On paper, neotraditional  neighborhoods look like  heaven: a utopian mix of  owners and renters, old  and young, living together  around a town square.  They walk or bike to fetch  milk or videos, or they chat  with neighbors from  sidewalks and front  porches.

    Children play in nearby  parks rather than  high-fenced back yards,  and cars drive slower on  narrowed streets and pull  into garages behind the  houses, linked by alleys.

    But actually building these  kinds of communities -- the  style dates to the 1940s, in  the years before  subdivisions -- hasn't been  easy. Until recently, they  have remained a paper  ideal in Austin, which in  1997 developed an  ordinance to encourage  such developments east of  Interstate 35.

    "Why try something new  when what's already being  built is selling like  gangbusters?" asked the  city's special projects  director, Tracy Watson,  explaining why the  ordinance he wrote  garnered praise and  awards but few takers.

    Slowly, however, the tide  may be turning. On Nov.  14, a unanimous city  planning commission  enthusiastically approved  the first project to ask for  traditional neighborhood  zoning. Brandt's Crossing,  a community of apartments,  town homes and houses  arranged around shops,  parks and a church, is  planned for 130 acres  along Slaughter Lane, just  east of the interstate in far  South Austin.

    A similar project, planned  along Dessau Road near  the Jourdan-Bachman  Pioneer Farm, will file its  official plans for the site  within a few weeks, said  one of its partners, Terry  Mitchell of Milburn Homes.  The City Council approved  $5 million in incentives for  the development in April.

    Both neighborhoods have  been planned for more than  a year, and both are  months away from construction.

    Part of the delay is due to the difficulty of getting  builders who normally specialize in commercial property,  apartments or single-family homes to work together and  share the costs of public spaces, such as parks, Mitchell  said.

    Following the ordinance means upfront costs are higher,  to pay for such extras as the town square, alleys and  trees to line the streets. Brandt's Crossing's developer  estimates that his community will cost about $9 million  more to build than a same-size subdivision, which  typically features rows of single-family homes fronted by  driveways, wide streets and large front yards.

    "If this was easy to do," said Haythem Dawlett, one of  Brandt's Crossing's master developers, "everyone would  do it."

    But despite the obstacles -- formed by half a century of  zoning rules and cultural norms that favor subdivisions  navigable mainly by car -- traditional neighborhoods  have sprouted in such cities as Memphis, Tenn.;  Gaithersburg, Md.; and Addison, near Dallas. There are  a few in Central Texas, including Plum Creek in Kyle.

    Elements of traditional neighborhoods can be found in  new, upscale developments around Austin, such as  Kinney Court: 60 houses south of Oltorf Street near  Lamar Boulevard, averaging $300,000 each. Its small  front yards, back alleys and narrow streets mimic the  established environs of Hyde Park and Travis Heights.

    But Kinney Court's developer, Bill Howell, had to fight  city hall for three years, winning 27 variances and  waivers from the zoning codes before breaking ground.

    The traditional neighborhood ordinance was designed to  cut through all that, but it applies only to large  developments in East Austin, between 40 and 250 acres  -- a larger and more expensive tract than most available  in Central or West Austin.

    "That's a lot of land to put together," said Harry Savio of  the Texas Homebuilders' Association. "And when it takes  a year and a half to develop a new, untested idea . . .  well, lenders are very risk-averse."

    Savio added, however, that he was excited to see at  least one traditional project approved and another  waiting in the wings. "It's an option many home buyers  want."

    Dawlett is counting on it. Though he and other  developers tend to look dreamy when discussing  traditional neighborhoods, they are also looking at a  bottom line that they hope will pay off by building  equivalently priced homes on smaller lots. Most of all,  they are banking on the aesthetic appeal of living closer  to neighbors, walking to the store and mixing with people  of various ages and economic backgrounds.

    "I think we'll start seeing an exodus out of the  subdivisions," Dawlett said.

    Meanwhile, city incentives, which include fee waivers  and free sewer and water hookups, can help encourage  traditional builders -- though those breaks are not  officially a part of the ordinance.

    "Our philosophy is that we're priming the pump," said  George Adams of the city's planning department. "We're  helping to create the market, and eventually, if it takes  off, we'll let the market take its course."