Lessons I Have Learned in Infill Building

By Phil Marshall, Longtime Tulsa Builder and Current TMAPC Board Member 1. The number one challenge is "Getting Along With The Neighbors." Ask your workers to: * Be courteous to the neighbors of your project. * Bring all problems to you. * Keep on-site music low. * Park trucks and cars on one side of the street. * Keep work site reasonably quiet. * Keep the building site clean and pick up trash. * Ask to enter a neighbor's yard when necessary to do so. * Be mindful that we are interrupting the neighbors "Quality of Life." 2. Communication with your neighbors is especially important in the building industry. * Introduce yourself to the neighbors and give them your business card. * Let them know you want to know about any problems and will try to solve them. * Discuss the demolition process with them. * Discuss the new house plans including square footage, style, scale, height, setbacks and number of stories. * Share your understanding of the inconveniences they will endure. * You are required to have a port-a-john on-site and know it is unsightly. * A good attitude will go a long way in keeping a good relationship with the neighborhood. 3. Other challenges that are unique to Infill building: * With smaller lots available, it takes longer to build an infill house. * Walk the site and confirm if additional site work needs to be done. * Check the Floodplain Map Atlas for this property. If this property is in a floodplain, the City will have rules to be followed. * Existing overhead electric lines may be a problem. * Locate water and sewer connections. * It is very important to consider drainage. You must not discharge more water onto the neighbors yard than was previously discharged. * Research the property carefully for existing recorded and unrecorded easements, restrictive covenants and zoning. Midtown Infill building used to be a niche market, but not anymore. There were 4-5 builders not too long ago. Now there are 25! Infill building is very satisfying when you build a house from the ground up and customers cannot tell whether it is new or been there for 50 years. That is when you did your job by fitting the house into the neighborhood. This article was adapted from a presentation Phil Marshall gave at a Builder's Conference in Spring, 2007 at OSU/Tulsa campus. This is an important example of how neighborhoods and builders can work together.