Seven reasons to hate the McMansion ordinance: Reason No. 1

The city's holding a couple of public meetings tomorrow to educate the public about the McMansion ordinance.  The city must think it's time to let Austinites (or at least those who don't already own large houses in central Austin) know just how badly they've been screwed.

I know, I know, the debate is over; the neighborhood activists won this one.  The McMansion ordinance takes effect in two weeks.  It's time to stop grumbling about it.

Still, it's a terrible ordinance.  It will do long-lasting damage to Austin's housing market.  And I'm afraid we've got just a small window for repealing it.  Central Austin home buyers already are paying a McMansion premium.  Repealing the ordinance will wipe out that premium.  At some point, the cost to these home buyers will make an outright repeal politically impossible. 

So I've decided to start my own shadow public information campaign.  For each of the next seven days I'll post a different reason to hate the McMansion ordinance. 

Reason No. 1:  The McMansion ordinance treats average houses like over-size mansions.

The best thing the McMansion ordinance has going for it is its name.  "McMansion" is such a clever put down.  It evokes the nouveau riche, desperately trying to impress with starter mansions that are a caricature of good taste and style.  Who wouldn't support an ordinance intended to put them in their place?  (Other than the nouveau riche themselves, of course.)

But the McMansion ordinance is not narrowly aimed at over-size mansions.  By any objective measure, its main target is the average-size new house. 

What is "average"?  According to data collected by the National Association of Homebuilders, the average American home built in 2005 had 2,434 square feet.  (The median was slightly less -- 2,227 square feet -- but 42% of all new homes, a bare minority, were at least 2,400 square feet.) 

The McMansion ordinance limits new homes in central Austin to 2,300 square feet or less unless they are built on an "appropriately sized" lot.  To build the average American home in central Austin, you need a lot with at least 6,085 square feet.  There are thousands of lots in central Austin smaller than that.  (This lot size is within one standard deviation of the average lot size in most neighborhoods, based on TCAD data.  Download tcad_fars_summary_31.xls.) 

But the McMansion ordinance is actually even stingier than this.  The 2,300 square foot minimum -- pitched to the public as a guaranteed minimum for small property owners -- is not calculated the way we would do it if we were buying or selling a house.  When sellers and buyers talk square feet, they mean the area of the heated/air-conditioned living area.  A seller might get sued for fraud if he added the area of the garage or a second story porch to that total (at least without making proper disclosure).  The McMansion ordinance, however, includes in the floor area all but 200 square feet of an attached garage.  That is, the ordinance's real minimum for a house with a two-car garage (400 sq. ft.) is 2,100 square feet.  (Because the ordinance counts two-car garages against the floor area, it effectively functions like a tax on two-car garages.  I think this is an absolutely ridiculous policy given that 84% of all American homes built in 2005 had either a two- or three-car garage.)

Don't even think about adding a second-story porch or two-story interior space: second-story porches count against the floor area limit, and interior spaces with ceilings higher than 15 feet count double.  Thus, the McMansion ordinance's 2,300 square-foot minimum means a 2,300 square-foot house without "frills" like a place to park two cars, a second story porch, or a family room with tall ceilings.

The McMansion ordinance's effects are even more insidious when you consider the average new house size in many of our central Austin neighborhoods.  Some post-2003 average new home sizes (from the TCAD FARS spreadsheet):

• Zilker - 2,795 sq. ft.
• Tarrytown - 4,639 sq. ft.
• Hyde Park - 3,122 sq. ft.
• Rosedale - 3,264 sq. ft.

(The citywide average since 2003 is over 2,700 square feet.)  If you calculate the area as dictated by the ordinance, you must add at least 200 square feet to each of these averages to account for the likely two-car garage.  The minimum lot sizes required by the McMansion ordinance for these average new homes are (respectively, in square feet):  7,488, 12,098, 8,305, 8,660.  Each of these minimums is larger than the neighborhood's average lot size except in Zilker, where the minimum is only slightly smaller than the average.

All of this simply means that in many central Austin neighborhoods, the average new home can no longer be built on most lots.

An ordinance that strikes at the typical new home cannot honestly be billed as one targeting "McMansions."  A developer who builds a 3,200 square foot house in Rosedale or a 4,600 square foot house in Tarrytown is not catering to the extravagant; he's just building what the average new home buyer in these neighborhoods wants.  The developer knows what the City Council never cared to understand:  people prefer bigger houses today than when these older neighborhoods were developed.  And people who are paying $200,000 (in Zilker or Hyde Park) or $300,000 (in Tarrytown) for just the lot damn well intend to get their money's worth.  By outlawing the typical new home on thousands of central Austin properties, the McMansion ordinance is not protecting us from the wealthy fringe's poor taste; it is putting the average new home buyer's preference out of reach. 

P.S.  M1EK waged what at times seemed like a single-handed battle against this ordinance.  He's got good anti-McMansion posts, such as those here.