A McMansion miscellany

Miscellaneous reasons for opposing the McMansion ordinance:

It discourages two-car garages and second-story porches.  This was mentioned in reason no. 1.  But it's so inane it deserves separate mention.

It will increase design costs for small lots.  Dont' get me wrong.  I think architects are great.  A house designed by an architect is likely to be creative and compatible with the neighborhood.  But as the series in the Statesman shows, making homeowners happy under McMansion will frequently take a lot of creative architecture.  Creativity is expensive.  It will be most expensive for small lots.

It will make construction projects take longer.  Each new project will have to be vetted by the City for McMansion-compliance.  That's going to slow things up, even with the new inspectors.  Delays cost developers money. Someone's going to end up shouldering that cost, and it's not going to be developers. 

Its requirement to measure building height from "natural grade" will cause chaos.  "Natural grade" isn't necessarily the grade you see.  "Natural grade," according to the ordinance, "is the topography of a site before it is modified by moving earth, adding or removing fill, or installing a berm, retaining wall, or architectural or landscape feature."  All modifications to our landscape after October 1, 2006 count and must be kept track of.  The City, if it wants (prompted, say, by a neighbor) can require you to prove natural grade with a "third party" (read, "prior owner's") survey.  Five years from now, nobody's going to know what they can build on a recently modified property just by looking at it.  They're going to have to get all surveys conducted since time immemorial -- officially, October 1, 2006 -- to figure out how high they can build. 

The McMansion Task Force was not fairly representative.  I suppose if NA's can raise "process" objections to zoning amendments, so can I.  The Task Force supposedly was evenly split between the neighborhood representatives and the developer representatives.  For reasons well documented by M1EK, the neighborhood representatives didn't share the interests of the average Austin homeowner affected by this ordinance, and certainly not the typical small lot owner.  Several on the developers' side had no incentive to fight the regulations, either.  It was a sham to pass the ordinance off as the result of a balanced fight between NA's and developers.

It will encourage smaller yards.  It was supposed to preserve bigger yards, of course.  But the height limitation and building envelope will cause houses to use more of the allowable grade-level "footrpint" than they otherwise would.  Check out the design in today's (November 25, 2006) Statesman.  This clever design (meant sincerely) leaves no usable yard.  If the designer could have designed in a third story -- which would have required just three more feet than the ordinance allows -- there might have been some yard left.

Its one-size-fits-all regulations make no sense for neighborhoods with different looks.  South Lamar, Dawson, and Galindo already had a lot of high-FAR housing.  The ordinance treats these humbler neighborhoods like Tarrytown and Pemberton heights.  (Tarrytown is already thick with starter mansions; it's too late to prevent its McMansionization, if that was the goal.)  Neighborhoods can tailor the limitations to their own taste, but I'll lay even money that none of them loosens the FAR restrictions by one square foot.  (Prediction:  the humblest neighborhoods fight any modifications the hardest.)

That's it.  Good night and good luck.