Corner Lots – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

By Jon Solomon

I posted a blog on this topic back in March of 2011, but recently moved my family into a home that we built on a corner lot.  So I figured why not revisit the topic and see if my view had changed.  See my new comments in italics.

Everyone seems to love a good corner lot, but are they really as great they look? I’ll admit upfront that I’m prejudiced against them, but I’ve worked with many customers to design homes that they love on many wonderful corner lots. Here’s what I’ve learned. Just like the old Clint Eastwood movie, corner lots have some Good, Bad and then there’s the downright Ugly part to them.

The Good

There’s absolutely no denying that a corner lot feels bigger and more wide open. There is the excitement that comes with all the flexibility of having roads on the front and side. You can have a side load garage, which eliminates those large garage doors that so many people just don’t like on the front of their homes. You can design beautiful front porches that wrap around the side. And of course, the ultimate good for the anti-social types – you only have one side neighbor.

I can say that all of these points still ring true, but another recently discovered “Good” is how much flexibility the side yard can be for our family's outdoor fun.  On most corner lots, the street facing side yard can be unexpectedly large due to setback requirements, but it’s been great for basketball on our driveway, as well as a perfect location for my daughter’s tree swing and volleyball practice.

The Bad

So what could possibly be bad about a corner lot? Well, let’s start with more landscaping, irrigation and maintenance. Typically, you have to be concerned about some key landscape beds in the front and back. Now there’s the side yard to plant and maintain. Remember, how good it felt to have the wide open corner lot. Unfortunately, many cities reduce the area where you can build on a corner lot, so that traffic visibility isn’t affected. For example, a side load garage will have to be setback more from the property line, so that a car not parked in the garage, isn’t hanging into the sidewalk and road.

This is also true but as I mentioned above, I’ve come to believe that the additional landscaping and maintenance isn’t all that bad and the utility of this area has been an unexpected benefit.

The Ugly

Far and away the biggest complaint on the corner lot and “The Ugly” for this conversation is the noise and privacy concerns due to auto, bicycle and pedestrian traffic. Now we have to design and be aware of this on multiple sides. For many people, this concern results in adding additional fencing and landscape buffers.

Again this issue is still very true, but I’ve learned that the design of the home can severely decrease the privacy concern.  With the garage, laundry or other less public rooms of the home facing the street side, this hasn’t been a problem for us.  The jury is still out on backyard privacy.  I’m hoping that a full growing season will allow our landscaping to mature to eliminate this concern.

I’m still not sure whether the Bad and Ugly outweigh the Good, but I think it’s always healthy to go into a lot purchase with your eyes wide open.

Almost three years later, this still sums up my feeling on corner lots.

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