Kindred Uncommon

Kindred Uncommon is a pocket community for people 55 and up- 76 units on six and a half acres in downtown Buda, built from factory modules. The design problem was the seam. A prefabricated dwelling is made of two or three boxes that arrive on trucks, and the whole thing lives or dies on whether you can still read it as a house when they are stitched together.

The existing 2,500 square foot house on the site is kept and turned into the Great House- a shared kitchen, cafe, indoor and outdoor dining, and the pool. Housing clusters around it in pockets rather than rows, with a maker space studio, a community garden and a dog park between them. The point of an active adult community is not the units. It is whether people leave them.

Getting it allowed

This was not a by-right project. Six and a half acres at 767 Main Street is directly across from Buda City Hall- the most looked-at piece of ground in town- and what we were asking for was 76 dwellings at a density downtown Buda had not done. It went to the Planning and Zoning Commission and to Council through 2020, and Council approved it in January 2021.

The argument that worked was the pocket neighborhood- a form the Buda Unified Development Code already recognises, built around shared ground rather than around parking. I carried it from entitlements through building permits.

It was announced publicly in 2022 and put on hold in 2024 while interest rates were where they were. The prototype is the part that matters- it was drawn to be repeated.