With good land hard to find, developers are cashing in: on strangely configured sites. Think of a trapezoidal house, a 35-foot-wide golfer's retreat and a 'cow's face' plot.
"The shape of things to come in suburbia is... weird. After a real-estate boom that has made land in desirable neighborhoods scarce and expensive, more builders and homeowners are buying up the strips and scraps.
It's the real-estate version of quilting. They're squeezing expensive homes onto properties once considered uninhabitable, and carving gerrymandered parcels out of wetlands and steep hillsides. Odd lots are also bringing in speculators, who are buying up tiny triangles and roadside strips at auction, then bundling them for resale and profit.
...But these days, odd-lot economics makes it hard to resist developing the unusually shaped parcels. In spite of the lots' shortcomings, developers typically charge as much per acre for spatially challenged lots as they do for more classic squares or rectangles. At RiverCamps in Panama City, Fla. -- the development where Mr. Thompson bought his 1.7 acres -- lots average about an acre, and all are priced depending on the view, not the shape, according to Mr. Fox."
Read the full story: Builders Wedge Homes In on Oddly Shaped Lots
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
Data reveals that NYC’s bet on congestion pricing has paid off
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HUD modernizes 50-year-old manufactured housing framework
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Boston connects suburbs to the city with 5 free bus routes
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Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
County of Mendocino
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
Montrose County
Northern Illinois Transit Authority (NITA)
The Pocatello Development Authority