october 2 2024 work session packet

CENTREVILLE PLANNING COMMISSION

October 2, 2024 Liberty Building - 2nd Floor 107 North Liberty Street 7:00 p.m.

Work Session

A G E N D A

I. CALL TO ORDER – Kara Willis – Chair II. Citizen Comment (Citizens are requested to keep their comments to three minutes) III. Discussion a. Residential in Central Business District Code changes b. Tiny House/sketch concept discussion c. Traditional Neighborhood District – Complete Neighborhood – Planned Unit Development IV. Citizen Comment (Citizens are requested to keep their comments to three minutes)

V. Council Member Report VI. Adjournment the project for The Katrina Cottage Movement A Case Study www.leanurbanism.org

CASE STUDY

Appealing, context-aware designs for small-scale homes in small-scale neighborhoods grabbed national attention during the 2005 Mississippi Renewal Forum after Hurricane Katrina. Though it took far longer for the ideas to find traction than anyone imagined, trial-and-error progress has produced models worth emulating, and just in time to address new realities in housing demand in postrecession America.

Out of the Storm ever,” this was a housing market driven by a sense The idea was of urgency. It was an environment made for new In early 2006, less than six months after Hurrito offer housing thinking about homes and neighborhoods in a cane Katrina blew apart Mississippi’s coastal comnew era.

that could be a munities and flooded New Orleans, a prototype Katrina Cottage designed by Marianne Cusato at But in Mississippi and Louisiana, the hunger safer, more livable the 2005 Mississippi Renewal Forum in Biloxi was for new solutions diminished at about the same alternative to put on display at the International Builders Show rate federal recovery money flooded state and in Orlando. local agencies. And in the hands of local gov-

FEMA trailers.

ernments, those dollars targeted the priority Cusato’s 308-square-foot, Mississippi-vernacular of getting things back to normal as quickly as design was one of several in the Katrina Cottage possible. Which meant, in most places, convenportfolio our architecture team developed during tional suburban development with large homes the Forum. The idea was to offer housing that on large lots at un-walkable distances from emcould be, in the short run, a safer, more livable ployment, shopping and recreation.

alternative to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trailers as emergency housing, To get from that moment to one with viable then transition to permanent homes in permanent models of Katrina Cottage-style neighborhoods neighborhoods. required:

• An act of Congress

At the time, it seemed a no-brainer. With tens of thousands of Mississippians made homeless by

• Tedious negotiations with federal and state

the storm, and with a mandate from then-Govagencies.

ernor Haley Barbour to “build back better than One of the first Katrina Cottages on display.

Credit: Bruce Tolar For each level of bureaucracy the funding had to clear, there were new layers of regulatory, design and engineering guidelines. It was agonizing.

Cottage Square, Ocean Springs, MS Credit: Bruce Tolar

• More than a few dead-end discussions with designs by Steve Mouzon, another pioneer of the

manufactured housing companies and build- Katrina Cottage movement. The structures, all ers resistant to anything that required adjust- designed to withstand 140-mph storm winds and ments to systems they’d mastered. all elevated to accommodate federal flood-plain rules, ranged from a 200-square-foot Mouzon

• And, once the cottages were available, battles studio to a 1,300-square-foot, two-story unit that

with community groups panicked that small- houses Bruce Tolar’s architecture office.

scale homes built with government help would turn into crack houses. During the Forum, we argued for FEMA to divert at least a sliver of the hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency housing relief to what we saw as From Cottage to Neighborhood better solutions for the long haul. But because of In Mississippi, the principal rare exception was FEMA’s statutory mandate to stick to temporary the town of Ocean Springs. There, thanks to his- emergency strategies, the agency resisted.

toric models of walkable urbanism, sympathetic local officials and the tailwind from the Missis- That debate was soon joined in Washington, sippi Renewal Forum, we created a development where Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and partnership for a mixed-use infill project of small the legislative delegations of his state and of Loustructures on narrow lots: Cottage Square. isiana had substantial sway. The result was that in

June of 2006, Congress provided $400 million for Between 2006 and 2010, Cottage Square became an Alternative Housing Pilot Program for FEMA permanent home to seven Katrina Cottage de- to develop and test alternative designs for disaster signs, including Cusato’s original “little yellow housing. And FEMA began working with emerhouse,” a Louisiana-vernacular model built during gency agencies in the five hurricane-affected gulf

a 2006 charrette in Saint Bernard Parish, and two States — Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama Left Image: Installation of Mississippi Cottage.

