Small Y'all: A Cottage Solution to the Housing Problem

Featuring Ben Brown and Bruce Tolar
$49 for 60 minute session, Thursday, November 15, 2012

The devastating impacts of Hurricane Sandy on neighborhoods in the Atlantic coastal states will ramp up discussions about sustainable housing design for a New Normal. Add to that sense of urgency rising concerns about community affordability, energy efficiency and market-relevant housing for downsizing Baby Boomers and coming-of-age Gen Yers.

Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Ben Brown and Bruce Tolar have been working with leaders in innovative home and neighborhood design that satisfies safety standards in storm zones and, even more importantly, broadens choices for sustainable community development everywhere. Read Ben's latest PlaceShakers post on the topic here. And join Ben in this Nov. 15 webinar to learn how lessons from the storm zone are being integrated into housing policy on community and county levels.

A founding member of the USA TODAY and Coastal Living magazine editorial staffs, PlaceMaker Principal Ben Brown brings more than two decades of journalistic experience to community planning advocacy. He was communications director for the precedent-setting 2005 Mississippi Renewal Forum after Hurricane Katrina and for the 2010 Coastal Recovery Commission of Alabama in the wake of the BP oil spill. Ben is a lead blogger on PlaceShakers.

Bringing the experience of decades designing and building commercial and residential structures on the Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas, Bruce Tolar was among those who shaped early designs for Katrina Cottages in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After the historic design charrette that produced recovery and rebuilding plans for coastal Mississippi, he formed a development team to turn cottage plans into real structures in real neighborhoods. He created the Cottage Square model community in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and, by 2012, had supervised the design, site plans and construction of some 80 units in three “pocket neighborhoods” in transit-oriented, infill locations along the Mississippi coast.

R E G I S T E R
Should you have questions or experience any problems, please contact Hazel Borys at (204) 989-0217.

3 Comments

  1. […] up on November 15, is a PlaceMakers cottage housing Placemaking @ Work webinar session that will include Martin County, Florida community development director Kev Freeman and will hit on […]



  2. […] here is that these types of cottages are small homes that can fill in the gaps of a neighborhood. This post from Placemakers (who have developed this concept) also points out that adding this kind of quality […]



  3. […] living, as well as drilling down into how to make that happen at home, with conversations like Small Y’all: A Cottage Solution to the Housing Problem and “Pocket Neighborhoods”: Scale […]