Tag Archives: McMansions

President Obama and McMansions on Martha’s Vineyard

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The president is vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard and this has become part of a local controversy over McMansions:

But film-maker Thomas Bena says the house the Obamas are renting this year is a prime example of the kind of mega-construction that is threatening to destroy the character of the island.

Bena has spent 12 years making a film called One Big Home, which is being shown to islanders this weekend. It documents an issue that is as tricky for residents of the Vineyard as it is for beach destinations everywhere: how to protect small communities from the distortions created by an influx of wealthy visitors who come for just eight weeks of the year. The film chronicles Bena’s crusade against the proliferation of outsize homes in the town of Chilmark, where he lives with his wife, Mollie, and daughter, Emma.

Bena argues that the giant homes – often referred to as McMansions – are not only out of proportion with their environment but are wasteful symbols of the over-reaching vanity of their absentee owners. Over the past 20 years, what started as an aberration is now a trend – Mansionisation, or the practice of building the largest possible house on a plot of land…

A backlash has started, with people in Martha’s Vineyard – and in the Hamptons on Long Island – questioning the wisdom of land being turned over to mansions that sit empty – but heated – for 10 months of the year. In Los Angeles, the city planning commission recently voted to eliminate various loopholes, including one that grants a 20% square footage bonus for building “green,” that has been contributing to bigger-is-better mansionisation…

Bena believes McMansions have contributed to a new sense of “us and them”, local people and summer visitors. “In the summer you feel that tension wherever you go,” he says. “People put a smile on their face because they don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them, but it’s there.”

It seems that there are three issues at hand:

  1. The construction of large houses – McMansions – within long-standing communities leads to tensions in many communities, not just prime vacation spots. The situation is exacerbated here because the large house owners aren’t in the community all year long and so there is likely less interaction between them and the long-time residents. Of course, having neighbors that know each other doesn’t necessarily limit the anger regarding McMansions.
  2. The limits of tourism to transform existing communities. On one hand, tourism is often viewed by places as an excellent opportunity: other people come in, spend money (and can be taxed at higher rates – see the hotel taxes in many major cities), and then go home (the community doesn’t have to provide long-term local services like schools for the tourists). This may be preferable to polluting factories or evil corporations. On the other hand, tourism can bring in an influx of people who have their own ideas of what they want and can swamp the smaller local population.
  3. Having the President visit provides an opportunity for locals to draw attention to their particular concerns. Should they be proud the President is visiting or unhappy that such visits can be disruptive? This may just depend on one’s political leanings and which party is in office.

In this case, if outsiders want to spend big money on large homes (providing some local construction money and increased tax money) plus spend some time there during the year (spending more money), what limits should a vacation spot put on them?

Sprawl McMansions okay, teardown McMansions not

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One writer in Princeton suggests not much can be done about the big McMansions of the suburbs but the trend of new teardown McMansions in older neighborhoods should be slowed and regulated:

We don’t really have quantity-over-quality McMansions in uniform subdivisions in Princeton. We were largely developed by the 1980s when the term and the phenomenon originated. If individual ersatz estates infest outlying parts of Princeton, they’re no problem — except for their owners and the environment — because the lots are large. No one has to see such a house up close — not even the owners, who are typically inside it.

So suppose those owners are content with their veneer Versailles and its Styrofoam crown molding, faux-stucco skim-coated wallboard, and travertine made from epoxy and marble dust. Suppose they can afford to heat and cool their particle-board palazzo. Suppose they trust Merry Maids to clean their tyranno-kitchen. Suppose they plan to sell their schlock Schloss and move on before it curdles. Fine. We’ve already paid for the extra roads and utility lines their large house and lot required.

No, Princeton’s current McMansion problem is when counterfeit castles replace modest tear-downs — an odd problem in a town with many actual mansions. From a 1905 description of Princeton’s Western section: “The residents build on the same street according to their means, but the hand of taste is visible in almost every house. Here is a stately Colonial mansion and beside it is a roughcast cottage overgrown with climbing roses. There is a costly stone house of the Elizabethan style, and beyond, an artistic combination of stucco and timber. … [But] as each house has a sufficient garden space about it to overcome incongruities of juxtaposition, the village becomes more and more attractive as the rivalry progresses.”

