Jessica Kerman
For the Pendleton News
Sarah Brown dreams of her experiences in Austria.
“When I lived in Austria, I worked in a castle up in the mountains,” Brown said. “I would take a trail down the mountain into the village. That particular village I fell in love with.”
After several trips through Europe and some time living there, Brown and her husband Josh, who own Little Village Makers LLC, realized they loved the old towns, because they were built when cars were not the main mode of transportation. The towns were built for pedestrians, where people would live close to the center so they could do all their socializing in one place. The Austrian village Sarah Brown was referring to had about a 2,000-person population and was built 500 years ago.
“It was all oriented around walking rather than driving, because the roads were too narrow for cars,” she said.
Not only did the town intrigue Sarah Brown because of the pedestrian-oriented layout and the colorful architecture, but the town also was family-oriented and community-oriented.
“Families often stayed close and lived close together,” she said. “People worked in their community. The way agriculture was integrated into the community, you would see chickens clucking, and people were still using horses.”
Little Village Makers LLC is the development company for Simpler Times Village. The development, if plans pass the Madison County Board of Commissioners, will offer moderate-price homes for mixed use, meaning people can run a hobby farm, a small business and live in the same place. The development is set to use 127 acres in Adams Township, located just south of Anderson.
Simpler Times will join a group of developments in Indiana that claim a “new urbanism” title.
The Village of WestClay, a 680-acre project in Carmel, was the first new urbanist community in Indiana. Emily Beitzel, director of marketing Brenwick Development Company Inc., said the company started selling lots in early 2000.
The proposed 10-year project is almost 80 percent sold out, Beitzel said.
The houses on the lots, which range from 69,000 square feet to 425,000 square feet, are all custom built, meaning every house is different. The community has two different areas. Houses in the estate area, with larger lots, sell at an average of $751,000. Houses in the village area are on smaller lots and sell for an average of $425,000. Lots range in size from 69,000 square feet to 425,000 square feet.
Unlike homes in the Village of WestClay, which sell for more than $3 million, homes in Simpler Times Village are set to sell between $100,000 and $200,000, the Browns said at a Madison County Planning Commission meeting last week.
The average price should be around $170,000, Josh Brown said.
“This is only viable by making it affordable,” he said at the planning commission meeting.
At first, the WestClay project had some opposition, Beitzel said. However, people who live close to the village now have higher property values because of their location, she said.
Simpler Times Village is different from WestClay in several other ways, Josh Brown said.
“WestClay is one step in the right direction,” he said. “We’re four more steps in the right direction. WestClay is the facade of a village where we are the heart of a village.”
Josh Brown said people who live in WestClay are not home in the daytime and do not really embrace the village life.
“Seventy percent of the people who want to move to Simpler Times want to work at home,” he said. “A large number of the people want to homeschool their children.”
Another new urbanist community is developing near Interstate 69, exit 10, where Ohio-based Republic Development is building Saxony. Approved in 2002, the $500 million development will have more than 1 million square feet of retail and 3.5 million square feet of office/industrial space, as well as 1,300 homes. Anson, a community in Boone County, also touts a new urbanism ideal with its 1,700 acres.
Eric Kelly, professor of urban planning at Ball State University in Muncie, said Simpler Times would different from WestClay, Saxony and Anson.
“With the mixture of shops and all, it sounds like it’s oriented for tourists, not residents,” he said.
Simpler Times is more “new ruralism” and less new urbanism, Kelly said.
“Simpler Times is trying to capture what Fortville and Pendleton were like 30 or 40 years ago,” he said.
To develop plans and style for Simpler Times Village, Sarah Brown said she used many of the attributes Pendleton has to offer.
A nationwide growth
The trend of new urbanism is not isolated to Indiana, and it’s not new. Developments are popping up all over the United States.
The first recognized new urbanist town was Seaside, Fla., which was developed in 1981 on 80 acres. However, since that time, Kelly said, the town is mostly resorts now. The best-known new urbanist community is Disney-built Celebration, Fla. (However, Disney refused to brand the community new urbanist.)
