Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 22, 1995 TAG: 9501200028
SECTION: ECONOMY PAGE: 7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Although 40 years separate their presidencies of the Roanoke Regional Home Builders Association, Elbert Waldron and Rick Whitney share a vision of what Americans' housing will look like in the year 2000.
Waldron is chairman and Whitney is president of Fralin & Waldron of Roanoke, one of the mid-Atlantic region's major builders and operators of housing and commercial property.
Whitney was installed this month as 1995 president of the Roanoke Regional Home Builders Association. Waldron was one of the founders of the association, and he served as its first president in 1955.
They have identical predictions about the changes that will come to the industry in the next five years, even though Waldron compared drawing a five-year plan to playing Russian roulette.
Waldron said he expects to see a developing strong market in multifamily housing, meaning apartments and other high-density projects. Such construction in recent years has been on the "back burner," he said, primarily because that market was overbuilt in the late 1980s. The last three years has seen little apartment construction.
New single-family homes also will have smaller square footage, Waldron said. There will be as many rooms, but each room will have less space.
The typical house in Virginia contains 1,000 square feet for a family consisting of an adult couple and a child, Waldron said. He predicted that the typical house at the turn of the century will contain only 800 square feet, 20 percent smaller than today's home.
One of the reasons for the shrinkage, he said, is rising construction costs. And the cost of building will continue to increase over the next five years, Waldron said, so that the average family will have to settle for less house or pay more.
Whitney said people still may own multifamily houses - in the form of condominiums and townhouses - but they will be smaller. He predicted that a popular option will be smaller detached houses in high-density developments with common yards.
Five years from now, Whitney said, children of the baby-boom generation will have left home. The boomers will be "stepping down" in the size of their living quarters.
Older people whose adult children have moved from their family homes no longer are interested in the expense and trouble of keeping large houses, Waldron said. They tend to favor living in smaller homes, perhaps condominiums, and spending their time and money on entertainment and recreation.
With people living longer, there will be increased demand for independent living and assisted living facilities, Whitney said.
Waldron said assisted living housing is still in its infancy. The years ahead will bring development of many types of facilities for people who need some help with their living arrangements but who do not need nursing care.
Whitney said the trend will be toward maintaining people in homes with food and housekeeping services rather than in what are known today as nursing homes.
Already, Waldron said, nursing homes have changed into health care centers.
Even though more people will be maintained in assisted living situations, Whitney said, health care centers should thrive. That is because they will "pick up sub-acute care from hospitals."
These changes already are going on across the country as builders seek to meet the housing needs of the future, Whitney said, but they are not yet under way in this area. "The Roanoke Valley is slower to react than other areas," Whitney said.
The Roanoke Regional Home Builders Association represents the interests of developers, remodelers, home builders, home manufacturers, suppliers, utilities and others in Roanoke and Salem and the counties of Bedford, Botetourt, Craig, Floyd, Franklin and Roanoke.
It accomplishes its goals through lobbying efforts, consumer education, forums and community involvement.
Whitney said the top priority of the association is construction of affordable housing. It lobbies local governments for changes in building codes to make this possible, but the association has also built Habitat for Humanity housing.
by CNB