Area Developer First to Break Ground on Living Smart Narrow Lot Homes

Portland, OR— Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard has joined area developer Jack Wagnon of The Wagnon Company to break ground on the first Living Smart homes at 8172 North Haven. They broke ground on Friday, September 15th at 10:00 am. The developer’s residential construction arm, Prairie View Homes, LLC will build two award winning Higgins house designs—and will include a detached double-car garage with an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) at the back of each lot.

“We definitely have made an impact,” remarked Commissioner Leonard. “The Living Smart program serves as a model for other cities facing similar challenges with neighborhood resistance to in-fill growth.”— “I’m extremely pleased with Portland’s ongoing commitment to leadership with urban planning and growth management.”

Two Vargas house designs with the garage feature will also be built at 4936 SE Knapp Street by Prairie View Homes. “The Living Smart program has provided Portland neighborhoods real value,” said Wagnon. “A historical gap is being filled between proponents of aesthetically pleasing neighborhoods and the skinny lot in-fill builder.”

With smaller homes comes smaller profit margins, so expenses have to be carefully guarded, hence quality custom architecture is rarely used. Prairie View Homes will build each of the Living Smart designs to 100% Green Certification criteria by Earth Advantage, the Pacific Northwest’s standard for sustainable residential construction practices. Wagnon expects to have the four houses completed by February 2007 and has additional lots under development for Living Smart homes.

For more information on Prairie View Homes visit www.prairieviewhomes.net.

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Living Smart—More Information:

Living Smart Program
The Living Smart program arose from growing neighborhood concerns about
single-dwelling infill development on 25-foot wide lots. To help address concerns about the design of these houses, Commissioner Randy Leonard and the Bureau of Development Services (BDS) initiated a design competition. One of the goals of the competition was to create the Portland Catalogue for Narrow House Designs, a catalogue of plans for Portland neighborhoods.

The City contracted with three designers who had winning designs in the 2004 Living Smart: Big Ideas for Small Lots design competition. Portland based Bryan Higgins developed a 1,779 square foot house with two bathrooms and three bedrooms. The Berkeley based team of Roxana Vargas Greenan and Trent Greenan designed two floor plans; the garage option is 1,516 square feet, and the office option is 1,700 square feet. Both options have three bedrooms and three bathrooms. The floor plans may be viewed at www.livingsmartpdx.com.

Bureau of Development Services
The City of Portland’s Bureau of Development Services (BDS) reviews building and mechanical plans for residential and commercial structures, and helps customers understand and apply code regulations regarding life safety, energy conservation, accessibility, and other related issues. BDS staff annually reviews and issues approximately 10,000 building permits, 40,000 plumbing, electrical, mechanical, and sign permits; along with performing over 90,000 permit inspections on 1 & 2 family dwellings and over 60,000 inspections on multifamily dwellings and commercial, retail, and industrial structures. Annually, BDS staff do approximately 1,300 land use reviews, including approximately 350 subdivision and partition reviews. For more information visit www.portlandonline.com/bds or contact Alisa Cour at coura@ci.portland.or.us or (503)-823-4017.

The Wagnon Company and Prairie View Homes, LLC
The Wagnon Company is a privately held partnership of real estate companies offering Development, Construction, and Sales and Marketing. As a wholly-owned subsidiary, Prairie View Homes, LLC is an operative builder specializing in redevelopment and new construction using the latest in sustainable, green building techniques. Each and every new Prairie View Home is “100% green certified” meeting Energy Star and Earth Advantage certification standards. More information may be found at www.wagnoncompany.com

Earth Advantage®
Earth Advantage is a nonprofit sustainability program providing education and training to builders, developers and consumers of Pacific Northwest homes. For more information please visit www.earthadvantage.org