Atlanta city council to consider 'McMansions' issue

[BR_Parkway]

http://www.cbs46.com/global/story.asp?s=4471184

ATLANTA The Atlanta City Council is considering establishing rules for building new houses in the city.

The City Council is expected to vote today on a proposed 120-day ban on building new houses in ten neighborhoods where old homes are being torn down and replaced with so-called McMansions, or much larger houses.

Its sponsor, Councilwoman Mary Norwood, said the purpose of such a temporary moratorium is to provide a cooling-off period while new regulations are devised and debated.

The moratorium was voted down February first by the council's zoning committee. The plan would prohibit builders from getting permits to demolish houses if they planned to rebuild on a grade five feet higher than it was or to construct a house more than 35 feet high.

[dcfirefighter]

1. How is this E/E related?

McMansions are ugly.
They grate against our distaste for 'overconsumption'.
but, in many cases, a new 'McMansion' is more energy efficient than an old tract house half it's size.

One key, and I mean KEY, to humanity surviving and advancing through the end of fossil fuel use, is an increase in housing density in urbanized areas. Rebuilding housing in developed areas should be ENCOURAGED.

We, as a species, need 'the rich' to to settle in urban (developed) areas, and take ownership of the problems there - we need to more intensively use the land we have already claimed, so that we don't need to expand into currently rural and wilderness areas. We need to increase urban & suburban density in order to support & enable the use of transit, and consolodate freight transfer to reduce the need for trucking vs. rail freight. We need to reduce the suburban and exurban fringe, so that the bulk of our foodstuffs can be produced near population centers. All of this requires increasing the density of suburban areas.

In every case that I have seen of anti'McMansion' activity it is more a matter of subjective aesthetics rather than actual practical environmentalism.

[phantom power]

2. Well, it's E/E related, since it impacts E+E.

I think the "E/E" objection to a McMansion is that they are often 3000sq-ft, or larger. The contention would be that people need to be living in smaller homes, and probably tightly spaced. If you can make a McMansion "efficient," then it stands to reason that a 2000-sq-ft house can be made even *more* efficient.

As you say, urbanization is important. But a 3000sq-ft McMansion on 1/8 acre isn't very urban, it's more suburban, or ex-urban. A bunch of 2000sq-ft condos, stacked a few stories high, seems more truly "urban" to me.

[dcfirefighter]

3. true, but...

3000 sf mcmansions / 1/8th acre is more 'urban' than 1500 sf split levels on 1/8th acre. Apparently people want 3000 s.f.: they'll buy them close, if they can, or buy them far, if they have to. Disallowing them to be built on existing lots means that they'll build them on some farmer's field, and then cry for road money.

Merely using the authority given to government to prohibit houses of a certain size has negative consequences, as do most 'authoritarian' rules. IMO, it'd be better to be fairly lax with building prohibition, and only issue laws that protect neighbors from negative externalities - odors, pollution, industrial traffic, etc. I've no sympathy for those who try to preclude construction on the basis of limitnig parking, or preserving privately owned greenspace: we all share in the costs for public paving, and preserving greenspace is 1) usually just a pretext for setting a minimum price for housing, keepign the 'undesireables' out of you 1 house / acre developments, and 2) is no substitute for public parks. (I *might* be more amenable to a 1 house / 20 acre rule, based on providing for / preserving smallhold market farms).

[phantom power]

4. Yes, property re-use must be beneficial.

I agree that the best approach to pretty much any environmentally related issue is to make people pay the true cost of whatever resources they're using. If government enforces anything, it should be the payment of true externalized costs.

[BR_Parkway]

5. How does tearing down a smaller house instead of remodeling

(recycling) it to replace it with a much larger house, using up all those materials not qualify as E&E?

There are conservation issues, how big of an impact do we need to have to show proper 'status' issues that go beyond the aesthetics.

[dcfirefighter]

6. Because you are missing the mark

Anti McMansion laws relate to house height, or setback, or footprint, not it's 'Green-ness'.

I'd support laws favoring LEEDs or Greenbuilding - as long as they didn't preclude renovation and / or affordability.

Who are we to be the arbiters of need or status?

Most houses built in the 50's have very little that can be usefully recycled, and are usually very poorly insulated. It's often cheaper, in terms of dollars and ecological footprint, to tear down and start afresh.

