An article in the Stranger about a “developer loophole” allowing a skirting of normal neighborhood development oversight practices has turned into a referendum on something larger: townhouse infill development in existing Seattle neighborhoods.

In some cases, older ‘vintage’ homes are lost when the entire lots are scraped to insert 4-8 new townhouses. In other cases, only the backyard/garage is demolished and redeveloped with units. In both situations, the metro area gains more people at no risk to outlying farmland or greenbelts, but at an increased strain on infrastructure.

Some of the critiques leveled against the infill townhouses seem a bit aesthetically tinged. There’s no question that some of the recent developments in North Seattle exhibit strange exposures, often peculiarly ill-suited to the views available on the lot, because the plans are by and large boilerplate rather than custom-created for each plot.

Other critiques seem grounded in the unfamiliarity of the architectural form. Townhouses exist in a sometimes uncomfortable middle space between the american dream of a house with a big yard, and the New York/Chicago model of multi-story apartment buildings. They allow neither Levitown fantasies of throwing a ball with the dog or kid on the lawn, nor the energy and diversity of a Manhattan apartment building. I grew up in a single-family house in California, and lived not too long ago in a 235-unit Manhattan coop. My current townhouse is definitely a whole different feel and experience from those two models.

What they do offer, however, is a chance for young families to buy into the Seattle market without spending half a million dollars on a house from 1943 with two bedrooms and one bath. (Or building out into farmland and spending an eternity on I-5/SR-520.)

In the interests of full disclosure, I should say that the developer mentioned in the Stranger article, Soleil LLC, was the builder of my townhouse. I’ve been very happy with the quality of what they built, and there’s no question it was one of the better housing deals I looked at. (When prices at Blakeley Commons hit half a million dollars for a 2-bedroom, you know the condo market is boiling over.) What was demolished to build the townhouses in my case was an ugly-arse garage, not any kind of verdant edenic idyll.

But how would I feel if my entire neighborhood was replaced with this kind of density? Right now the circa-1940s single-family-houses provide a lot of room for trees and plants, which tend to be lost when lots are redeveloped for denser development. Do you live in a neighborhood where this kind of development is common? Thoughts?