My favorite part of this saga is how quickly the “single family” zoning defenders have gone to war against somebody trying to keep their family together. Just to make this point explicitly clear: “single family” doesn’t actually mean a single family to these NIMBYs.
That's the point I kind of make, that they take it as a kind of generality meaning a place that looks and feels like their idea of suburbia. They think of the zoning ordinance as a property right *they* hold to make the neighborhood feel right.
I think you comment about the “cars” vs “people” states it well. “Single family” simply mean 3-4 cars (or people) per household, not anything related to the family itself
Your article has me thinking a lot about the cultural issues underlying this dilemma. I grew up just outside Worcester, MA. That city was an early adopter of zoning regs in the first few decades of the 20th century. The big target was triple deckers. The city’s full of them to this day, whether cheap tenements or versions that stacked 3k+ sq ft homes on top of each other in affluent neighborhoods. The target at the time was the cheaper, faster to market version being built by immigrants, especially Catholics, and the public language wasn’t always euphemistic. Juno to 100+ years later, Deeply embedded is this belief that once you go MF, it’s all downhill from there. Neighborhood downfall? Nobody blames the factory owners who sold their businesses oversees or the fact our economic development efforts fall short allowing places to churn out a steady stream of new business. Because our focus from day one was rooted in socially engineering those neighborhoods. Nobody wants to be a bigot, but that’s what often and historically underlies the idea of zoning exclusion in the first place.
I am a housing advocate. I am all for 3 generations living together. I think ADUs belong everywhere. I love your columns. However, in this case, the addition is too large, too tall, insensitive to the next door neighbors, and shouldn’t be OK with the zoning code. If I lived next door, I wouldn’t be saying that it was big but I should get used to it because it serves a good purpose. I’d just be really, really annoyed with my neighbor and trying figure out how to stop it. Neighbors don’t object to McMansions because they either have property around them or buyers know they’ll have other houses close by—but those people would be screaming about an addition like this even if it wasn’t next door! And yes, the addition does resemble an apartment house!!
I understand this view completely. The counter for me is, how do you eventually achieve higher densities in at least some of the neighborhoods that look like this? Because in expensive markets, that has to happen. IOW, how do you distinguish between actual "overdevelopment" and simply the discomfort/uncanniness of a place undergoing a transition?
The type of house you call an incredibly common sight in old NVA neighborhoods is becoming common in my old MD neighborhhood and it actually does spark outrage in me. I'm offended by it because it looks big enough for four apartments but only provides housing for one family! Seems to me that that's how you could achieve density - if houses that look like those McMansions don't bother people, build them as two or four family homes.
Oh and I agree that the addition that this post is about is not OK. There are ways they could have expanded their house that wouldn't look as objectionable or block so much light - people in my neighborhood have also expanded their houses to McMansion size by adding stories or building out into the backyard. That addition looks like they skipped the expense of an architect and did the cheapest DIY thing. I think a middle ground between suburban aesthetics and density IS possible, but that's not it.
You articulate my thoughts very well. I would be pissed. Not because of the cars, or because it is multi family but because it's ridiculously high for its location and super close to the other properties.
I am all for blending multi-family housing into single family neighborhooods. We need more housing! But some design sensitivity goes a long way towards alleviating these kinds of conflicts.
"Imagine you live next door to it. Is it fair that they tanked your property value?"
If I was feeling cheeky, I would just sign a waiver saying that I would pay the difference between the current value of the house and the eventual sale value of the house (relative to the national market, of course).
Housing is transitioning across America and the zoning laws are being stressed. People assume our new house is a tear-down, but we found a vacate lot that never had a home on it. While the footprint doesn't match adjacent homes, the design is re-establishing the historical fabric. There are two parts to the solution. Zoning and Design and of course the design is subjective and unless we have a design overlay (such as a historic overlay) it can't be controlled.
What America needs is a cabinet level position called the "Architect General" to provide a design vision for the country. Of course that too will be a battle between modernist, traditionalist and utility, but at least it would create a national discourse that could filter down to the state, counties and cities.
