Homes That Change As Your Needs Do
Mixed use models offer the possibility for owners and tenants to reconfigure structures and spaces as the needs and circumstances of their lives change. This is made possible by ‘performance-based’ zoning and land use regulations that allow uses to change so long as environmental, economic and social concerns are addressed.
Unlike the ‘hard zoning’ models currently in place in most jurisdictions, performance based zoning allows a residence to become an office, a day care, a light manufacturing or assembly facility, or anything else the owner and the neighborhood need, so long as performance standards are met.
Innovative strategies like these help residents stay in their homes and neighborhoods as their lives change. For example, two single people might buy a unit together and live in separate parts of it while renting another part for retail space as below. (As above)
Over the years, they can use different parts of the structure to meet their changing needs, as the sequence beginning above shows. New businesses, new partners, having children and caring for an aging parent can all be accommodated without having to sell out and move on.
This kind of flexibility can provide additional space as families grow, or rental income when additional living space is no longer needed. Since less than one quarter of households in America now consist of the traditional 'two parents and two kids' kind of family many of us grew up in, this model is much more realistic for modern lifestyles.
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