Journal of Planning Education and Research

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Choosing a House: The Relationship between Dwelling Type, Perception of Privacy and Residential
Satisfaction
Linda L. Day
Journal of Planning Education and Research 2000 19: 265
DOI: 10.1177/0739456X0001900305

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 Choosing a House: The Relationship Between Dwelling Type,
Perception of Privacy and Residential Satisfaction
Linda L. Day

Subdivision site designers, public agency planners, and developers are obliged to
satisfy homebuyers who want detached houses on big lots, even when land within
commuting distance of job centers is prohibitively expensive. Developers are re- ABSTRACT
sponding to high land costs by offering attached houses and detached houses on This study measures satisfaction of residents
small lots that are sometimes oddly configured. This paper reports the results of a in two new, higher-density suburban subdivi-
post-occupancy evaluation of residential satisfaction with two higher-density sub- sions: one of small detached houses on small
divisions: One has 102 small houses on Z-shaped lots, the other has 90 townhouse lots, the other townhouses. The post-occu-
pancy evaluation found that satisfaction with
units. These houses are the most prevalent choices for people who do not want a housing does not depend on whether a house
house that is part of a building shared by others. I wanted to know how to design is attached or detached and that house design
the homes to give residents the exterior space they need and an acceptable level of can be more important than site design. Put-
privacy. ting more houses on less land makes privacy
more difficult to attain, and it may force a
Most Americans do not want to live in an apartment in a high-density neigh- trade-off between open space and adequate
borhood, even if convenient public transportation will link them to their jobs auto accommodation. The findings support
(Downs 1989; Goodchild 1994). They prefer big detached houses with space be- the kind of regulatory flexibility that will al-
tween themselves and neighbors. While houses are getting bigger and the average low developers to maintain density levels
while allowing residents the space they say
number of autos per household is increasing, lot sizes are getting smaller (Day they need. Adherence to regulatory standards,
1995; Knack 1991; Wentling 1988; Wentling 1991). Still, ownership is the cru- however, is not sufficient in evaluating a sub-
cial variable: If people cannot have a big house on a big lot, they will settle for a division proposal. The planner needs to evalu-
small house or a townhouse that they can afford to buy (Baldassare 1986). ate the location, footprint, and orientation of
each dwelling and to take differences in site
Many jurisdictions prohibit small affordable houses for political, economic, design into account when determining the
ideological, and environmental reasons (Baldassare 1986; Copeland 1990; Downs amount of off-street parking to mandate.
1989). This article is limited to the site-design issues because specific design rec-
ommendations on how to design small houses that are closer together (Bloodgood
1990; Kreager 1992; Marcus, Francis, and Meunier 1987; Richardson 1988;
Wentling 1988; Wentling 1991; Wentling and Bookout 1988; Rybczynski 1991)
have not been empirically evaluated. Only one systematic, theoretically grounded
study (Brown 1991) reflects the North American context. Other studies reflect the
British (Coulson 1980; Goodchild 1994; Winter, Coombes, and Farthing 1993),
Australian (Brown 199 1; Foddy 1977), and Japanese experiences (Savasdisara
1988) with higher-density suburban housing.
* THEORY
Environment-behavior theory seeks to explain the relationship between people
and place and the mechanisms that link them. It builds on empirical-inductive
studies that ask what planning and design professionals need to know about people Linda L. Day is a professor of urban land use
planning and urban design in the Department of
to design for them, how environments affect people, and what mechanisms link City and Regional Planning, California
people and environments (Rapoport 1991). Amos Rapoport, a major contributor Polytechnic State University, San Louis Obispo;
to this body of theory, has offered the framework of choice as a way of thinking Iday@calpoly. edu.

