Mansions of Glory
The desire to own a big house on an expansive, fenced-in lot is a quintessentially American vice on par with our national car obsession. The push for larger houses is a primary contributor, along with the car and shortsighted land use policies, to the sprawl that afflicts our urban areas. Over the last half century, the average household has declined in size from around 3.5 persons to 2.6 persons. Yet during that same period, average house size has increased from 983 square feet to nearly 2,500 square feet. More households requiring ever larger homes means open land is chewed up at a growing rate. But big houses are not only destructive for edge communities. Oblivious homeowners continue to squeeze bulky houses into undersized lots in established neighborhoods, destroying architectural continuity and access to sunlight as they loom over more modest structures nearby. Communities across the country have finally taken notice of this menace and are implementing new regulations to limit the size and impact of newly built houses. While the opposition to these regulations sounds a familiar refrain, the anti-McMansion movement is starting to produce some ingenious public policy.
The most common policies regulate the size and appearance of new houses, including building height, the views inflicted on neighbors, and the percentage of a lot that can be built out. Marin County, California has been at the forefront of this movement, having first addressed the issue in 1997. Marin County forces a design review of all new homes over 4,000 square feet. Austin, Texas limits new central city houses to the larger of 2,300 square feet or 40% of lot size. Austin also requires that taller homes leave more space between neighboring homes to minimize the loss of daylight. Bellevue, Washington is considering regulations to restrict the number of trees that can be removed and dictate how often debris must be removed during construction (mega-home construction can make an entire neighborhood look like a work zone).
The move to regulate McMansions is not simply about aesthetics. The increase in average house size has negated the impact of improvements in energy efficiency over the past few decades. Only 10% of new homes meet the E.P.A.’s Energy Star guidelines, and up to 80% fail to meet the energy efficiency requirements of state and local governments. Large homes also waste from 10-20 gallons of water each day. Local regulations have evolved to address this disdain for conservation. Marin County and Pitkin County, Colorado, home to Aspen, the epicenter of excess, both have regulations to force supersized homes to adopt the energy footprint of smaller houses. In Aspen, homes over 5,000 square feet must either provide onsite renewable energy (e.g., solar panels) or pay a premium to the state’s renewable energy program.
These regulations strike many as another example of overly intrusive government intervention. Amidst claims about declining values and trampled property rights, it’s easy to forget the extensive building codes that already regulate new home construction. The only difference is that existing building codes primarily protect the new homeowner. These McMansion restrictions protect the rest of us, a concept foreign to property rights advocates, who have difficulty acknowledging that one person’s dream house might be another’s permanent solar eclipse. We can only hope that these regulations are the first step in the collective realization that success and happiness are not tied up in the size of our homes or the horsepower of our cars.
Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times
Comments
An excellent post and it should be important for strong believers in property rights (like me) to acknowledge that these rights do not exist in a vacuum and the wider political community in which we live will be impacted by the use and abuse of property.
I also wanted to give a shout out to the City of Chicago which is encouraging skyscrapers to adopt a more slender design/smaller footprint for the same reasons that homes are being encouraged to do so. That is why we are all excited about "The Spire" here in Chicago:
http://lynnbecker.com/repeat/calatravachicago/calatravaexplains.htm
Posted by: Jeff Singer | July 25, 2007 8:42 AM
How about mixing in U2 references along with your Springsteen references in your column titles in consideration that Bono is Mr Planet Sustainability. I nominate "Where the Streets Have no Name" for your next column about suburban tract housing developments. Seriously,
this is a great blog and keep up the good work.
Posted by: Tate | July 25, 2007 2:08 PM