Hardscaping in New Berlin, WI

Hardscaping in New Berlin, WI.

Hardscaping across New Berlin - a city of unusually varied lot sizes, where what is possible depends more on which part of it you are in than on anything else.

New Berlin does not have one housing pattern, it has several. Parts of it are conventional subdivision development on regular lots, the pattern Brookfield is built on almost entirely. Other parts retain much larger parcels from when the land was farmed, subdivided sparsely or not at all. A few streets have both within sight of each other.

That matters practically because the constraints that dominate a project reverse between the two. On a standard lot the limits are setbacks, easements and neighbours close on three sides, and the design problem is getting a genuinely usable space out of a rectangle. On a larger parcel those constraints mostly disappear and the limiting factors become access distance, how far services have to run, and how much material has to be moved.

Larger parcels also change the economics in a way people do not expect. Spoil can usually be graded on site instead of trucked away, and a machine can reach the work without dismantling a fence - both of which take real cost out. Against that, a patio a hundred feet from the house needs a path built to it and power run to it, and those are not small line items.

The ground is the constant. Clay across most of the city, which sets excavation depth and base specification regardless of how much room there is around the work. New Berlin is inland, so for nearly all addresses the City is the sole public authority involved.