Journal ofPllanning Education and Research 19: 265-275

(© 2000 Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning

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266
about home environments. He says, "The main effect of
environment on people is through choice or habitat selection:
given an opportunity, people avoid or leave some environ-
ments and seek out others" (Rapoport 1985, 257). Cost,
locational, and other kinds of constraints modify and dis-
tort choice but study of the trade-offs people make reveals
what is most important to them (Rapoport 1985; Day
1995).
People choose low-density suburban neighborhoods to
meet their instrumental needs for safe streets and good
public schools and their latent needs for houses that express
a sense of self and allow privacy (Rapoport 1985). Though
part of the reason people want a big lot is to show they can
afford it (Feldman, cited by Knack 1991), many people
correlate privacy with having a detached home on its own
lot (ackson 1985). They believe that having space around
the house adds to their independence and autonomy
(Baumgartner 1988).
Housing research has not supported the homeowner's
belief that a large lot will guarantee privacy from neighbors.
Close physical proximity is less important to perception of
privacy than lack of control over interpersonal interactions
(Aiello and Baum 1979; Altman and Chemers 1980;
Bergdall 1990; Bonnes, Bonaiuto, and Ercolani 1991;
Goodchild 1994; Rapoport 1975, 1991). People need to
think they have control over whether they can see and hear
the neighbors, or smell the food cooking on the neighbor's
outdoor grill. They do this with screens: curtains at win-
dows, awnings on patios, fences and dense vegetation
Figure 1. Kingstowne planned community in Fairfax County, Virginia, includes subdivisions Nottingham
(N) and Chatsworth (C).
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Day
(Rapoport 1985, 1991). House and site designers can make
choices that increase the sense of spaciousness and the level
of control over interaction with neighbors (Devereaux and
Bradford 1995; Rapoport 1985, 1991).
* METHOD
Recognizing the importance of design skill in creating
residential environments that support the need for privacy,
I conducted a basic-information post-occupancy evaluation
(Zimring and Wener 1985) of new houses and townhouses.
My goal was to draw scientifically based conclusions about
the effectiveness of specific house and site design decisions.
The research took place between 1993 and 1996: Residents
had been in their homes for as many as eight years, with an
average of four-and-one-half years. I compared the residen-
tial satisfaction achieved by residents of Nottingham, a
102-unit subdivision of small detached houses on small lots
with that achieved by residents of Chatsworth, a 90-unit
townhouse subdivision.
Nottingham and Chatsworth are part of Kingstowne
(Figure 1), a 1,200-acre master planned community in Al-
exandria, Virginia, a close-in Washington, D.C. suburb.
They are across a collector street from each other, came on
the market at the same time at the same price levels, and
attracted demographically similar buyers. Choosing two
subdivisions in such close proximity that they are in the
same school district and are equally convenient to shop-
ping, jobs, highways, and airports allowed a control for fac-
tors other than dwelling type and site design.
Choosing a House
Nottingham (Figure 2) is a 20.7 acre site surrounded
on three sides by residential collector streets and on the
fourth side by a creek with wooded banks. Diagonal Z-
lots range from 3,500 to 8,500 square feet with an aver-
age of 5,500 square feet. Property lines jog and neighbors
have use easements to allow access to the lot line side of
their homes. Net density in this R-4 zone is 4.9 units per
acre. Subdivision streets conform to Virginia state stan-
HAYFIELD ROAD
3t
y subdivision.
<IL
LD
z Richardson, designer of the Nottingham houses said,
y
Figure 2. Nottingham site plan.
Figure 3. Chatsworth site plan.
