EDITORIAL: A new neighborhood enhanced by an old idea

The Port Washington Plan Commission and Common Council are getting close to approving the biggest development of its kind in the city’s history.

No, it’s not the data center that is sliding toward Port like a monstrous glacier on a slippery slope. Rather, it’s a development that, unlike the approaching largest data center in the country with its 2,000-acre expanse of buildings resembling multistory warehouses, power substations, transmission lines, generators and ever present noise, will make Port Washington a better place to live.

This development is a subdivision designed to be a traditional residential neighborhood with affordable housing and other features valued by families seeking a community to call their hometown.

Named The Farm, the development, on 39 acres of land along Grand Avenue at the western edge of the city, with 263 homes in a mix of single-family houses, townhouses and apartments, will be the biggest subdivision ever in Port Washington. Its distinctive feature will be the single-family homes arranged in compact blocks with front doors and porches facing close-by sidewalks and streets.

Not a single garage door will be seen from the streets, because the garages will be in back, accessible by a revival of an amenity that was once a staple of the handsome 20th century urban neighborhoods of Port Washington and similar small towns. The rows of houses facing streets will share alleys along their backyards.

The subdivision has been a long time in coming. The city has owned the land for 15 years, but has used the time to get this important development right. In some other projects, it has seemed that city officials deferred too generously to developers’ wishes, but that is clearly not happening in the case of The Farm.

City officials had a vision of a new residential neighborhood with small lots and affordable houses, and the Plan Commission, Common Council and city planner have stayed true to it. The alleys were an essential element, and when the developer submitted a proposal that omitted them, they didn’t hesitate to veto the project.

Mequon developer Cindy Shaffer came back with an improved design that restored the alleys and the neighborhood-design advantages that come with them.

Most notable among those advantages will be an appealing streetscape. Without the yawning garages so common to the facades of the large houses in modern subdivisions, the homes in The Farm will nestle close to the sidewalk, which will be an especially safe and convenient space for walkers and playing children, since no driveways will cross it.

Those ubiquitous wheeled trash containers will never appear on the street on trash pick-up day because they will be in back along the alleys, where trucks will empty them without interfering with street traffic. The alleys will be the route for all of the utilities serving the homes. Garages will open onto the lighted alleys and the backyards around them will have space for gardens, patios and children’s playsets.

Port Washington is fortunate to have models showing what the alley concept can contribute to a community. The stately older homes of various architectural styles that face Milwaukee Street a few blocks from the city center, for example, are served by alleys behind them that lend grace and a convenient way of living to the neighborhood.

The eventual residents of The Farm will enjoy those features along with another significant benefit: They will be living about as far away from the data center as is possible in the city.