Credit: Bruce Tolar Right Image: Permanently placed Mississippi Cottages.

Credit: Bruce Tolar CASE STUDY | THe KaTriNa COTTage MOveMeNT 2 At some point, the forces of demography and labor economics will bulldoze past the old barriers to attainable housing and small-scale housing clusters.

Oak Park, Ocean Springs, MS.

Credit: Bruce Tolar and Florida — to get units into recovery areas. housing to deliver homes of site-built quality, provided — and this is a big caveat — manufacturers It was a classic “be careful what you wish for” sit- were held to strict standards of design and materiuation. For each level of bureaucracy the funding als. While the argument over unit costs of manuhad to clear, there were new layers of regulatory, factured or modular housing compared to site-built

design and engineering guidelines. It was ago- structures persists, there’s no arguing about the nizing. And the clock was running. The process potential for controlling quality and speed of conforced delays and pushed costs higher. Develop- struction in a weather-proof factory environment.

ers, builders and communities that might other- All eight Mississippi Cottages were delivered and wise have been interested in participating looked set on permanent foundations within four days.

elsewhere for opportunities. Perhaps because we That brought our first model neighborhood to 15 had already devoted so much time and so many units on the two acres.

resources to making this work, we hung in.

Manufactured Housing Another Model During the Mississippi Renewal Forum, many of Next door to Cottage Square, where an old trailer us became convinced systems-built techniques, park aged into blight, a 29-unit cottage cluster, the including manufactured and modular housing, Cottages at Oak Park, was completed in 2011. a could help close the gap between the costs of developer acquired the land. Construction, a mixbuilding at the levels of design and materials we ture of factory and systems-built techniques and

demanded and the price points we wanted to tar- conventional on-site work, was financed by funds get. That assumption would be tested in a hun- remaining from FEMA’s Alternative Housing Pilot dred painful ways over the next few years. Program and managed by the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA). Units were Finally, in 2008, Cottage Square got eight of the fully leased within 60 days of Oak Park’s opening.

first manufactured units inspired by Katrina Cottage designs. Rebranded as Mississippi Cottages, Nonprofit partners — Mercy Housing and Huthe one-bedroom, 396-square-foot units fell short man Redevelopment, Enterprise Community of the standards of the best designs the Forum Partners and Gulf Coast Renaissance Corporateam created three years earlier. But when they tion — were key players in arranging financing

were settled in place on narrow Cottage Square paths and in coordinating rental management for lots, we immediately achieved two things. the income-qualified housing programs in both Cottage Square and the Cottages at Oak Park.

First, Cottage Square and the government-funded Their participation made it possible to bridge the Mississippi Cottages put to rest concerns that small gap between entirely subsidized, temporary disashad to mean ugly and uncomfortable. People lined ter housing units and permanent, mixed-income up to rent them. And the neighbors’ fears subsided. neighborhoods capable of attracting private-sector investment.

Second, despite the delays and frustrating back-andforth negotiations, this first batch of one-bedroom The Cottages at Oak Park included a private deunits demonstrated the potential of manufactured veloper drawn to such an arrangement. Next, the 3 CASE STUDY | THe KaTriNa COTTage MOveMeNT Lessons from the experience are humbling. They’re about realizing how difficult it is to manage the transition from

business as usual, even when the usual business ignores a readymade market.

Cottages at Second Street, Oak Park, Ocean Springs, MS.

Credit: Bruce Tolar same combination of partners turned to an even as a permanent mindset, it’s nevertheless a permore challenging location in Pass Christian, Mis- spective that continues to corrupt conversations sissippi, where Katrina flooding had all but wiped about community planning and development.

out the town’s neighborhood structures. There, the Cottages at Second Street, another 30-unit Cottage Square and the follow-up projects cottage cluster, arose in early 2012. This time, the demonstrated a viable new approach based on units were elevated eight feet off the ground to ac- market realities.

commodate new FeMa flood plain requirements.