My favorite part of this saga is how quickly the “single family” zoning defenders have gone to war against somebody trying to keep their family together. Just to make this point explicitly clear: “single family” doesn’t actually mean a single family to these NIMBYs.
That's the point I kind of make, that they take it as a kind of generality meaning a place that looks and feels like their idea of suburbia. They think of the zoning ordinance as a property right *they* hold to make the neighborhood feel right.
I think you comment about the “cars” vs “people” states it well. “Single family” simply mean 3-4 cars (or people) per household, not anything related to the family itself
Your article has me thinking a lot about the cultural issues underlying this dilemma. I grew up just outside Worcester, MA. That city was an early adopter of zoning regs in the first few decades of the 20th century. The big target was triple deckers. The city’s full of them to this day, whether cheap tenements or versions that stacked 3k+ sq ft homes on top of each other in affluent neighborhoods. The target at the time was the cheaper, faster to market version being built by immigrants, especially Catholics, and the public language wasn’t always euphemistic. Juno to 100+ years later, Deeply embedded is this belief that once you go MF, it’s all downhill from there. Neighborhood downfall? Nobody blames the factory owners who sold their businesses oversees or the fact our economic development efforts fall short allowing places to churn out a steady stream of new business. Because our focus from day one was rooted in socially engineering those neighborhoods. Nobody wants to be a bigot, but that’s what often and historically underlies the idea of zoning exclusion in the first place.
I am a housing advocate. I am all for 3 generations living together. I think ADUs belong everywhere. I love your columns. However, in this case, the addition is too large, too tall, insensitive to the next door neighbors, and shouldn’t be OK with the zoning code. If I lived next door, I wouldn’t be saying that it was big but I should get used to it because it serves a good purpose. I’d just be really, really annoyed with my neighbor and trying figure out how to stop it. Neighbors don’t object to McMansions because they either have property around them or buyers know they’ll have other houses close by—but those people would be screaming about an addition like this even if it wasn’t next door! And yes, the addition does resemble an apartment house!!
I understand this view completely. The counter for me is, how do you eventually achieve higher densities in at least some of the neighborhoods that look like this? Because in expensive markets, that has to happen. IOW, how do you distinguish between actual "overdevelopment" and simply the discomfort/uncanniness of a place undergoing a transition?
The type of house you call an incredibly common sight in old NVA neighborhoods is becoming common in my old MD neighborhhood and it actually does spark outrage in me. I'm offended by it because it looks big enough for four apartments but only provides housing for one family! Seems to me that that's how you could achieve density - if houses that look like those McMansions don't bother people, build them as two or four family homes.
Oh and I agree that the addition that this post is about is not OK. There are ways they could have expanded their house that wouldn't look as objectionable or block so much light - people in my neighborhood have also expanded their houses to McMansion size by adding stories or building out into the backyard. That addition looks like they skipped the expense of an architect and did the cheapest DIY thing. I think a middle ground between suburban aesthetics and density IS possible, but that's not it.
You articulate my thoughts very well. I would be pissed. Not because of the cars, or because it is multi family but because it's ridiculously high for its location and super close to the other properties.
I am all for blending multi-family housing into single family neighborhooods. We need more housing! But some design sensitivity goes a long way towards alleviating these kinds of conflicts.
"Imagine you live next door to it. Is it fair that they tanked your property value?"
If I was feeling cheeky, I would just sign a waiver saying that I would pay the difference between the current value of the house and the eventual sale value of the house (relative to the national market, of course).
Housing is transitioning across America and the zoning laws are being stressed. People assume our new house is a tear-down, but we found a vacate lot that never had a home on it. While the footprint doesn't match adjacent homes, the design is re-establishing the historical fabric. There are two parts to the solution. Zoning and Design and of course the design is subjective and unless we have a design overlay (such as a historic overlay) it can't be controlled.
What America needs is a cabinet level position called the "Architect General" to provide a design vision for the country. Of course that too will be a battle between modernist, traditionalist and utility, but at least it would create a national discourse that could filter down to the state, counties and cities.
That sounds like England's planning commission.