Unfortunately, McMansions in Princeton’s denser neighborhoods lack space to overcome “incongruities of juxtaposition.” And, if you live beside a McMansion, your bedroom, which once got morning sun, may now face your neighbors’ Jacuzzi, while the terrace, where you once read today’s paper in pajamas, now abuts their breakfast room. You deplore your neighbors’ sham chateau because it diminishes your privacy and privileges — and maybe raises your property value and taxes.

Based on this reasoning, you could fit McMansion opposition into two camps:

  1. All McMansions are bad.
  2. Already-built McMansions in sprawling suburbs are not so bad; ones that threaten the character of older neighborhoods should be fought.

Perhaps the first camp is the purist one: McMansions represent bad architecture, standardization, and overconsumption, wherever they are located. Even if the sprawling McMansions have already constructed roads and infrastructure, they are still costly to provide services to and a poor use of land.

The second camp is the realist group: those suburban McMansions were built a long time ago and some people might even like them (despite all the negative traits we can name in a few paragraphs). However, we don’t want those McMansions to break the containment zone in the suburbs.

Both battles are fought, depending on the location (whether there is still sizable plots of undeveloped land) and the reactions of neighbors (suburban residents can also dislike a new development of big homes going in next door). The first can veer toward the repudiation of all American suburbs while the second can involve heated interactions with neighbors on a micro scale.

Having a McMansion with a carport

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Living in a McMansion yet also having a carport seems incongruent. Yet, this recently was an issue in Austin, Texas:

Given a Planning Commission vote and a range of opposition willing to stay late to fight, it seems unlikely that McMansion rules on carports and garages will be changing any time soon.

At their most recent meeting, Planning Commissioners considered an amendment that would change part of Subchaper F, aka the McMansion Ordinance, that eliminates exemptions for carports when they are enclosed. (Enclosing carports, of course, turns them into garages.) Instead, staff is recommending that the exemption be based entirely on where the structure is located in relation to the house, not whether it is a carport or a garage.

Senior Planner Greg Dutton explained that, under the current code, carports get a 450-square-foot exemption when 10 feet or farther from the main house. If closer, the exemption is 250 square feet. However, if exempted carports are subsequently enclosed, that exemption is reduced, and can cause problems for unsuspecting homeowners.

The change was initiated after a perceived flurry of requests for waivers from that rule hit City Hall. Those requests came from homeowners who put doors on what they thought were unfinished garages, only to be told their homes were now out of compliance because those structures were previously considered carports under city code. Dutton said the influx of waivers seems to have died down.

I could see two reasons for having a carport rather than a garage:

  1. They are cheaper to construct because you don’t need to enclose the whole structure.
  2. With warmer weather, carports become more viable because all you want is a roof over the vehicle. (Hence, there are not as many carports in colder weather climates.)

Yet, the first reason would feed into a common critique of McMansions: so much money is spent on trying to impress people from the street – usually with the size of the home or the overblown architectural elements – that there is little leftover for other features like the back of the house or a carport. In other words, if you spend a lot of money to build a McMansion, couldn’t you go a little further and construct a garage as well?

To be honest, I’ve never seen a picture of a McMansion with a carport. Indeed, one of the nicknames for McMansions is “snout houses” because they tend to lead with a large garage. Perhaps carports occur more in teardown situations where the size of the lot makes it more difficult to have a large garage on the front and an existing carport in the back or on an alley is a viable alternative.

Do teardown McMansions pit developers against residents?

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An op-ed suggests there are two sides in debates over teardowns:

Can we please focus on what neighborhood residents want and not what developers want?

Two quick thoughts on this simplistic breakdown:

  1. It is very easy to make this claim because it suggests there are money-hungry outsiders – developers – and then average residents who don’t have the same resources. However, this is not always the case: what if the home or property was sold to the developer by a resident? Or, a new buyer wants to live in the neighborhood and wants to construct a larger home? There are plenty of cases where teardowns pit neighbors against neighbors and this gets a lot more complicated than just having an evil outsider at work.
  2. Should neighborhood residents always have complete control over what happens near them? Having input into a process is different than being able to control the process. A lot of residents might want to freeze their neighborhoods in time when they purchase their home. After all, the liked the neighborhood the way it was. However, few neighborhoods undergo no changes and urban neighborhoods can undergo significant changes over the decades.

