Generally, this looks pretty decent for infill. I particularly like the gray stucco fronted homes. The gray siding still doesn't look great - but since the color matches the facing it's not as noticable. I think the yellow siding with the red brick facing just looks too suburban. Even the house with light blue siding looks better IMO.



One reason this infill looks decent is because the setbacks are rather appropriate, as well as the spacing between homes.



Good stuff and good find.

I have nothing really to add but the same. I know we all hate siding, but it all looks pretty nice. It at least looks like the developer put some care into it.

Yes.



Either the original home lots had row houses, the homes were much large, or the developer assembled a number of lots and redrew them.

Doug wrote:Couldn't the homes be a little closer to each other?

That's really my only problem with this project - looks pretty decent otherwise.

The coolest looking house in those pictures in the one he cut out of the first picture on the left side. But I bet that's an old house.

^Cool looking except it has its front yard fenced. Fences should only be for back yards. A very little front setback, if any, would take care of the urge to fence off what essentially forms a public room between street walls in an urban setting.



Plus, if a side yard is wide enough for a fence, instead of just a gate, then the houses are obviously too far apart for an urban setting.

Doug wrote:Couldn't the homes be a little closer to each other?

I don't believe they're allowed to build houses today as close together as you and I would like. Our lot in TGS is 26'6" x 140' and I can reach out and touch the neighboring houses. But if I'm reading it correctly, it looks like the current building code states that a lot must be 4,000 square feet and must have a side yard of at least 4 feet with both side yards combined being no less than 10 feet. How wide would you say those houses that appear to have way too much space between them are? The narrow-most ones 25 feet wide maybe? This would mean that if the developer chose to build with the minimum of 5 feet on each side yard, plus the 25 foot house width, the lot would have to be about 115 feet deep to satisfy the square footage requirement. I haven't driven through this neighborhood lately so I couldn't tell you how deep the lots are exactly. In some of the pictures they look fairly shallow.



But I imagine the developer was met with the challenge of square footage versus minimum side yard depth constraints versus /insert some other constraint/. Purely a theory but I figured I'd throw it out there.



Not at all bad looking infill though! The stucco houses are nice even with stucco being a front veneer only. It does appear they have at least tried to match the siding color with other details on the brick front veneer. And they have used various styles and brick colors which helps dilute the 'cookie cutter' feel of suburbia. That's better than most infill I've seen.







Data source:

http://www.slpl.lib.mo.us/cco/code/data/t2620.htm



26.20.070 Side yard.



There shall be provided a side yard of not less than four (4) feet in width on each side of a building, and the total width of both side yards shall be not less than ten (10) feet; provided however, that lots of record prior to the effective date of the Zoning Code having a width of less than (40) feet, may reduce the total side yard width by an amount equal to one-half (1/2) the difference between the width of such lot and forty (40) feet, but in no case shall either side yard be less than three (3) feet in width. (Ord. 62588 § 3 (part), 1992.)



26.20.090 Density of populations.



A. Except as provided in Section 26.20.020.B, there shall be a lot area of not less than four thousand (4,000) square feet for each dwelling unit. Lots of record prior to the effective date of Ordinance 45309 having an area of less than four thousand (4,000) square feet may be used for one (1) single-family dwelling provided the yard regulations of this section are complied with.



B. Conversion town houses dwellings shall not be required to have a minimum lot area. (Ord. 64868 § 4, 2000: prior: Ord. 62588 § 3 (part), 1992.)

It appears that a zoning update is in order for allowing urban lot density in an urban city.



The architect did well in attention to detail for the front facades of the homes.