Self-Standing Town-sites
This
article is a continuation of previous articles on maintaining sustainable
growth in rural counties. The premise is that if we can increase the number of
kids in the county, the county will sustain itself. In this article we will
discuss the pros and cons of building self-standing town-sites. It is assumed
that a town-site will contain a relatively large amount of kids.
The costs of developing multi-unit subdivisions are very high, so developers tend to want to do villages or towns, preferably with golf courses. This way the cost of the development can be spread over many units and sometimes the golf course is able to subsidize these costs or at least provide financing for the town-site through membership sales.
Apart from the costs of obtaining the land
and subdividing it, the primary costs are road infrastructure, power, water and
sewer services and stormwater management. If there is no existing nearby infrastructure
to tie into, these costs can be too high to be sustained by lot sales.
Most self-standing town-sites will require roadways that are well built, complete with curbs and gutters. In any development with more than a couple dozen lots, the day trips that the roadways will encounter will be in excess of 200 trips per day. It would not make sense to use gravel roadways in these developments.
Due to the density of the housing, a
municipal water system must be developed, either from a local, high producing aquifer
or more often from surface water. There must be sufficient water for both
potable use and firefighting. As this is a municipal water supply,
