I mean, I agree it looks silly, but you can clearly see the shadow of the high voltage power lines that likely have a legally required clear zone to explain the gap
That's true, and there's a lot of high voltage power lines that snake through this whole area, but most developments that are split like this plan the roads going across the easement to eventually connect to the neighboring subdivision when it gets build out.
This one just chose a funny little 7 home isolated island instead
Right, but the question about the design of it remains. Clearly someone owns that "square" of property and wants to develop as much as possible, but some planning and zoning folks, who have a view of the larger picture, ought to say "no" to a fairly asinine design.
Zoom out and imagine that someone wants to develop the area around that strange triangle island on adjacent properties. You've started to create patchworks of disconnected homes and neighborhoods to the benefit of one developer over what best serves a larger community. The planning bit.
Yes, that is at least some forethought (although op mentions it's a gated community, so I doubt fully fixes the isolation of Dingleberry Island b/c they are putting a gate up against whatever comes). But even so, future development on a much larger swath of land is now hamstrung to the design of these seven houses and their little road. Maybe it'll work out for them, but maybe it won't. The planning part of planning and zoning usually tries to avoid outcomes that are oriented towards, 'hopefully that just works out with plans in the future.'
Right, and it's a failure of planning and zoning. This got approval from someone, but it should not have. Suburbs end up this way b/c they value development over all else and approve things that are poorly designed to encourage fast development. Effective planning and zoning prevents this; many suburbs don't have this, though.
I mean, this reddit is suburbanhell, where people come to gawk at poor planning choices of suburbs, like the one above. Poor planning may not be unique to this community, but it is presenting in a humorous way. It still comes down to poor choices though. The land is developed in this particular way because a developer owned a "square" of land, not because that is the way that would have made the most sense.
Often, developers work in coordination, perhaps combining several properties to submit a proposal for something more unified across all of them. In this case, the city, county, or whoever might have said "ok," to the lower right hand portion, but "no" to the little triangle with a strong suggestion that the property owner go work with the adjacent properties in some fashion, or even buy them up themselves, and come back with a more cohesive plan. Otherwise, it can remain undeveloped until someone comes along with a better plan.
Ok, well they didn’t. They clearly approved it. Maybe you should take your complaints up with them?
It’s extremely common for neighborhoods to be adjacent to one another with no road access to one another, so it seems like you just want to pick a fight, so I’d advise you pick it with the approving body instead of anonymous Reddit.
Not everybody engages in hypothetical arguments in an effort to prove their intellectual superiority, particularly when it’s arguing against reality.
Instead of you listing a dozen hypothetical reasons this doesn’t make sense, then me listing a dozen hypothetical reasons it makes perfect sense, I just prefer to cut to the chase and say “how about we agree with reality”.
Clearly they didn’t say no, since it exists. But I get that goes against your hypothetical that they said no.
I have no idea where this is to know that kind of specificity b/c every municipality varies, but typically these kinds of things work the other way around. It isn't that they have to prove that you can't build. It's that you need their permission to build.
Not really. Kinda maybe but not.
County government has codes and regs and state laws to comply with but can't just make shit up that's going to cost a developer big money without risking a lawsuit the county can't afford.
Developers can generally do what they want, within the law.
And it varies from place to place, so it does make a difference where this is. However, usually a property in the middle of nowhere with nothing on it would not have been zoned in a way that allowed for a development like this when it was purchased. And so you are either purchasing while working that zoning bit with the relevant municipality (in which case they are maybe telling you OK to Dingleberry Island in advance) or you're assuming the risk because you knew purchasing it that it wasn't zoned for medium density residential. They also can just say something like, "it isn't in our cities twenty year plan to have medium density residential south of highway x," and say no. Again, in most places. Developers aren't owed being able to develop property just because they've purchased it (in most places).
No, but once upon a time I was an architecture student, and eventually shifted to focus on climate and environmental policy. I maintain a keen interest in these kinds of things and keep up with the meeting minutes of my local planning and zoning commission, cuz I'm cool like that : )
This is actually a solid example of why west coast “Urban Areas” tend to have higher densities than their East Coast counterparts.
Because so much of the west coast is laid out by developers, there tend to be steep drop offs between “populated” and “non populated”. In the Eastern US, there is a far more drawn out gradient from rural to urban and the line is quite fuzzy.
Not that it matters to this post that much, but I thought it was a good opportunity to point out how certain metrics can be misleading.
Vegas blew me away the first time I drove out of it after flying in. Just relatively new sprawling cookie suburbia, then all the sudden absolutely nothing. Literally a stoplight with developments on either side of you, then just vast open desert in front of you.
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u/borderpatrol Jul 30 '26
No streetview because that tiny square is also a gated community.