River Road Community Housing creates a comfortable and welcoming environment for its residents.

The community is built upon five main concepts: to create a strong sense of community, encourage bicycle and pedestrian activity, create opportunities for informal interactions, connect to nature, and create a place where all ages feel welcome.

To achieve a higher density housing, without making the structures feel obtrusive or out of the neighborhood context, each building contains three units: a two story townhouse, a flat, and a townhouse over the flat.
The site is subdivided into three clusters, each with their own community garden and outdoor kitchen meeting space.
The grouped car and bicycle parking encourages chance encounters and interactions and provides a strong sense of community within the development.

A pedestrian and bicycle path stretches through the site, growing as it nears the east edge and approaches the more public Ruth Bascom River bike path. This guides residents towards the river and encourages sustainable forms of transportation such as biking and walking. 
Throughout the site permeable surfaces are used to help control runoff, while excess rainwater is guided off the paths into bioswales and collected from the roofs into containers located alongside each unit. 
Levels of privacy are established with special attention to the paving and surrounding landscape features.

Native vegetation become a focus of the development and help to reestablish the native prairie which is a vital environment for animals along the river, while helping to maintain runoff and eliminating the need for the usual maintenance of the traditional suburban lawn. By using native species and keeping the majority of existing mature trees, the development will immediately feel well-established and welcome the residents.