A few 'legislative' ideas that i'd support:
1) spending for local parks, wildlife preserves, riparian buffers, and other greenspace taken from locally increased property values. (a house next to a park is more valueable than a house otherwise)
2) charges for stormwater runoff (which would tend to support retaining ponds, permeable/reduced paving, greenroofs and the like)
3) utility laws that minimize the monthly service charge in favor of higher per-unit charges for electricity, water, gas, etc.
4) utility laws that allow for variable peak time charges (daytime/night time, summer/winter, dry season/rainy season)
5) property tax abatement (on improvements only) for 'green' improvements that meet some standard (perhaps LEEDs silver or gold rating)
6) local permitting rules that allow for streamlined & simplified access for homeowner & contractor 'green' improvements.
7) a moratorium on road expansion
8) spending for local transit infrastructure paid for by part of the increased property values it creates: a local subway station may increase local property values by billions, yet only cost millions to build. (anti transit people bitching about transit subsidies never mention this)
9) perhaps a 'heat island' charge similar to the runoff charge
10) pedestrian friendly walkways & road networks (e.g. 1 way, or even car-free neighborhood streets).

[depakid]

7. ....arbiters of need or status?

Decreasing energy inputs to the economy will be all the arbitors of status that anyone will need in the next two decades...

Methinks that McMansion owners in the suburbs and exurbs are going to be in for a rather rude awakening, and personally I don't feel a bit sorry for most of them- especially those in the southeast, who ardently oppose sensible land use planning and mass transit.

[dcfirefighter]

8. Alright, what amount of s.f. is OK?

Does it change for families with small children? Grown children? Lots of Children? Aged parents in the home?

Do they get more room if they grow their own food? What if they're vegetarian? How about if they *swear* they'll use transit 3 days a week? What if they buy a hybrid?

Can they break the 35' rule if they put solar panels on their roof?

What is the cutting point?

When you make arbitrary (arbit-ed) limits on something, you typically get a large amount of things bumping right against that limit: If you arbitrated that all homes were <3000 s.f. and less than 35' tall, the majority of homes in your neighborhood would be 2900-3000 s.f. and 33-35' tall. Uniformity makes some people happy, but I'd rather see a variety of patterns.

[depakid]

9. When you have to heat or cool

a >3000 s.f. house (which are usually built very ticky tack and inefficient these days) -once energy becomes very expensive- that sets its own limits on housing. When gas at the pump is $10+ per gallon, that sets its own limits on commuting- or even finding essential goods and services.

Have to feed lots of children on a budget that's been eaten up by dramatic inflation for the price of (among other things) food? That sets its own limits on family planning.

Some places in the country (think Oregon) had the foresight to adopt mostly responsible land use planning that (mostly) kept sprawl to a minimum- and only within "urban growth boundaries." Development (mostly) proceeds with mass transit and centralized communities in mind. Valuable farmland is (mostly) preserved. Not so in the SouthEast- or other places.

True, there are plenty of McMansions packed together in Oregon- and plenty of shortsighted developers- and suckers who buy into their scams, based on the assumption that current conditions are more or less permanent. They'll not be happy when they discover their assumptions were wrong.

Unfortunately, you have to draw lines somewhere- and even using the best urban planning and rationally, well thought out codes- you'll end up with what look like arbitrary limits in some cases.

Personally, I'd rather see those limits set responsibly- and if that limits people "freedom" for the the greater public benefit (including theirs) too bad. That's what governments do. That's why complex societies create laws in the first place. That goes back (in written form) to ancient Mesopotamia and Code of Hammurabi.

See, e.g. http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM

[dcfirefighter]

10. Even today's 'high' energy prices aren't full cost...

as you can freely dump wastes (CO2) into the air. I'd like to see the external costs of fossil energy captured and charged to users.

As for Oregon, I'm no fan of their rules. Artificially limiting the buildable land makes land artificially expensive - keeping people out of housing. Generally (I am not sure of OR), this is done by establishing minimum lot sizes: e.g. 1 house / acre or 1 house / 5 acre. This generally means that, unless you can afford the additional land requirement, you're out of luck. Those who do manage to buy one of these limited houses reap a windfall years down the road when demand has increased to the point where that land is rezoned to higher density.

A better means to establish a greenbelt, and green-space, is to purchase the land outright and dedicate it to parks, wildlife refuges, protected wetlands, etc. While this still makes land 'scarce', the benefit accrues to the public, and is more permanent.

If taxes are assessed against land value, public improvements that improve property values are recaptured. Furthermore, present value (sales price) is traded for future value (expected taxes) - this means that the sales price of land is decreased in proportion to the tax raised. This can be done in a incrementally to maintain current prices, or it can be done so much as to reduce the price to near zero - which, while benefitting more people than it would hurt, would probably not be politically feasible. Probabaly a better balance would be struck, such that the cost of purchasing land for parks would be offset by the increased revenue derived from the increase in value of nearby properties.

Such a tax has the additional benefit of reducing the benefit of carrying valuable (urban) properties under-developed, which should increase the number of 'infill' and 'brownfield' sites available for development - increasing the number of homes, shops, and businesses within walking or transit distance of each other.