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267
dards with a 50-foot right-of-way and a curb-to-curb width
of 38 feet to accommodate two moving lanes and two park-
ing lanes. Chatsworth (Figure 3) and Nottingham are on
either side of an old state highway with a 90-foot right-of-
way that now serves as a neighborhood collector street. Net
density on Chatsworth's 8.8-acre site is 12.5 dwelling units
per acre. Surrounded by residential collector streets on two
sides, it has the amenity of a wooded creek providing 3.25
acres of open space on site. Another amenity is an adjacent
horse farm providing a pleasant pastoral view. Chatsworth's
two streets are private so they did not have to meet state
standards. With a curb-to-curb width of 23 feet, they are
too narrow to accommodate street parking except for one
side of one-way segments of the main street through the
Prices for Nottingham Z-lot houses and Chatsworth
townhouses were in the same range, even though the
houses are smaller than the townhouses. As Walt
"People are paying for 3,000 square feet of space, 1,600
square feet of which is covered by a roof' (Urban Land In-
stitute videotape 1989). The townhouses average 2,200
square feet of interior space with a 200-square-foot private
backyard. House buyers traded-off indoor space for out-
door space. Figures 4 and 5 show one each of the three
Nottingham and the three Chatsworth plans and eleva-
tions. Houses have a two-car attached garage, and most
have space on the driveway apron for two more cars.
Townhouses have a one-car garage on the first of three lev-
els and a driveway with space to park one more car.
Sources of information included telephone interviews
with residents, developers (Thompson 1993; Stauffer
1993), Nottingham's designer (Richardson 1993), and a
personal interview with the development review planner
(Braham 1993) who oversaw the projects; observation of
the use of outdoor space including streets, sidewalks, and
open spaces; graphic analysis of site plans; and an Urban
Land Institute Project Reference File study and videotape
(Urban Land Institute 1989). After completing the resident
interviews, I went back to the developer and planner to
learn their response to resident comments (Stauffer 1998;
Braham 1997, 1998).
Interviews with residents followed guidelines suggested
by Furbey and Goodchild (1986) who recommend careful
piloting to discover the issues important to residents and
the use of open-ended questions that invite people to give
reasons for their choices. They see housing satisfaction
studies as a complement to the participatory design ap-
proach of "community architecture" and the social survey
as a useful way to establish appropriate design and amenity
standards for housing (Furbey and Goodchild 1986).
Residents were asked why they chose their home; what
they like and dislike about their house, outdoor space, and
subdivision; how much choice they had in finding a home;
268
where and how they compromised; if they have plans for
moving and how the subsequent home will be different; if
interior and exterior space are well integrated; whether the
home is far enough away from neighbors and offers privacy
in using outdoor space; if the interior gets enough sun and
has pleasing views; if the subdivision presents an image of
spaciousness and greenery; if parking is adequate for mem-
bers of the household and for guests; whether street width
and parking are satisfactory; and how they would have de-
signed the subdivision differently.
Information from the many sources allowed me to test
hypotheses derived from environment-behavior theory. The
hypotheses explain the role of choice in the selection of
housing environments and the relationship between percep-
tion of density and privacy. I wanted to know which of
many possible design choices best meet the needs of resi-
dents as residents define their needs. Research of this sort
cannot replace the intuition and skill of the designer, but it can
tell the designer what is most important to the user. The need
for this information is apparent from the studies finding that
residents do not evaluate neighborhoods in the same way as
designers and planners (Lansing and Marans 1969; Marans
1976; Winter, Coombes, and Farthing 1993).
I did not sample the populations; instead I attempted to
interview a member of each of Nottingham's and
Chatsworth's households. Response rate to the resident in-
terviews was 75 percent for Nottingham (n=77) and 70 per-
cent for Chatsworth (n=63). For households with more than
one member, I made a telephone interview appointment
with whoever was available or volunteered to be available. In
household characteristics such as gender, age, the presenlce
of children and where household residents work, house and
townhouse residents are demographically similar. Most
households consist of one or two adults, nmaniy of whom
work in governimenit or at one of the nearby military instal-
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Di7y
lations. The mean number of persons per household for
both is 2.16, and 26 percent of the Nottingham households
and 23 percent of the Chatsworth households include chil-
dren. I did not find any correlation between satisfaction
with house or site design and gender, one-person house-
holds, adult-only households, households with children, or
the presence of a retired person.
