The Times Express
Monroeville townhouse trend strong;
three developments adding units locally
By Joey DiGuglielmo, Staff Writer
September 27, 2006

Anyone who moves to Monroeville in the next year or so, or buys another house in the municipality, will have three new townhouse developments to choose from, reflecting a national housing trend that has continued to grow without any direct tie to the now-softer "bubble" in the U.S. housing market.

Monroeville, like its big brother, Pittsburgh, never saw its houses going for the outrageously high prices they were selling for in markets such as Boston, Los Angeles, San Fran-cisco or Washington, D.C.

The region has been more in sync, though, with the popularity of townhouses. While Monroeville land is maxed out to the degree that no new neighborhoods the size of, say, Garden City or Alpine Village -- which are comprised of single-family dwellings -- will be built, townhouse developments remain popular.

Of the three in the works, one's a behemoth; the other two are much smaller.

Land is being prepped for an 80-unit townhouse development off Haymaker Road, a joint effort between The Mer-itage Group and Ryan Homes. It was approved by Monroe-ville Council in summer 2005.

A four-unit townhouse dev-elopment was approved earlier this year for local developer Scott Beley on the old Walko property off Haymaker Road.

In September, a five-unit townhouse development was approved for Walnut Capital at the intersection of Ivanhoe Drive and Fox Plan Road.

Townhouses are popular because they appeal to developers, builders and homeowners. Members of the National Association of Home Builders said in a blog posted in January at The Plan Collection Web site that multi-family units are the No. 1 trend in the housing market.

"Rising costs have put the price of the most basic single-family home out of reach for median-income families," the blog said. "Consequently, be-cause building townhouses, duplexes and other smaller-scale attached products is not so different from building detached houses and because increased density can reduce land cost, custom builders are beginning to enter this market."

Monroeville has recognized its need for new and different types of houses.

In last year's comprehensive plan update, one weakness planning commission members identified in the municipality was a lack of affordable housing opportunities attractive to young families, though the plan also pointed out the lack of a method to govern mixes of housing types.

That's one reason dozens of Haymaker residents objected to the Meritage project. They said the Ryan product was impressive -- they just didn't want townhouses near their single-family dwellings.

That project and Beley's encountered substantial opposition. Nobody batted an eye at the Walnut proposal.

"You have a commercial building behind it, which is Lowe's, and a high-density apartment building next to it, so nobody cared," says Bern-hard Erb, chairman of Mon-roeville Planning Commis-sion.

Erb said he especially likes these concepts because all three, as association-run complexes, will have continuity.

"One thing you get with some condo complexes is fences in 15 different styles that are in 15 different states of disrepair and it looks awful," Erb says.

"At least with these (association-run) plans, you know that if they're in a state of disrepair, it's because the association failed."

John Danzilli, a Mon-roeville councilman, says offering different types of housing is important for Monroeville to remain an attractive, viable community for new residents.

"You have to have different types of housing to attract different kinds of people," he says.

"People have different likes and dislikes. A lot of these townhouses appeal to elderly people who don't want to cut the grass anymore. Me, I like to cut the grass, so, you know, different strokes for different folks."

Two markets that developers say gravitate to townhouses are young professionals who don't want the burden of property maintenance and "empty nesters" who want to downsize.

But as the national trend has seen residents returning to large cities and away from the suburbs, a shift that has been well documented, townhouses provide high-density alternatives attractive to some.

"Everybody's time is compressed," Erb says.

"There's not one person I talk to who isn't pressed .... Sure, part of that is personal choice and what we commit to, but it's part of the culture and there's certainly a portion of the culture who finds that high-density, low-maintenance prospect very attractive -- things like a gym and other amenities you don't get in a single-family structure."

"It's definitely where our society is heading," says Blair Cohen, a real estate agent with RE/MAX Realty Centre in Monroeville. "Townhouses are part of that."

Cohen says the local housing market remains strong, though off slightly from 2005, a record year.

"You hear people say, 'Oh, it's going down,' and so on, but you have to remember, last year was a record year, so down slightly from that is still really, really high," he says.

Developers have said their appearances at televised Monroeville meetings are great chances to get the word out.

Developer Jim Rumbaugh, president of The Meritage Group, said he was inundated with calls after appearing before the planning commission and council.

Beley said he, too, had several calls.

Townhouses are also appealing to anyone downsizing because newly built small, single-family houses are un-common.

High construction costs mean large houses, such as the ones being built in Monroeville's Glen Arden development, are the norm -- not the smaller, existing houses in neighborhoods such as Garden City or Alpine Village.

Those kinds of developments aren't worth building today, Cohen says.

Interest rates on loans have also contributed to a relatively healthy local market.

"With the fixed rates, it's a lot easier to own a home now than people realize," Cohen says.

"This is different from the new townhouses, but the re-sale market is great. You can get a home with next to nothing down."

The new Monroeville townhouses will be similarly priced.

The Ryan units will start at about $190,000. Beley's start at about $200,000. Both can go up to about $240,000.

Walnut Capital didn't an-nounce prices for its plan.

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