Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise (CNE) has tapped the Incremental Development Alliance (IDA) to help design Missing Middle Housing, multi-family housing with the look and feel of single-family homes, for Chattanooga’s neighborhoods.
Missing Middle Housing types include duplexes, fourplexes, bungalow courts, and live-work units, among others. This project will explore pathways to creating Missing Middle Housing in Chattanooga.
“We believe the proliferation of these building types are an affordable strategy to increase neighborhood walkability, diversify neighborhood building types, provide more affordable and mixed-income housing, grow and diversify our community of multi-family builders, and provide CNE with an expanded toolkit for neighborhood redevelopment,” says Martina Guilfoil, president and CEO of CNE.
With support from the Lyndhurst and Benwood Foundations, CNE and IDA are conducting a series of development implementation charrettes, capacity-building trainings, and educational lectures to create a package of information specific to the Chattanooga region that would prototype three to four building types.
An on-site charrette took place at the beginning of August, and consisted of three days of drawing exercises and meetings with local experts to vet specific components of the building type package. CNE organized local general contractors, specific trade contractors, real estate agents and brokers, property managers, city planning staff, fire marshals, building code officials, architects, community bankers, and key neighborhood stakeholders to take part in the refinement of the building types.
A team led by architect Dan Parolek, creator of the Missing Middle Housing concept, will be in Chattanooga in October to conduct a developer boot camp to help train local developers, contractors, real estate agents, investors, and other key neighborhood stakeholders in building and developing the housing.
“Chattanooga is primed for the evolution of its neighborhood fabric through small residential and mixed use buildings,” says Bob McNutt, real estate development manager at CNE. “However, many regulatory, financial, and procedural barriers are restraining the marketplace from seeing a clear path forward into designing, constructing, and managing building types.”
The buildings will match the architectural character of Chattanooga at large and take into consideration climate and energy-related elements. This approach will set the stage for the development of the prototypes into fully executed buildings, where first-time versus operating costs can be weighed based on end use and the owner’s property management strategies.
For the purposes of this project, there will be an emphasis on residential buildings, with mixed-use options included where appropriate. The buildings must each work in a range of urban contexts, cost equal or less to conventional housing types and be flexible and adaptable to changing conditions over time.
For more information on Missing Middle housing types, visit www.missingmiddlehousing.com.
Source: Chattanooga Neighborhood Enterprise