* FINDINGS
Choice and Trade-Offs
The hypothesis asserted that residents who believe they
had a reasonable amount of choice and reasonable trade-offs
are more likely to find their dwelling satisfactory than resi-
dents who do not believe they had adequate choice. Choice
is an effective predictor of overall satisfaction with dwelling:
71 percent of Hs (residents of the detached houses) who
reported having enough choice were satisfied overall, as were
85 percent of Ts (residents of the townhouses). (The chi
square is 3.841 with 1 degree of freedom (dA and a signifi-
cance level (sl) of 0.05.) The finding of high levels of overall
satisfaction was expected because other studies have found
high levels of satisfaction (Cutter 1982; Fried 1982; Marans
1976; Michelson 1977; Winter, Coombes, and Farthing
1 993). In distinction to these studies, I was able to isolate
the specific attributes contributing to and undermining sat-
isfaction.
Needs
Houses and townhouses each do some things better than
the other: fl4i houses meet the instruLmental need for ad-
equate aLlto accomnmodation; the townhouses meet the la-
tent needs for pleasing views and a spacious and green im-
age. Neither houses nor townhouses meet the latent needs
foi enloughl space arouLnd the house and privacy; both meet
Choosing a House 269

100%
90% * House
80% * Town-
house
70%
6061o
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Resident Guest Street Street
Parking Parking Width Parking

Figure 6. Houses and townhouses: Auto accommodation.

10000M House
90% M Townhouse
80%~
70%~
600o
50% _
400%
30% _
20%0
1000
000-
Space Privacy Views Image
Around House

Figure 7. Houses and townhouses: Latent needs.

Figure 5. A Chatsworth plan and elevation.
the instrumental needs for integration of interior and exterior
space and interiors that get enough sunlight. lThis is not sur-
prising: American homebuilders do a good job with plans that
offer an easy flow of spaces from one to the other and with
creating light-filled interiors. The challenges now are in creat-
ing site designs that offer adequate privacy and achieve higher
density. Figures 6 and 7 compare Nottingham and
Chatsworth auto accommodation and latent need fulfillment.
Privacy
I looked at residents' ability to control intrusions by
screening, the effect of having an open outlook from win-
dows, and other design attributes that influence the percep-
tion of privacy. Many residents say they have adequate out-
door privacy because of landscaping and fences; others say
landscaping is too sparse and fences are inadequate. An open
outlook from the home is important to the perception of
privacy. Nottingham and Chatsworth residents on the pe-
riphery of their subdivisions are the most satisfied with site
planning. Nottingham residents wyith relatively big yards
that back onto the floodplain (see Figure 8) are the most
positive. Many Chatsworth residents, even those with
townhouses surrounded by other townhouses, praise the site
design for the views from decks and living spaces. As one
resident said, "Fhere is not a lot to see, but looking between
units you can see woods and far-off horizons." As Figures 9
and 10 show, the conclusion that those who have an open
outlook are more satisfied with privacy, subdivision image,

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270 Day

and site plan is more true of the Chatsworth townhouse resi-

dents, 55 percent of whom have an open outlook, than the
Nottingham house residents, only 18 percent of whom have
an open outlook.
* DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
I did not find differences in residential satisfaction or per-
ception of privacy that are attributable to dwelling type. An-
swers to the questions about other choices, trade-offs, and
how a future home might differ from the present home sug-
gest that the detached house is an ideal that transcends con-
cerns about house or site design specifics such as having
windows all around or ample car parking close to the dwell-
ing. This supports Michelson's conclusion that the single-
Figure 8. Nottingham houses that back onto theflood- family detached house is a housing ideal to which most
plain. people aspire (Michelson 1977) and parallels Roberta
Feldman's idea of attachment to settlement type (1990).
