Affordable homes with front porches that better connect residents to their neighbors may soon be easier to construct in Akron, with the selection of an architect who’s been tasked with creating plans that could be used to build new houses across the city.
Grassroots Architecture, an Akron firm in the Cascade Valley neighborhood, has been selected from among six applicants to create pre-reviewed home plans for individuals and developers to use, free of charge, to build in the city. The Made in Akron program is intended to save time and money for people who want to build houses.
“I feel like this is a real opportunity,” said Ryan Grass, who founded the firm. “The goal, and I believe it, is to take away some barriers to building a new house in Akron.”
The five-year-old firm is already at work creating plans for single-family homes, cottages and side-by-side duplexes that could fit into neighborhoods across the city. Similar programs have been successful in other Rust Belt cities, Akron Planning Director Kyle Julien said, and he hopes the city’s effort to create its own pattern book for homes will pay off locally as well.
“We’re extremely excited,” Julien said. “We have high hopes that it’ll shift the dynamic here.”
Saving time and money
While developers will still have to get city approval for their site plans — details about where houses will go on a lot, where the driveway will be, where downspouts will drain and where sewer and gas lines will be placed — the architectural plans themselves will have already been reviewed to ensure they meet the city’s building requirements.
Individuals, nonprofits or other developers will have access to those plans, saving them thousands of dollars on creating them from scratch and the time it would take to get them through an approval process.
Grass said that could amount to anywhere from three to eight months in time saved waiting for review, and Julien said it could be $8,000 that developers don’t have to spend on their own architectural plans.
“We’re talking about thousands and thousands of dollars you’d have to pay up front before you even put a shovel in the ground,” Grass said. “I think it’s a good goal.”
Julien hopes the savings in time and money will make it easier to build homes that people can afford. He also said the plans, and the pattern book itself, are intended to create a visual record of what kind of housing Akron wants built here. That includes porches and other living spaces at the front of the house, to increase sociability and make sidewalks feel safe, and garages that are set back, not prominent.
Those priorities both match the existing homes in the city and help prevent crime and increase neighborliness, Julien said. He said even if builders don’t use what Grass is producing, it will give them a sense of what the city wants to see.
“It’s generalizing the understanding of what the housing standards are and why we have them,” Julien said.
Program could be expanded across Summit County
The city and the Summit County Land Bank are together spending about $80,000 on the project, said Patrick Bravo, the land bank’s executive director. He said he expects the land bank itself will use the plans to build new homes in Akron to increase the number of affordable options locally.
And if there’s interest from other communities, Bravo said he could see the land bank rolling the program out across Summit County.
“It really emphasizes that housing is a priority for us,” he said. “It really will expand the options.”
Grass’ design work is expected to be done at the end of April, in time for the beginning of construction season. In addition to the city-requested plans, which also include a triplex, Grass said he’s also creating a plan for an accessory dwelling unit that can go over a garage or in a backyard.
“I know a lot of neighborhoods it could easily fit,” he said.
Grass’ designs will have options for whether a garage is attached or detached, what direction the lot faces and what style is most appropriate for a neighborhood. He said the variations will let people customize plans while still making selections that fit into Akron’s existing fabric — something that often isn’t the case for off-the-shelf architectural plans.
Once the plans have been OK’d by the city, Grass said, “you can hire a civil engineer and you’re off to the races.”
What has to happen before Akron plans are approved?
Once completed, the designs will go to Summit County’s Division of Building Standards to make sure they have county approval, then to Akron’s Plans and Permits division, Julien said. While the initial designs will be signed off on by both, each usage will still have to be inspected to ensure nothing has changed from the pre-reviewed version.
What the effort does, Julien said, is ensure the developer doesn’t run into roadblocks with their design.
Bravo said he hoped the designs would be used as a tool that could add value for the community — particularly as a way to encourage building new houses in areas where dilapidated homes were torn down and lots are now empty. He said he would consider the project a success if anyone built new homes with Grass’ plans and passed those savings on to buyers.
“We think, we hope, we build this thing, then it will add value,” Bravo said. “If we can help reduce that barrier, then great.”
Bravo said Grass’ proposal rose to the top because he seemed to really understand Akron and what the city and land bank were trying to accomplish. The same was true for Julien — he said Grass could see the layers of challenges in creating a series of designs that were appropriate citywide.
“Ryan has a good sense of what we’re trying to accomplish,” Julien said. “He’s also an Akron guy. He knows the context very well.”
Housing plans can help rebuild community
Grass didn’t grow up in Akron, but after decades in the city — he now lives in West Akron — “I feel like a native,” he said.
While there have been homes demolished and new construction to replace those torn-down houses can be slow, Grass said, he sees this contribution as a way to help restitch the fabric of a community. He’d love to see people begin to build using the plans this year, though Julien said the required city and county approvals may stretch the timeline further.
Still, when they’ve gone through the process, the plans will be ready for anyone to download and take to the city’s building department. Julien said he expects the designs to have a lot of utility.
He’ll consider the project successful if people get permits using Grass’ designs as well as if others’ designs are more in line with what the city is seeking.
Any use of his plans will feel like a win, Grass said.
“I’m excited to be part of something I think is pretty cool in Akron,” he said. “I would just love to see new houses pop up around Akron.”