Cottage housing is expanding here

More "cottage housing" is planned for Ballard, a type of housing designed around sharing space with your neighbors while allowing more separation than a condominium or town home.

Only allowed in areas of the city zoned multi-family, cottage housing is a "zoning rarity," said Jolie Lewis, of Gerrard, Beattie and Knapp Realtors. Some have questioned its use in the city.

It's an uncommon development in Ballard and the rest of the city because of certain zoning and lot size requirements. As well as being zoned multi-family, which makes up just 7 percent of the city, the site must be at least 6,400 square feet and allows one unit per 1,600 square feet of lot for cottage housing.

Lewis is handling the sales for the only two cottage developments in Ballard; the 60th Street Cottages already under construction at 2203 and 2213 N.W. 60th St. and another six-unit project still in permitting stages at 1548 N.W. 61st St.

Nine homes will be included in the 60th Street Cottages and should be up for sale by August, said Lewis. Prince ranges from $450,000 to $500,000 per home, roughly the cost of an average new town home.

Permits are still being issued for the other project and construction is expected to start within the next 30 days, said Brittani Ard, a consultant for the developers of both projects, Soleil LLC, a Queen Anne-based company.

Each home will be no larger than 1,300 square and about 17-feet wide, similar to an average town home, and be no taller than 18 feet, or two stories. Living quarters are downstairs with bedrooms upstairs.

The two defining characteristics of cottage housing are shared community space and fully detached units. Homes do not share or connect walls. It's a niche market that's attractive to those who are willing to trade quantity of space for quality of space.

"People like the cottage house feel because of the sense of community it gives you," Ard said.

The living units are built farther apart than most town homes and also have private open space as well as a shared courtyard that each unit opens up into.

"It's more and more a thing people are looking for," Lewis said.

Typical buyers of cottages are first time homebuyers and families who can no longer afford Seattle home prices.

Michael Luis, manager of The Housing Partnership, a group focused on improving the affordability of housing here, said cottage developments could start to be an important part of the area's housing climate.

Cottage housing provides an option that preserves the privacy and personal space of a detached house in a smaller and somewhat less costly unit, he said.

"It's a choice and we don't offer a lot of choices," said Luis.

The housing market has been heavily skewed in two directions, he said; the large mixed-use developments and standard single-family homes. He equated it to walking into a car dealership and being told the only options are a sports utility vehicle or a sub-compact car.

Cottages, while not exactly "affordable," offer something closer to the middle because they are generally less expensive than town homes or condos but cheaper than a newer house.

"The cottage idea doesn't work really well as affordable housing," he said. "Affordability is always a relative term. No one is going to build affordable housing in Seattle unless it's subsidized. Land is too expensive."

Luis predicts the town home market will begin to suffer because people aren't happy with the "rinky-dink" design and poor quality of some, while the cost seems to be rising. He suspects the city may begin to see more cottages, instead.

An exception to the zoning requirements was made when the city initiated a demonstration program in the late 1990's to build the Ravenna Cottages in a single-family neighborhood at 6318 Fifth Ave. N.E. The program was meant to expand Seattle's housing options and increase affordability.

But there were concerns with parking, privacy, traffic, and neighborhood context and character if cottages were allowed in single-family zones. They've built in multi-family areas since 1994.

In February 2006, the City of Shoreline actually repealed its provisions that allowed cottage housing in single-family zones. The guidelines had been adopted at the turn of the century as an approach to reduce suburban sprawl by putting more houses closer to the urban center.

Several Shoreline residents felt that type housing was a sneaky way of getting multifamily density into neighborhoods with single-family zoning. There were other "major discomforts," too, said Paul Cohen, a senior planner for Shoreline, such as design quality and lack of predictability where they might be developed.

Rebekah Schilperoort can be reached at 783-1244 or rebekahs@robinsonnews.com.