Reedy Fork Ranch

Over the weekend I visited Reedy Fork Ranch, the large new housing development northeast of Greensboro, just off US 29. I've heard a lot of radio advertisements for it and seen a few billboards, too, the theme of which is "room to roam." The radio ads feature pastoral nature sounds, and the billboards show grasslands surrounded by woods. Nice.

But when I got there, what I found seemed to be an unremarkable housing development built on a formula that developers have been using and re-using for three or four decades.

The road pattern is mostly "dendritic," meaning that, from the main access road ("Reedy Fork Parkway"), residential streets branch off, finally leading nowhere, ending in loops or cul-de-sacs. The pattern is typical of automobile-oriented commuter neighborhoods, since it makes it easy to drive in and out of the development, but not to walk around the neighborhood to visit actual neighbors.

Reedy Fork Ranch has walking trails, but not sidewalks on both sides of the street. When I drove through, kids were playing in the street. I noted the missing sidewalks to the realtor in one of the model houses, and he said, "they don't do that any more," though he allowed that he liked sidewalks himself, and has an urban sidewalk route that he walks every day in Burlington. The nice thing about sidewalks is that they allow you to choose where to go; walking trails force those choices on you.



The orientation toward automobiles is apparent in the design of the houses, too. Almost all have very prominent front-facing garages, and on the smaller houses this feature absolutely dominates. It's not for nothing that these are called "snout houses;" their entrances really do look like big pig snouts.



Pedestrian access to the front door is invariably from the driveway, and those entries are miniscule compared to the garage. For the families who live here, the garage entrance usually is the main entry to the house. This design minimizes the opportunities for casual contact with neighbors.



The developers left a lot of old trees standing on the edges of the residential areas, but chose to clear-cut huge tracts in between, planting new trees on the larger lots. This gives the areas I saw a rather barren look. Landscaping on the lots is pretty thin, and I don't think this development would meet the standards of a new tree ordinance that the city of Greensboro is working on (more on that topic soon). The lots are quite small, which I think is a good thing, since it minimizes the environmental impact of fertilizers and herbicides on the watershed.



The houses aren't pretty from the outside. Vinyl siding is the rule, though upgrades of brick or stone for the facades are available. Side and rear views of the houses show that the builders' main concern is to provide inexpensive square footage; the houses are boxy and display no sense of proportion or style.



The insides of the houses, however, are quite nice. The upper-end models I looked at had 9-foot ceilings downstairs, crown moldings, and some hardwood floors. The bathrooms and closets seemed luxurious to me (but I live in a 100-year-old house where the three closets are only a foot deep, and the original bathroom was in the back yard). Many nice upgrades like granite counters, tile floors, and added interior trim work are available for those who want to pay for them.

The only problem I found on the models I toured was with the aluminum windows. I opened one with difficulty, and then couldn't get it to close and lock properly.

Reedy Fork Ranch is very close to Guilford County's Bryan Park, which has two championship golf courses and a huge soccer complex. I'm sure the residents will enjoy these amenities. Apparently a large shopping center is planned nearby, "like Friendly Center," the realtor told me.

Here is Bryan Park's clubhouse:



The development also features a 500 acre central park, a historic millpond, two community centers, and other natural areas.

Over all, Reedy Fork Ranch reminds me a lot of Adams Farm, another very popular and successful planned subdivision in western Greensboro. Prices start at under $90 per square foot, and base prices for various house models range from around $100,000 to $220,000. It seems like a good place for people who see their neighborhoods as a place to retreat from work, commerce, civic life, and even from other neighbors.