Old idea for new homes: living in it now, later

Two trends, one involving land use and the other an aging population, are heading for a collision that's bound to affect residents in the region's southwest suburbs and beyond.

Locally as well as nationally, the term "aging in place" is popping up more frequently as millions of baby boomers face retirement. The term embraces the notion that retirees, through modifications to their homes, can remain in their residences as they get older.

Those designs hark to the single-level, ranch-style houses that defined suburban construction in the 1950s and '60s. They call for such features as wider, wheelchair-accessible doorways and master bedrooms and laundry facilities on the main floor. The designs not only eliminate stairs -- something some senior citizens find burdensome -- but also require larger footprints than contemporary designs.

Therein lies much of the problem, particularly in the Portland area, where a lack of land for new housing inside the urban growth boundary increasingly dictates that houses must go up, not out.

"More and more of our clients are at their wits' end," said Mark Stewart, a custom-home designer who is moving his offices from Tualatin to Sherwood. "Every square inch matters around here. As a result, people are having to move farther and farther outside Portland if they want any chance to find enough land to accommodate their needs as they get older."

Many large-scale production builders have not made any move to factor "aging in place" into their designs, Stewart said. Much of that has to do with limited land supplies. But the dearth of such designs, at least among production builders, can also be attributed to their need to build as much as they can, as fast as they can, he said.

"The first one who does it will be ahead of everyone else," he said. "Everyone else will be completely missing the boat."

That boat, in terms of sheer size, seems more like an ocean liner. For the next 25 years or so -- a generation's worth of time -- the country will be getting 3 million to 4 million "new" 60-year-olds annually.

Yet many boomers don't appear to have given much thought to housing designs suitable for aging in place, said Kent Burtner, spokesman for Washington County's Disability, Aging and Veteran Services Department.

"What we see are these baby boomers building their starter castles," he said. "What are they going to do if they are incapacitated at some point? Sooner or later they'll wake up to it when houses with aging-in-place amenities are selling like hotcakes."

Some builders finding a niche

Others are giving the matter plenty of thought.

On a parcel adjacent to King City, for example, homebuilder Steve Brown plans to start construction in early 2006 on 30 or more units that will incorporate aging-in-place features.

Brown, who owns Tigard-based Timberland Homes, said he expects at least half of his target market to consist of empty-nest seniors.

"We did a lot of research and determined that there just wasn't much of this type of product out there," he said. "In a world dominated by big production builders, little companies like us have to find a niche or disappear."

Even so, trying to fit ground-floor master bedrooms into houses on lots measuring 40 feet across isn't easy, he said.

"Even 6 inches is a lot of room to try to add to the end or width of a house," Brown said. "There's only so much you can pour into a one-gallon jug."

A variation on that theme is taking shape at Villebois, the planned community under construction at the former Dammasch State Hospital in Wilsonville. Rudy Kadlub, whose Costa Pacific Communities is overseeing development, said a variety of housing styles will allow seniors to move from, say, a two-story detached house to a one-level condominium blocks away.

Of the estimated 2,700 housing units that will be built at Villebois, 400 to 500 units will be condos.

Kadlub said he would like to see more single-level houses in the area for aging in place. However, soaring land values, combined with zoning laws requiring high densities, all but make that prohibitive, he said.

Ranch-style houses gaining value

As a spinoff effect, that shortage is bound to drive up the cost of three- and four-bedroom ranch-style houses -- Kadlub calls them "ramblers" -- in older neighborhoods, he said.

Jim Chapman, president of Tigard-based Legend Homes, agrees that limited lot sizes will continue to force housing styles up and not out. But he took issue with the notion that people will remain in any one house long enough to age there.

"I see the population as being much more mobile than that," he said. "Very seldom do we see people staying in one of our developments for much longer than about five years."

"...Certified Realty, has a slightly different take."

One recent sale, he said, could be completed only because the buyers insisted on a master bedroom on the main floor.

"It's definitely a growing area that builders and remodelers are focusing on," said Kevin Curry, spokesman for the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland. "They know that buyers may not need features like wider doorways right away, but 15 years down the road, they will."