100% Nottingham's houses were priced higher than the developer
* Open
90% outlook thought they should be for the market he was targeting, es-
80% M Not pecially given their small size and lack of basements
open
70% (Stauffer 1998), yet the subdivision sold out in a record 18
60% months. Nottingham houses continue to be desirable resale
50% alternatives. Chatsworth townhouses do not have the same
40% resale demand: One owner said that unless a townhouse is
30% very low priced, it will not sell. Most owners did not com-
20% plain about Chatsworth's lack of resale potential because
10% they make excellent and profitable rentals.
0% Except for resale potential, which is compensated by
Privacy Spacious Satisfactory rental potential, townhouses are as good a choice as de-
Image Site Plan tached houses, according to the findings on residential satis-
faction or perception of privacy. The findings indicate that
Figure 9. Townhouse residents: Open outlook and satis- people can achieve satisfactory housing when they trade-off
faction. either lot size or the detached house form for a house they
can afford that is in reasonable proximity to job locations.
T100%t Designers have an important role in making a home seem
900o
10000
~~~~~~~~~0Open
outlook
private, especially when space is tight. The major finding is
80% D Not that site design is as important to satisfaction as the design
7Q0 Iopen of the house or townhouse itself.
60% Space Around the House
500o
400o Housing researchers in Britain, where higher-density sub-
3Q0 urban housing is prevalent, have found a point of diminish-
20%_ ing returns in the effort to save land by increasing residential
1000 density. The amount of land needed for open space, schools,
000 and other common uses, such as shopping malls surrounded
Privacy Spacious Satisfactory by car parking, depends on the number of people living in
Image Site Plan an area and not on the amount of land used by their homes
and outdoor spaces. Nonresidential land uses comprise a
Figure 10. House residents: Open outlook and satisfac- larger proportion of land at higher densities; as densities in-
tion. crease, the land saved by putting houses closer together does
not add up to a large share of the developed area (Goodchild
1994, 147). The conclusions reached by a British team
studying satisfaction with space around the home in higher-
density suburban dwellings were similar to the findings re-

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Choosing a House
ported here: discontent with lack of privacy, inadequate gar-
den size, and inadequate or poorly located parking space
(Winter, Coombes, and Farthing 1993).
Whether designing for detached or attached housing, it is
important to give people outdoor space where it makes a
difference between their fronts, backs, and end-of-rows.
The width of streets, sidewalks, and planted parkways be-
tween curb and sidewalk must allow adequate front-to-front
distance. A 60-foot separation is not enough; an 80-foot
separation is enough. If entries face each other at too close a
range, neighbors cannot help knowing who comes, who
goes, and when. The space between townhouse rows needs
to be bigger when the rows turn a corner. If not, the end
unit of one row butts up against the side of the row around
the corner and these units' facing windows are too close.
Give consideration to distance and separation between
decks, and avoid overlook situations from second stories to
decks, where possible.
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
Complaints about outdoor space came from the
Nottingham and Chatsworth residents with the least physi-
cal distance between themselves and neighbors and with
shared territory and responsibility. House residents said that
having more space between a house and the neighbor's
decks and having solid, rather than slatted, fences would
alleviate some of the problems caused by cantankerous
neighbors. Having groups of five or six neighbors share re-
sponsibility for a driveway and landscaping only works
when there is a shared sense of communal responsibility,
unreasonable to assume in subdivisions built for unknown
users. Townhouse residents cited the problems of shared
front stairs and side-by-side deck doors. As one resident put
it, "This means that personal space is shared. If you want to
put a pumpkin out for Halloween, or Christmas decora-
tions, you are intruding on shared space. In back, if neigh-
bors go out on the deck to smoke and your door is open, the
smoke comes right in. Time after time, we have had renters
next door who smoke, and the only way to block the smoke
is to keep the door closed. Another annoyance is having to
listen to the neighbor's wind chimes. Give each home its
own stairs; in the back, don't have the doors side by side."