Changing Markets It took seven years, but the opening of the Cottages at Second Street raised the number of perma- New demographic and economic factors are nently located, Katrina Cottage-inspired examples changing the housing sector. Aging Boomers, 78 to 70 units in three neighborhoods. All were leased million strong, are finding that “aging in place” as residences or commercial spaces. All were de- in car-centered exurbs is more difficult than they

signed and built with market-rate appeal, yet made thought. Many who can afford the move are lookviable by public-private partnerships that could be ing to downsize in walkable environments. Many replicated anywhere. who remain will become isolated, causing policy-makers to rethink infrastructure and regulations A complete model for how to do these neighbor- that inhibit density, mixed uses, and mobility.

hoods was in place.

Millennials, even more numerous than the Boomers, are struggling to launch careers and Impediments families with college debt in an economy in slow Lessons from the experience are humbling. They’re recovery. Homeownership is lower than for othabout realizing how difficult it is to manage the er generations. The same goes for cars. They’re transition from business as usual, even when the attracted in higher numbers to rentals in urban

usual business ignores a ready-made market. It’s areas with transit.

been the better part of a century since well-crafted bungalows, cottages and other small-scale The gap between supply and demand for walkable, dwellings defined “home” to most americans — close-in locations is driving up rents and home and since designers and builders produced them prices. Mortgage-lending guidelines have been dion a large scale. The metrics of housing value aled back to the strictest requirements for down

tend to be about size and price per square foot, payments and proof of income at a time when with big being better and small being for losers. middle-class families are struggling to overcome “Affordable” translates to either “subsidized,” devalued net worth and stagnant wages. This is which in turn translates to “projects,” or to “mo- alongside a real estate development/finance/regbile homes,” which implies “trailer trash.” Either ulatory system shaped to prioritize housing of the

way, anything small and affordable threatens to wrong type at the wrong price in the wrong places.

lower market values. While this cannot persist CASE STUDY | THe KaTriNa COTTage MOveMeNT 4

• Partnerships are necessary, at least for now.

Lessons Learned Incentivize living At some point, the forces of demography and To take advantage of this broadening market, we labor economics will bulldoze past the old barin small places should keep in mind what we learned in the Ka- riers to attainable housing and small-scale houswith the options trina Cottage effort. ing clusters, but that will require more examples to demonstrate the opportunities for both

available beyond

• Small-scale housing needs small-scale con- private-sector developers and communities that

the home: parks, texts. Proposing even beautifully designed need affordably priced housing. For now that 800-square-foot units for neighborhoods in requires strategic collaborations between nonplazas, places to which they’ll be surrounded by homes two or profits with a track record of bringing resourceat, drink, and three or five times their size won’t work for res- es and expertise to the table and development/

idents or for the NiMBYs in the neighborhood. construction teams committed to the techshop without They’re better together, if not in a stand-alone niques above.

having to get into Cottage Square-type infill community, then in what Ross Chapin calls a “pocket neighbora car.

hood” of homes site-planned together within a broader residential or mixed-use context.

• Infill locations rule. You incentivize living in

small places with the options available beyond the walls of the home: easily accessible parks and plazas, and places to eat and drink and shop. All without having to get into a car for every task.

• Design really, really matters. The smaller the

space, the more crucial the need for livability and for eye-pleasing detail. This includes interior space — particularly attention to ceiling height, lighting, open floor plans, etc. and it includes the look and feel of what’s just outside the door in the way of landscaping and privacy-protecting features. To overcome the inevitable NiMBY suspicion and the political veto their fears can influence, these little homes have to signal quality and curb appeal equal to or beyond that of

adjacent neighbors in bigger dwellings.

The Project for Lean Urbanism is managed by the Center for Applied Transect Studies.

The Project is supported by the John S. and James L.

Knight Foundation and the Kresge Foundation.

Bruce B. Tolar is an architect, planner, and de- as a developer of model cottage communities in veloper living on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. To- the state.

lar helped shape the Katrina Cottage movement, first as a member of the Mississippi renewal team created by the Governor’s Commission, and later Ben Brown is a career journalist with national Ben has worked with architects, planners and lonewspapers and magazines who turned his full- cal officials in the gulf hurricane zones and betime attention to Smart Growth advocacy in the yond on cottage neighborhood solutions to both

late 1990s. He was communications director for resilience challenges and to changing demographthe Mississippi Renewal Forum in the wake of ic and market demands. He’s been a partner in the Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Coastal Re- international consulting firm, PlaceMakers, LLC, covery Commission of alabama after the BP Oil since 2008.

Spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Since 2005, 5 CASE STUDY | THe KaTriNa COTTage MOveMeNT