John Norquist, president and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism, said new urbanist neighborhoods are starting all over the United States. Florida and the Southeast, the Midwest, and California and the Pacific West have seen considerable growth from new urbanist communities, he said.
The Congress for the New Urbanism, which started in 1993, is a group of planners, architects, developers and others who advocate small, walkable communities.
Norquist, who lived in Rushville, said he thought a new urbanist community was viable in Madison County.
“It could be in a big city like Indianapolis, or in a city like Anderson or in a little hamlet,” he said.
The ideal of these communities is to create what cities such as Anderson already had years ago: a downtown where people could walk around and do most of their tasks without driving a car, Norquist said.
“The old downtowns are the ideal,” he said.
According to the Congress for the New Urbanism Web site, there are more than 210 new urbanist communities being constructed in the United States.
Norquist and Kelly said some communities call their projects new urbanism, but use it as just a selling point, not an ideal.
“Some of the projects that are calling themselves new urbanisms, they’re just calling it that,” Kelly said. “This is one of those things that sells. A lot of people have picked up on the name.”
The idea comes from the same thinking that a suburb was originally thought to be, Kelly said.
“It defines the character of small town life,” he said. “Thirty years ago, typically, a suburb was defined as, ‘Oh, I can look out my window and see cows grazing in a field.’ That was really the sort of suburban ideal, which lead to large developments.”
During the past few years, though, people have been rethinking priorities, Kelly said.
“It’s not about being on the edge of town,” he said. “It’s about being close to shopping, close to schools, close to parks.”
Advocates of new urbanism propose that these neighborhoods are environment friendly because the community is planned for pedestrians and bicycle riders. The roads are narrow to keep car-use to a minimum. The shops are close, the schools are close, the parks are close and families have small businesses in their homes.
However, Kelly was not sure the way new urbanism is being implemented in a way that will help the environment.
“New urbanism, people who tout it say it’s going to cure sprawl,” he said. “If you just produce a nice neighborhood in the country, you’re not really reducing urban sprawl.”
Kelly proposed a different plan to reduce the movement away from neighborhood-based business. He used the renovations of the Fall Creek area in Indianapolis as an example.
“That helps sprawl by putting a modern housing in a traditional neighborhood environment.”
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Tax Revenue to be generated
by the village
$2.3 million generated each year**
- $1.5 million to the schools
- $600,000 to the county
- $115,127 to the township
- $2,297 to the state
- $5,551 to solid waste
**Estimates based on 2006 rate
Source: Presentation to Madison County Planning Commission by Mark Zonarich, director of town planning for developer
Shops planned for the community
- Sunnyside Inn and Cafe: Bed and Breakfast close to the town center. The cafe will use “locally produced foods from the village farms whenever possible” to serve breakfast and lunch.
- Music and Memories: Retail of new and used instruments. Owner will provide music lessons. Place planned to be the headquarters of the Village Music Festival.
- Vintage Photos and Costumes: Photo studio and old fashioned photo booth. Also, the shop will rent and sell costumes and be the headquarters of the Village Folk Festival.
- Teacups and Treasures: A place to enjoy a cup of tea and small pastries. Also, the shop will be a retailer for homemade kitchen trinkets and little girls’ dress-up clothing.
- Little Blessings Midwifery: Will provide midwife services, childbirth classes and parenting library. Also will have a gathering room and a play area for small children.
- The Detective Shop: Will help villagers with technological needs in regards to children and monitoring what they do on the Internet. Shop will also sell magnifying glasses, telescopes and other “discovery” tools.
- House of Glass: Canning jars, window repair and glass beads all in one shop. The business will have art classes and supplies for any glass-related need.
- The Painted Taco: A Mexican food restaurant.
- Global Goats Travel Gear: Retailer of travel equipment.
- Just Chocolate: Chocolate candy store.
Source: Little Village Makers LLC Web site, www.ruralvillage.org