While this op-ed is based on a particular case in Raleigh, all together, the developers-who-want-McMansions vs. residents may be true some of the time but many teardown McMansion situations are different.

Would you rather have more McMansions or denser neighborhoods?

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Portland is looking into ways that residential neighborhoods might change:

McMansions could be thing of the past in Portland if city planners get their way.

But densities could also increase in parts of many existing single-family residential neighborhoods.

Those are two of the proposals in the recent staff report of the Residential Infill Project. It includes several recommendations intended to balance the need to create more housing in Portland while protecting the character of the city’s established neighborhoods…

The comments represent a split that emerged on the committee in recent months. As housing affordability has become a bigger issue in Portland, the developers have joined with those concerned about rising home prices and preserving the urban growth boundary to accept size restrictions in exchange for the ability to build more homes. Some called it “the grand bargain” during the meeting.

The neighborhood representatives have argued that even smaller homes won’t necessarily be inexpensive — and could still undermine the character of existing neighborhoods. Eastmoreland Neighborhood Association representative Rod Merrick denied that any bargain had been agreed to.

This is an interesting trade-off. Established residents in many communities wouldn’t like either option as it (1) could significantly change the character of the neighborhood they know and (2) each option has particular downsides (McMansions could be oddly designed and bring in wealthier residents, higher densities could lead to many more residents and different kinds of structures). But, if cities like Portland are serious about affordable housing and don’t want to promote endless sprawl (and Portland is quite unique with its urban growth boundary), density is really the only option.

If I had to guess at the outcome here, the new denser housing will be constructed only in certain places (perhaps in redevelopment areas or in places where residents are less organized) and it won’t be as cheap or as plentiful as needed for the region. Creating more affordable housing is not an easy task…

McMansions as symptomatic of overconsumption in all areas

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Reporting on the growing size of American houses, one writer starts off the column this way:

Americans’ waistlines aren’t the only things expanding. Their houses are, too.

This is a common tactic used by journalists and other writing about McMansions in the last fifteen years ago. This could have two purposes:

  1. Link the size of large homes – not owned by the majority of Americans – to other areas of life where Americans are likely to experience larger items.
  2. The problem may not be big houses but rather the fact that Americans like to consume all sorts of things.

I’ve seen a number of examples cited including SUVs, large TVs, air conditioning, and steak. Food comes up occasionally, whether steak or big restaurant portions or oversized sodas.

Regarding the second purpose, few of the news stories have space for tackling how to reduce overall consumption. The criticism is clear – leading the story with the quoted line implies that both things are bad – yet unexplained.

Homes over 4,000 sq feet see sales increase

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The hottest part of the 2015 housing market may have just been large homes:

Homes 4,000 square feet or larger saw a sharp jump in sales last year, rising 30 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, sales of homes of fewer than 1,800 square feet barely budged from their year-earlier figures.

That’s shifting the new home market in favor of bigger, more expensive homes, catering to the tastes of Americans with higher incomes. The median size of new single-families homes reached almost 2,500 square feet last year, an all-time record, Census found. Much of that growth is coming from sales of ultra-big homes, the type of showpiece properties that sell for well above the median sale price of $232,500 for existing U.S. homes.

See the full 2015 Census housing report (764 pages!) here.

Three quick concerns with the CBS story on this data:

  1. Large houses are not necessarily McMansions. Here, the term is used as shorthand for a large house but the term typically implies garish architecture, mass produced, and in a suburban setting.
  2. Although the story may be correct that “ultra-big homes” are driving these numbers, the Census categories top out at 4,000 or more square feet. This story doesn’t offer data about extra-large homes – it just cites the average price of Toll Brothers homes.
  3. The first line of the story is this: “If there’s a sweet spot in the real estate market, it may be catering to the desires of the 1 percent.” Again, the “1 percent” is probably shorthand for wealthier Americans but you don’t have to reach those levels of wealth to buy a home of 4,000 squar efeet.

Do these three points invalidate the headline: “McMansion redux: Big homes are back”? Perhaps they are evidence of reporting that could be more exact. The story does hint at the growing size of new homes – which is a trend several years in the making:see previous posts here from March 2015 and here from November 2013 as well as this CBS August 2015 headline “McMansions are back – and they’re bigger than ever.”

