Coving is a method of urban planning

Urban planning

Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....

 used in subdivision

Subdivision (land)

Subdivision is the act of dividing land into pieces that are easier to sell or otherwise develop, usually via a plat. The former single piece as a whole is then known in the United States as a subdivision...

 characterized by non-uniform lot

Lot (real estate)

In real estate, a lot or plot is a tract or parcel of land owned or meant to be owned by some owner. A lot is essentially considered a parcel of real property in some countries or immovable property in other countries...

 shapes and home placement. When combined with winding roads, lot area is increased and road area reduced. Coving is used as an alternative to conventional "grid

Grid plan

The grid plan, grid street plan or gridiron plan is a type of city plan in which streets run at right angles to each other, forming a grid...

" subdivision layout in order to reduce costs, such as road surfacing, while improving aesthetics

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...

, and increasing the amount of land available for construction.

History

Coving was pioneered by Minneapolis-based urban designer

Urban design

Urban design concerns the arrangement, appearance and functionality of towns and cities, and in particular the shaping and uses of urban public space. It has traditionally been regarded as a disciplinary subset of urban planning, landscape architecture, or architecture and in more recent times has...

 Rick Harrison. His design intent was that no two houses look directly into each others windows. The name comes from coves of green spaces among the homes which are made possible by winding roads and staggered setbacks.

Advantages and disadvantages

A coved layout reduces construction costs by reducing roadway, thereby lowering paving and utility-line costs. The reduction in road surface adds usable land for lots and parks. Other benefits are increased pedestrian safety due to less road and fewer intersections. Individual properties also gain aesthetic value from the separate meandering setback lines, sidewalks, and roadways.

Coving has been cited as having several disadvantages: greater set-back from the street, larger lots, reduced usability for mixed application, decreased walkability, decreased street and pedestrian connectivity of a tract to its surroundings, increased suburban sprawl, leaving little or no public open space, and allowing more soil runoff

Surface runoff

Surface runoff is the water flow that occurs when soil is infiltrated to full capacity and excess water from rain, meltwater, or other sources flows over the land. This is a major component of the water cycle. Runoff that occurs on surfaces before reaching a channel is also called a nonpoint source...

 and less communal open space than alternate development types such as urban cluster and new urbanism

New urbanism

New Urbanism is an urban design movement, which promotes walkable neighborhoods that contain a range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually continued to reform many aspects of real estate development, urban planning, and municipal land-use...

.

Design

Designing coved developments is considered comparatively difficult. Specialized software is often used and designers often need several years of experience to become proficient. The design also isn't feasible for narrow tracts of land, and house footprints need to be less than 85% of the lot size.