McMansion Madness

Did you hear that Atlanta has halted the teardown-McMansion syndrome that’s overtaking its popular intown neighborhoods?

As an Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jan. 20 article reports, it’s a temporary moratorium that stops construction permits in five intown neighborhoods: north Buckhead, Virginia-Highland, Morningside-Lenox Park, Ansley Park-Sherwood Forest and Lake Claire. On Feb. 6 the Atlanta City Council will decide whether to extend the moratorium 120 days and study proposed regulations on height, how close to the street houses can be built, and how much a lot can be raised by adding dirt, among other things.

Dang right it’s controversial. One person’s so-called right to do whatever he or she wants with his or her property (to wit: building a 7,000-square-foot home to tower over the neighboring ranch houses, thus reducing them to the visual status of doghouses) collides with the so-called right not to have one’s historic neighborhood devastated by bloated, out-of-character houses. But is that really a right? (I’m pretty sure it isn’t, though it may well be an admirable and useful goal in some cases.)

What’s in Atlanta’s best interest, long-term? And should Charlotte consider anything similar?

To answer the second question first, yes – but qualified. Some of Charlotte’s most valuable, historic neighborhoods – Myers Park, Eastover and, to a lesser extent Dilworth – are being ravaged by teardowns. Parts of Dilworth are in a historic district. That can delay a teardown and requires new construction to try to fit in.

But old Myers Park is being dismantled, house by house. I wrote two years ago about the David Ovens home (yes, the auditorium is named for him) on Ardsley being demolished. The out-of-proportion 17,000-square-foot house on Queens Road West at Princeton has damaged that street's once harmonious proportions and has become the butt of numerous jokes. Those are just two examples among many.

Even more insidious if not as well-publicized is that smaller, older houses are often the targets. I know Myers Park is more expensive than a lot of neighborhoods, but it’s losing any vestiges of economic diversity, as the small and older houses are bulldozed. And the inflated property values are pushing taxes beyond the reach of people on fixed incomes. Wiser heads should step in, before one of Charlotte’s few nationally known neighborhoods is obliterated.

I don’t know if the answer is a historic district, as in Dilworth, or design review before construction (akin to what Atlanta seems to be proposing), or a neighborhood conservation district. I do know one of the city’s treasured neighborhoods is at risk.

But overall, are teardown McMansions a bad thing? A good thing? Inevitable?

It’s good for a city when lots of people want to live close in. It’s good for the taxpayers that the property values are being inflated – that may help make up for all those high-foreclosure neighborhoods where values are sinking. Better for us in Charlotte if those big, expensive houses are paying taxes here, not out in Weddington.

However it’s not good when neighborhoods lose economic diversity – which seems to be happening.

And it’s not good – it is, in fact, appalling – that perfectly good, solidly built houses are just being thrown away. I’ve been watching a two-story brick home on Wendover Road – the kind of house that when I was a kid, we used to daydream about living in – being knocked down and its remains carted away, presumably to the landfill. It’s a waste of natural resources that verges on criminal. This is a city with painful housing needs – hard-working people can’t find decent places to live that they can afford. But we’re simply throwing away houses – and all the wood, bricks and metal that were grown, dug up and mined to build them – at a time when houses are badly needed. Something’s bad wrong.

Should the whole process be stopped? Probably not, unless, as I said above, it’s destroying a historic neighborhood. However, the city should ease up on its single-family-only zoning requirements, so some of those $750,000 lots can be filled with duplexes or quadraplexes, instead of $2 million houses on steroids. That might keep a few somewhat-more-affordable places in those areas. And the city should require builders of teardown McMansions to build sidewalks if they're being built on streets that lack them, such as in Foxcroft and Cotwold. Obviously the extra few thousand for the sidewalks won't matter to the buyers.

Personally, I think those huge houses are just kind of weird. I mean, who in their right mind wants to look after 7,000 square feet of floors, furniture, trinkets and window treatments? (And what little kids really like to sleep so remotely from siblings and parents? Kids like togetherness.) Life's got too many fun things to do. Why shackle yourself to the upkeep of a monster house?

I keep hoping people will miraculously come to their senses. Maybe soaring heating, electrical and lawn-watering bills will get their attention. But then again, if $3-a-gallon gas hasn’t made folks rethink those idiotic and unsafe SUVs, I shouldn’t hold out hope. (Note: Nothing I’ve said about big houses applies to the occasional family with six or seven kids, who really needs all that space.)