Housing trend rooted in agriculture

Associated Press

DAVIS, Calif.

“How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm?” asks the old song. The answer may be: Build them an agrihood.

Feeding off the continuing interest in eating fresh, local food, developers are ditching golf courses and designing communities around farms, offering residents a taste of the pastoral life – and tasty produce, too.

The latest incarnation of harvest homes is The Cannery, a community designed around a small farm in Davis, about 20 miles west of California’s capital, Sacramento.

Master developer The New Home Co. was looking to build a neighborhood, not just homes, and market research showed that people wanted to connect to community. So “it made lots of sense to take this 7.5-acre piece of property and turn it into an urban farm, have that be the focus point,” says Kevin Carson, New Home president.

Residents can sign up for a weekly box of produce from the farm, and no matter what their level of participation they get to feel part of something, says Carson. “They can see the pumpkins being harvested or the tomatoes being planted or the different seasons that happen on a farm.”

Building homes close to food sources isn’t new. Back before refrigerated trucks and sophisticated delivery systems, it was the norm. But modern housing design took a different tack as suburbs sprouted around cities.

Developers looking to distinguish their offerings began designing golf course communities. But it turned out many buyers weren’t into golf so much as the view, says Ed McMahon, senior resident fellow at the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C. Since golf courses are big and expensive, developers moved to open spaces, then orchards and pastures, and now gardens and/or urban farms.

It’s still a niche; McMahon is tracking almost 200 projects of various sizes, a fraction of the overall market. Some agrihoods are big, some small. A few involve residents actually working on farms. Most, like The Cannery, have professionals handling the agricultural side of things. But the trend “is growing quite rapidly and there seems to be some interest in it,” says McMahon. “I get a call literally almost once a day from some developer who wants to talk about this.”

Nationwide, examples of agrihoods include Willowsford in Ashburn, Va.; Agritopia near Phoenix, and Prairie Crossing in Grayslake, Ill. In California, The Cannery opened in August 2015 and is planned to be a 547-home community, with prices starting in the $400,000s for town homes. The farm has produced tomatoes, sunflower and corn, which were harvested by volunteers and donated to a food bank.

Among those moving into The Cannery are Samrina and Mylon Marshall, who were attracted by the farm as well as the energy efficiency of their new home, which is equipped with solar panels. Mylon Marshall’s grandfather was a farmer in California’s Central Valley and he spent a little time in the fields. But he doesn’t have much of a green thumb, so the idea of having fresh, local produce without having to actually work the land appealed.

Living in an area where the farm-to-fork movement is particularly strong, “we really have come to appreciate what it means to eat locally and to eat seasonally,” says Samrina Marshall. “Just the concept of being more connected with how food is grown and produced – that’s important to us.”