Urban Commons Community in Lake Highlands Is a Sophisticated Taste in Modern

Diane Cheatham will admit her new modern Urban Commons community in Lake Highlands isn’t for everyone. The developer responsible for the award-winning Urban Reserve has designs on a new section of Northeast Dallas at LBJ and Abrams Road — a low-impact sustainable community with high design.

She assembled an impressive lineup of architects and master planners for the Urban Commons community of 83 single-family homes — among the notable, Bang Dang and Rizwan Faruqui of Far+Dang, who will design 46 homes. A boxy row of five Far+Dang-designed homes greets visitors as they enter the community from Forest Star Drive, located on the LBJ access road behind an existing self-storage business. Construction at 130 Winding Way has been underway and the first group of homes are nearly complete.

CandysDirt.com recently sat down with Diane Cheatham to learn more about the project:

CandysDirt: You describe the new Urban Commons as a commons-based master plan based on the Dutch Woonerf concept. What is a commons-based community?

Cheatham: “A commons community has homes that front a common area. Here the common area is 40 feet wide, where there’ll be picnic tables and places to connect. Actually, we’ve got more land devoted to common areas than we have lots. Each group of homes will be called a commons and named for a color in nature like walnut, redwood, rust, and olive.”

Tell us about the lots and the homes.

“They’re single family homes on a townhome-sized lot. Zero lot. They run from 1,000 square feet to 2,800. The homes facing the street have attached garages and others have surface parking or the option to rent a garage.”

So the garages are detached?

“Homeowners can rent a detached garage for $75 a month. And that’s the cool part of it all. The garage rental will offset other costs. The homeowners’ association fee for Urban Commons is projected to be only $30 a month.”

Have you gotten pushback from potential buyers that want a garage for a home in this price point?

“Half of the homes will have attached garages. For the other half, I say why do you want your car to run your life? This community is about common spaces. Parking your car and being outside with your neighbors. When you do a development based on things residents love, it really connects people. You attract people interested [in low-impact homes and common spaces], and get people that are really connected. It’s going to be fun to see.

But yes, there’s going to be people that say there’s no way I’m buying a home with no attached garage.”

What are the price ranges? The Urban Commons website shows $300,000 to $800,000.

“Shelby, I’ve been doing this for 40 years and I’ve never seen prices change like this. The costs are rising. On the far end of the neighborhood, a 1,200 square foot home is going for $500,000.”

Your other project Urban Reserve has a very cohesive look. What are the homes’ materials here in Urban Commons and how did you or the architects choose them?

“The materials need to be white, dark gray or light gray, and they’ll have sloping metal roofs. For each of the commons, they need to look like kissin’ cousins.

For my projects, I’ve always done executive numbering like 310, 316, 302 instead of those long five-digit addresses. By having easy numbers, you have people say ‘I’m Diane, I’m in Walnut 316.’”

From the renderings, you can see aesthetic is ultra modern and unique. Can you expand on that?

“When you’re doing modern houses, you have to do something that makes the homes feel pulled together. Modern architecture is a whole lot of different looks within that style. So we used similar materials to pull them together across different commons. But after the trees are planted, you won’t notice the houses individually as much. Landscaping makes a huge difference.”

How did you select and/or assemble these particular architects?

“They’re all guys I’ve known and worked with for a long time. There’s Josh Nimmo, Far + Dang, and others. Scott Marek comes with a different, calmer softer look. Thad Reeves is a design builder, who I think one of the best in the city.”

Why did you select this parcel of land?

“I love Lake Highlands. I love the land because it had the creek running through it. And yes, it got expensive with flood studies. We’re building a bridge across the creek and a walking path along the creek for residents to enjoy it. So often, communities don’t treat a creek as an amenity, but we wanted to do so here.”

What excites you about this project?

“I love being on the cutting edge of what’s going on. For 40 years I’ve been doing this, but I don’t have a big development machine. I don’t develop the kind of property that appeals to a whole lot of people. It’s a small group of people that want a certain kind of home. The buyer that wants modern architecture and wants sustainability. It’s a particular, sophisticated taste in architecture.”