A new housing development being developed in Warwick, New York is causing some surprising waves in the planning community by embracing a concept as old as the hills: village life.
“We took some time and studied the planning and the dynamics of New England villages and villages throughout Europe and put their ideas into practice when we designed Warwick Grove,” Lou Marquette, executive vice president of the Leyland Alliance (the company developing the project) explained.
The result of their efforts has been a livable, walkable community, not quite a mile from Warwick’s village center that occupies a small fraction of the land that a community with a similar amount of housing units and square footage wold take. And it’s getting the attention of planners, architects, builders and land conservationists around the world.
The type of development is loosely known under the rubric of “The New Urbanism.” The philosophy behind this building and development style is basically to create a very people-friendly space that utilizes the smallest possible footprint on the land, saving far more of a given development parcel for Green Space. Another concept of the New Urbanism is that there is a realistic mix of home prices within the same footprint that allows for the widest diversity of incomes and ages feasible, bringing a rich wealth of diversity to any community espousing these ideals.
So Warwick Grove is a mix of housing types, community buildings, squares and greens, parks paths and wildlife areas that snuggles into its Hudson Valley woodlands spot, looking like has been growing there for the past 200 years. Federalist style homes mix with shingle style cottages. Townhomes mix with condos in buildings looking like they might once have had another use entirely. Little is homogenized or sterile. In fact, for a planned community, it’s about as far from Levittown as one can get.
And people are responding to its unique design. While the community is priced even or slightly higher than other homes in the area, even as the real estate market starts to lose some of its former sparkle, homes in Warwick Grove are still in high demand.
“I keep hearing from other realtors that nothing is selling in the area, right now – except us,” said Monica Quigley, vice president of sales and marketing.
“Warwick Grove was planned according to the principles of traditional neighborhood design,” Marquette explained. it’s an approach that emphasizes people, not only cars, and includes a variety of designs – not just cookie cutter homes….and people are responding to it.
While there had been trepidation on the part of local planners prior to approving the project, Town of Warwick officials are now solidly on board with the concept, pointing out that for a community so deeply aware of the shrinking of its farmland and Greenspace, looking at development that melds with the environment and conserves much more of that open space is a win-win situation.
The community, while only about 30 percent of the way into its build-out is already attracting attention from home and design magazines, as well. To date, some of the homes in the neighborhood have been featured in publications like Fine Building Houses. Decorating Ideas, Professional Builder and Builder magazines. They have also hosted groups of curious architects and planners from as far away as China.
For more information: www.warwick-grove.com
