Housing Affordability Pushing Compact Development

"The housing boom's high land prices and growing need to sell lower-priced houses are driving the garage out of sight in several new capital-area home projects. In Roseville, Folsom, Natomas, Rancho Cordova and West Sacramento, garages are filling space once occupied by the backyard and allowing for narrower lots. This alignment between market forces and so-called "smart growth" principles brings builders more income per acre while creating what some say are more pleasing residential street scenes."

" "What they're doing is taking the land they own and redoing it with back alley-load houses," said Kathryn Boyce, analyst for Costa Mesa-based Hanley Wood Market Intelligence. "It allows them to put more houses, more lots on a piece of land. Everybody is putting a pretty spin on it, that it looks more like the olden days."

"But there is a need for this, with the way housing prices are," she said. "Prices are still very unattainable for a lot of buyers."