality spends less on maintenance.
For very large lots I don't have a problem with clustering up to a point.
Public dedications is a bugaboo of mine. Gosh, I've got a lot of issues don't I? ;-)
re:Shimizu -if- they really do have workable nanotube tech then this project is wasting its potential. Let's get busy on the space elevator.
the way I make money = pure & virtuous
the way others make money = greed driven
@ Pleather Murse:
Somehow that makes me think of the various Brutalist projects that were supposed to encourage community but ended up breeding crime, because they included isolated choke points that were perfect for muggers and such.
It can be difficult to predict the social impact of a new kind of building. The project you describe seems just a bit too ambitious for the first try at something like that.
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