Screening
Good design and screening can make the difference in
places where it is not possible to give people space, such as
between the sides of houses. Innovative house designs that
fit the site and the angling of houses to offset the entries and
windows of adjacent houses can make up for lack of space.
As one Nottingham resident said, "The distance is not very
great, but the way the houses are sited on the lots makes it
work." Landscaping such as a planted buffer of evergreen
trees between back-to-back homes, street trees between fac-
ing houses, and denser vegetation between houses can screen
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271
D B X R:.-70t:
Figure 11. Townhouses viewedfrom Kingstowne Village
Parkway. I
residents from too-close neighbors and from surrounding
collector streets. Figure 11 is a photo of the Chatsworth
townhouses viewed from Kingstowne's major street. This is
one of the places where landscaping is inadequate. If the
developers of new neighborhoods get residents off to a good
start with landscaping basics, a pattern is established that
will provide ever more screening as the plant materials ma-
ture (Wentling 1995).
Open Space
Housing researchers have found that people see a housing
development that is close to a large area of open space as less
dense because of the open outlook (Marcus and Sarkissian,
cited by Goodchild 1994). In both the subdivisions studied,
there was a strong connection between having an open out-
look from the home and satisfaction with site design. This
supports the attention designers give to the provision of
view corridors and confirms the argument for using leftover
land such as flood plains for linear open space (Girling and
Helphand 1994). Natural drainage areas that people can see
from their houses contribute to a sense of spaciousness and
privacy: The presence of trees, grasses, and a stream tells the
senses something very different than that of other buildings
and people.
Automobile Accommodation
Differences in site design need to be a factor in determin-
ing the amount of street and pocket-lot parking to provide.
If houses have two-car garages with space for two more cars
on the apron, streets are wide enough to accommodate park-
ing on both sides, and houses are far enough apart to allow
one or two cars to park between curb cuts, parking is rarely
a problem. Attached housing developments need to accom-
modate additional household cars, as well as guest cars, in
pocket parking lots. I'ocket lots are a reasonable use of the
space residents want between the ends of rows. If living
spaces are on the second and third level of attached houses,
 272 Day
cars will not block views from the end units. A 20-foot set-
back for car parking on the drive, tree-planted parkways be-
tween sidewalk and curb, and a street wide enough for park-
ing on at least one side adds to the front-to-front distance
between units, provides screening, and accommodates
household and guest cars.
Students in a California Polytechnic State University City
and Regional Planning Department urban design laboratory
redesigned the two subdivisions to respond to resident con-
cerns about site design. Berty Chang shows how all
Chatsworth's residents could enjoy the long views to open
space that contribute so much to satisfaction (Figure 12).
She also increased the number of pocket-lot parking spaces
by using the space between ends of rows. The streets are
nine feet wider and reoriented so that all within the subdivi-
sion connect. There are two connections to the collector
streets bordering the subdivision, rather than only one. Car-
rie Loarie's redesign of Nottingham maintains the density
while eliminating the lots cited by residents as too small or
awkwardly configured by integrating attached houses and
detached houses (Figure 13). Her drawing features bigger
lots with improved dimensions, houses and garages facing
the street, narrower streets, and legal lot lines that are consis-
tent with the use of outdoor space. She has three links be-
tween Nottingham and the surrounding streets, rather than
the single one in the subdivision as it was built.
Figure 12. Chatsworth with reoriented streets and more
pocket-lot parking. * DEVELOPERS/DESIGNER/PLANNERS RESPOND
In response to learning that Nottingham and Chatsworth
residents are not as satisfied with the site design as they are
with dwelling design, developers, the designer, and planners
concede that there are better high-density designs available
now than in the 1980s, when these subdivision were built.
They agree that the high density was necessary to make the
subdivisions affordable to their targeted buyers. Developers
say that Kingstowne was expensive to develop because of
outdated zoning, expensive site development fees, and ma-
rine clay soil, which is hard to build on because of its pro-
pensity to shrink and swell (Stauffer in Urban Land Insti-
tute videotape 1989; Thompson 1993). Skirmishes between
the developer, who wanted to build on 50 percent of the
site, and public officials ended with 40 percent of the site
being developed. This 40 percent had to be densely devel-
oped to make the project financially feasible (Stauffer 1993,
1998; Thompson 1993).
