I’m involved in the front end of a small town house development – 35 to 40 units.  We are in the plan selection stage, and most of this is going to fall on me.  We had meetings today and yesterday where my boss (not a builder), the developer, sales staff, etc, all shared ideas, and we passed some plans around, but again, It’s going to be mostly up to me to select proposed “house plans”.  I have a stack of about 15 “cut sheets” – weeded down from about 30.

Here is my question – I’m concerned about how the contiguous units are going to interface with each other.  In other words, with different roof lines, different building pad heights resulting from a somewhat sloped site, and different floor plans and different building offsets, I’m concerned about ending up with 2″ 3″ , 7″ or some other small dimension differences in roof heights, etc that will make building difficult, specifically siding, fascia & soffit, and water proofing (flashing, etc).  Obviously roof heights differing 2 or 3 feet between units are ideal, but again, with a number of variables it can become rather complicated.  Further, I’d like to have some (all) plans have a cantilevered 2nd floor on the back to 1) give a covered rear entrance way, and 2) get some sq footage at a reduced rate (no foundation).  This could cause some odd problems too.  The contiguous units need to be offset to at least somewhat avoid the “row house” look.  Each 2 story unit will have a small 1 story shed on the back, which might help some with the cantilever issue.  The unit foot prints will probably be around 16′, 18′ and 22′ widths and 35-45′ depths.  There will be more flexibility in the depth than the width.  The foundations will be slab on grade with brick on the fronts.

Do I need to select plans of different depths to help with this, or will that make it worse?

Once we get some general plans we are going to get either an architect or designer to draw the house plans, pad plans for each T.H. group, etc, but in the mean time I want to know if anyone has any specific advice other than just “go for it and see how they come out”.     This whole deal is kind of the chicken and the egg thing – I need some kind of plans to select the designer, who will then draw some kind of plans… 🙂

Attached is a few pics of the type of look we are going for.  Hope the sizes come out OK.

We have already been in contact with 1 architect and 2 designers, but the idea is to get some general plans together, and then get some pricing for designing the project, and select someone to draw the project.  I still need to select some (maybe 3) preliminary floor plans with possibly some optional interior configs for each.  Each plan will probably have 3 front elevations.  Once we select someone to draw the project, I will be working with that person to get the complete house and foundation construction plans ready for submission for permits.  I’m not sure if we will have elevations, etc, drawn for each group of THs. 

Sorry, but I’d like to limit this discussing to design and building professionals who have some experience in this area.  Granted, a lot of other people have some good ideas, but at this point I really don’t need conjecture and Google wizards, I need actual field experience.  I’d guestimate that it will be a 5.5 $ mil project

Any qualified input will be greatly appreciated.