OCTOBER 28, 2002
INDIANAPOLIS BUSINESS JOURNAL
At Home Quarterly

‘Back to Grandma’s house’
Stonegate latest to join New Urbanism development trend
By Scott Palmer
Special to IBJ

Take a traditional housing development, minus the houses. Add trees, hills, creeks, lakes, walking paths, a chapel, an elementary school, professional office space and a retail district. Divide the remaining land into neighborhoods for houses in various styles and at various price points.

Within each neighborhood, sell the lots to people who agree to build homes that follow strict architectural guidelines. Lot purchasers can work with any of 11 “charter builders” or choose their own builder, as long as they follow the guidelines. Garages can’t face the street. Each home must follow a specific architectural style, such as Victorian or Colonial, and must not mix different styles. The result is Stonegate, a 200-acre residential housing development just West of Zionsville and east of Interstate 65. Stonegate is based on the Traditional Neighborhood Development, or TND, model, meaning it combines houses of different types with retail shops and community-building features. Also known as New Urbanism, it’s an increasingly popular way to develop housing communities locally and nationally.

“A TND design differs from more common suburban developments in that it creates enclaves for commercial and retail, various residential styles, and service or recreation all within the development,; said Brent Smith, assistant professor of real estate at Western Michigan University. “That limits the “need for automobile travel and commuting.î But the appeal is more than practical, Smith said.

“TND fosters a nostalgic notion of community and neighborly interaction; he said.
“What we are trying to do is re-create the kind of community that existed in the past,” said Larry Reitz Jr., Stonegate project manager and the son of Dr. Lawrence Reitz, an Indianapolis family physician who has owned the land with his wife, Carol, for nearly 30 years. “People lived relatively close to each other and had things they could walk to. There was a mixture of people from different back-grounds and economic groups.”

“In the community where Dad grew up, neighbors had a closeness, children had places to go that were safe, and people could do things without having to drive to them,” Reitz said. “That’s missing today, and it’s what we hope to create.”

According to Reitz, houses-which would be built by the lot purchasers, not by the developer-will probably range from $200,000 to 1 million. In addition, some, neighborhoods will include condominiums and smaller “empty nest” homes.

“We have 11 charter builders,” explained Ken Dalton, a marketing consultant who works with Stonegate. “Each charter builder commits to purchase a certain number of lots at certain intervals. In addition, they must at all times have a home finished or under construction in the development. It assures us that at all times, there will be at least 11 homes for sale [in Stonegate].”

Lot buyers can work with the charter builders, or bring in their own builders if they prefer. Each home design will be reviewed by Gary Weaver Design Group, a local land developer, to ensure that it conforms to the Stonegate architectural guidelines.

Among the approved builders are Hamilton Homes, Homes by Patrick J. O’Connor, Homes by Jay, H.W. Gunn Co., Gunn Homes LLC, Monsey Custom Created Homes and Webb & Co. Builders Inc.

The development is opening one section at a time, with amenities added in the same way. In 2003, construction will begin for a kindergarten-through-4th -grade elementary school on 13 acres that Stonegate donated to the Zionsville school district. A non-denominational chapel is also planned for construction by 2004.

Actual construction on the development began in 2001, with a neighborhood called Stonegate Proper. With roads and other infrastructure nearly completed throughout the development, construction on homes in another neighborhood will begin this fall.

Stonegate is similar to two other developments in the Indianapolis area: Village of West Clay and Centennial, both in Carmel. Both follow the TND model. The 680-acre Village of West Clay is being developed by Brenwick Developmept Co. Inc. Centennial is a project of Estridge Group, which builds all homes in the development. Real estate experts say the TND model followed by these communities is appealing, but harder to implement than conventional developments.

Despite government support for the idea of pedestrian-friendly communities, local regulations have been slow to adapt, said Bob Coolman, president of Coolman & Coolman, a Valparaiso-based development firm.

“While a lot of agencies say they’d like to see this happen, the irony is that most community master plans and government codes make it, very difficult to do,” Coolman said. “To do more compact development, with narrower streets and shorter block lengths, a lot of zoning and development codes [must be changed]. And you have to jump through those hoops’ “

Some developers and home buyers, however, think that it’s worth the extra trouble. “For the developer and builder, it’s a better investment because it’s a more controlled environment,” said Jim Reed, an associate broker at Century 21 Realty Group I in Indianapolis.

“That gives the developer more architectural control, which means that in the long term, it will be a better product and houses will better complement each other. In a conventional subdivision, you might. see a big difference between the quality and style of the different houses. That’s not going to happen [at Stonegate].

Demand for homes in TND communities will double over the next decade, according to a study commissioned by the Congress for the New Urbanism, a trade group that includes developers, architects, and government officials.

Jim Litten, president of the residential real estate services division of F.C. Tucker Co., was enthusiastic about TND in general and Stonegate in particular.î The one thing Stonegate offers that some others do not is the uniqueness of the ground,” he said. “It has some terrain to it, some hills and valleys, it’s wooded. It’s a spectacular piece of ground.”

Litten predicted that communities like Stonegate will continue to become more common.

“People expect more amenities in their neighborhoods: walking paths, retail, playgrounds, and so forth,” he said. “Certainly, some developers don’t want to spend money on the extra infrastructure. They’d rather have an extra five lots for sale than put in a playground. But Stonegate is almost a labor of love: they had a vision of what they wanted. That’s the beginning. It’s more than just putting in roads.”

“It really responds to a consumer need that says, “we want to feel safer and warmer,”’ said Dalton. “‘We want to go back to grandma’s house.”’