Nottingham's developers sought out a California architect
with a reputation for innovative high-density housing be-
cause they needed townhouse density but wanted some de-
tached houses to compete with the townhouses and stacked
Figure 13. Nottingham with attached and detached flats intended for most of Kingstowne's pods. Figure 14
houses. shows some of the stacked flats that are a part of Kings-
towne's product mix. Walt Richardson, Nottingham's de-
sigtner, used the Z-lot plan because it was the "best solution
at the time to achieve the density developers wanted for

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(Cioosing a Hotl2e 273
Nottingham" (Urban Land
Institute videotape 1989).
Some of his subsequent work
has taken the form of cluster :
development, which groups
the houses on the most
buildable parts of the site
and preserves the rest as un-
developed open space
(Richardson 1993).
Richardson said that
Nottingham's lots could
lhave been bigger but for
Fairfax County's excessive Figure 14. Stackedflats at Kingstowne.
parking requirement and 38-
I
toot wide streets. He thinks
streets of 28 to 32 feet are -qq...v-

sufficient. Nottingham's -11."

streets are 38 feet wide, as
shown in Figure 15.
New Urbanists such as
Peter Calthorpe (1993) sug-
gest that transportation plan-
ners rethink the need for
wide streets and for the hier-.
archies of arterial, collector,
and local streets that are de-
signed to protect local streets
from through traffic. A re- Figure 15. One ofNotting)bham s 38-foot streets.
turn to a grid pattern with
traffic equally shared across the streets of a neighborhood
would result in less need for heavily trafficked collector
streets and for streets wide enough to accommodate fire
trucks and ambulances with no other route to an emergency
(Calthorpe 1993). Using the performance approach to de-
termining appropriate street width (Labs 1991),
Nottingham's streets could be 26 feet wide with one moving
lane and two parking lanes. In deference to the fire depart-
ment and to Nottingham residents who like their wide
streets, l recommend two eight-foot moving lanes and two
eight-foot parking lanes, totaling 32 feet. The student ;ede-
signs of Nottingham and Chatsworth alter street widths to
this standard, narrowing Nottingham streets by four feet to
32 feet and widening Chatsworth's streets by nine feet to 32
feet. Both redesigns offer more connections to the surround-
iing collector stn-eets.
Nottingham's developer responded favorably to the StLl-
dent redesigni that integrates some attached houses into the
Ssubdivision to maintain denisity while eliminating the more
tightly compressed lots (Figure 13). He said that, in the
past, the couLnties did not have zoning that allows developers
to be innovative about site design. Now he is able to do
more interesting projects. One recent development mixes
rcar-load garage townhouses with small-lot detached houses
around center courtyards that provide a pedestrian-oriented
green space. Park Place, an award-winning project for
Reston's Town Center, consists of four-story brick and
limestone townhouses with decks on their flat roofs
(Stauffer 1998).
The Fairfax County Planning Commission Chair says
that the need to preserve Kingstowne's environmental qual-
ity corridors mandated high-density development nodes
(Sell in Urban Land Institute videotape 1989). The develop-
ment review planner speaks to the trade-offs that are neces-
sary when making good site design decisions. Chatsworth's
trade-off was between open space and parking. Kingstowne's
open-space amenities justified the density bonuses its devel-
opers received. The stream valleys are an important amenity
and the source of the long views to woods and wetlands that
C,hatsworth's residents so enjoy. As a planner, he is sensitive
to the question of how to educate the buying public on the
choices they are making.