 

When your friends laugh at your new McMansion

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A Reddit thread starts with the experience of a user who bought a new home for his family:

Hi! Long time lurker.

My wife and I are buying our first home for our small but growing family. We are moving to Laredo, Texas so our price range gets us quite a house.

we found one we really liked, and decided to put an offer on it. We think it’s beautiful, although I will admit a bit ostentatious.

I showed a friend, and they laughed and called it a “McMansion” and I googled what that meant and have to say I’m a bit embarrassed and find it kind of insulting.

I previously lived in SF, where I paid the same price for a 700sq ft studio, so I am struggling to see what was so much better about that, and my friend still lives in a studio there.

I guess my point is: are large newer homes all considered “McMansions?” Should I care what others think of it? I’m just concerned as perhaps this is just a bad investment as well.

Example: http://imgur.com/a/0zDiF

Three quick thoughts:

  1. The difference between the San Francisco and Laredo, Texas housing markets are substantial. What is common in one – and at what price point – is unlikely to match the other.
  2. The Internet is probably not going to provide much positive validation for buying such a home. Most comment boards I have seen regarding McMansions have ridiculed them, usually picking on their architecture as well as the type of people who buy them. There are a few defenders of McMansions in this thread. But, they are hard to find overall on the Internet.
  3. The pictures of the home provided through the link would probably put this into the McMansion category for many people. It appears to be a large house, the front facade is out of whack in terms of proportions, and the features are meant to impress (front columns, big entryway, shiny surfaces).

Australia losing 800 older houses a week

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One writer highlights the demolition fate of numerous older homes in Australia:

A record 800 heritage and “character” houses are falling under demolition hammers each week, destroying miles of unique streetscapes and slicing billions off their value…

Original houses remaining in a streetscape transformed by a “McMansion” (a house or apartment considered to be ostentatious or lacking in architectural integrity) can lose between 10 and 25 per cent of their value from the loss of street appeal, say property specialists.

It could also be a short-sighted strategy for owner-developers because scarcity of character houses, which in many cases can be adapted to modern living requirements, will continue to increase their value, according to buyers’ agents (independent consultants acting for property purchasers)…

The “nightmare on main street” for home owners who want to retain the integrity of their neighbourhoods is worsened by the multiplicity of planning rules and codes, which often provide contradictory outcomes.

This sounds very similar to American arguments against teardown McMansions: (1) the large new homes often do not fit the character of the neighborhood; (2) this change in character affects the property values of people in the neighborhood; and (3) local governments and agencies are often limited in what they can or will do in response. Aesthetics is not an unimportant point nor is historic preservation but the economics work for someone (particularly builders/developers as well as the new owners, as noted above) if teardowns keep happening in American and Australian communities.

This article seems to appeal to local authorities to check the spread of teardowns; there are a variety of ways to combat McMansions.

Cut LA planning staff and expect more McMansions

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Critics suggest that cutting several city employees will lead to more McMansions in Los Angeles:

Garcetti’s 2016-2017 budget calls for cutting two staff jobs in the seven-member Neighborhood Conservation division.

The division helps prepare historical designations — or Historic Preservation Overlay Zones (HPOZs) — for neighborhoods with distinctive architectural or cultural features. An HPOZ designation can help a neighborhood from overdevelopment by setting strict building guidelines, such as requiring that homes have a similar exterior look.

HPOZ designations are in place in dozens of neighborhoods, including Hancock Park, Van Nuys and University Park.

The mayor’s proposed Planning Department budget — released last week as part of his overall $8.7 billion spending plan for next fiscal year — comes at a crucial time for the Neighborhood Conservation division, advocates say. The office is racing to finish HPOZ designations for six areas before a law outlining teardowns of homes in those neighborhoods expires.

Usually such jobs in local government draw little attention, particularly when the city employs over 45,000 people and Los Angeles County has more than 100,000 employees. Yet, a relatively small set of city employees can oversee relatively large or influential projects. And the battle over McMansions in Los Angeles is not over as this tidbit later in the article suggests:

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is leading a March 2017 ballot measure initiative that would temporarily halt construction of so-called mega-projects in the city.

In Los Angeles, the competing forces of an expensive housing market plus property rights will be fighting the forces of historic preservation for a while yet.