* THE PLANNER'S ROLE
The development review planner can have a role in de-
signing subdivisions that give residents the exterior space
they need and an acceptable level of privacy. Being effective
in this role would mean being assertive about LIsing good

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274
design standards to evaluate development proposals and
supporting greater choice for home seekers.
Good Design Standards
As key participants in shepherding new neighborhoods
through the approval process, planners state their objective as
"good design." Regulatory standards usually specify height
limits; lot coverage; front, side, and back yard setbacks; park-
ing standards; street standards; and street-tree planting
(Whisenand 1997). These standards are necessary but not suf-
ficient in evaluating a subdivision proposal. Planners must
consider the location, footprint, and plan of each dwelling in
the subdivision because some units may be exemplary while
others are too tight and too constricted in outlook, with neigh-
bors able to look directly into living spaces.
Not surprisingly, given the similar demographics, my re-
search reports that people in townhouses own the same
number of automobiles and have the same number of guests
who arrive in their personal automobiles as people who live
in the detached houses. Despite Nottingham and
Chatsworth meeting the same parking standard of two
spaces per unit for attached dwellings (in the ordinance, a
Z-lot development is considered attached), differences in
site design make a major difference in the amount of park-
ing. Nottingham has two-car garages providing the man-
dated parking. Most dwellings have space for two cars on
the apron, streets are wide enough to accommodate parking
on both sides, and houses are far enough apart to allow one
or two cars to park between curb cuts.
At Chatsworth, the parking standard is met by the one-
car garages with space for one more car on the apron. Over-
flow resident cars and all guest cars are provided with 37
pocket-lot spots and street parking on one side of limited
segments of the main subdivision street. As shown in Berty
Chang's redesign of Chatsworth (Figure 12), pocket lots
providing one guest spot per residence plus street parking on
at least one side would adequately accommodate overflow
resident cars and guest cars. Chatsworth's parking problems
were the inspiration for an amendment to the Fairfax
County zoning code that increases the parking requirement
for attached dwellings from two to two-and-one-third spaces
per unit (Braham 1997).
Greater Choice
Because choice is a predictor of residential satisfaction,
increasing the range of choices within a given subdivision
increases the range of choices overall; with greater diversity,
there is greater choice. The range of choices can be increased
by varying lot sizes and types, view possibilities, dwelling
types, and house-garage configurations and by keeping
block lengths short, about 300 feet, to give walkers more
choices in getting from here to there. Having some lots
larger than others will give the person who gardens more
land and the neighbor who wants a minimal yard more dis-
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Day
tance from the next-door dwelling. Combining lot types
such as Z-lots, diagonal Z-lots, narrow-deep, and wide-shal-
low lots within the same subdivision will make it easier to
design linear open spaces that respond to typographic and
hydrologic conditions. Linear open spaces offer more resi-
dents the possibility of a view to open space both by being
view corridors and by being views.
Integrating a variety of dwelling types including attached
units and accessory units for detached houses into the same
new neighborhood allows people at different life stages to
live near each other. For example, blocks of mostly detached
houses might have duplexes at their corners because garage
access can occur on both frontages. Varied house-garage
configurations along a block, with some garages at the back
of the lot and others in the front, increase choices and pro-
vide a more interesting streetscape than one dominated by
garage doors. Staggering setbacks and varying the number of
stories also gives greater variety to the streetscape without
adding greatly to the cost of the development. These ideas,
taken from traditional city neighborhoods, are relevant to
higher-density suburban development because they support
the density and they maintain the charm of small towns
(Jarvis 1993).
Planners can be bold in standing up for new ideas about
community design now that there is pressure to accommodate
population growth by building higher-density neighborhoods
and there is money to spend for public goods such as careful
planning services. Planners, designers, and builders can work
together to serve their mutual interest in providing the best
residential environments possible at prices the people who
work in their communities can afford to pay.
Author's Note: Thank you to the residents ofNottingham and Chatsworth,
who gave so generously oftheir time and insights, for the interviews on which
the design recommendations are based.
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