No more McMansions in L.A.

You tell me what you think of this one, just breaking on LATimes.com: "The Los Angeles City Council today approved new rules to address major byproducts of the gentrification that has swept the city: Limiting the size of 'mansionization' additions and making it harder for developers to convert low-income housing on skid row into luxury lofts.

"The new rules radically limit the size of remodeled homes in the city's flatlands to 3,000 square feet in most cases, curtailing what homeowners say is a plague of behemoth, ugly stucco boxes that are killing neighborhood character."

One more: "The city has been criticized for years for not doing more to preserve the look and character of existing neighborhoods against "tear-downs," in which property owners demolish original homes and replace them with dwellings often two or three times larger.

Your thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to peter.viles@latimes.com
Photo Credit: Large house in Cheviot Hills, from LATimes

Comments

[John]

This is the funniest thing in the world.

Rich homeowners using the city counsel to stymie richer homeowners.

They're shooting themselves in the foot though, as their homes are now worth less since they can't be sold just for the lot value.

You know what kills neighborhood character? Crappy ranch homes that I'd be embarrassed to own in crappy school districts that cost $600k+.

That's what kills neighborhoods. Mansions next to public housing projects do not a good neighborhood make.

[J. Reece]

Is the pictured house supposed to be a 'McMansion'? Hardly. It has only a 2-car garage, does not appear very wide, doesn't appear to have very high ceilings, and is missing one of the characteristic features: a ridiculously oversized entryway/portico taller than the rest of the house.

[Corntrollio]

Pete, this post from Curbed had some interesting purported facts on this new ordinance -- can you please check the accuracy?:

relax people...the 25% rule is basically only affecting those people in the RA and RE zones which have a 17,500sqft lot size minimum, which means a 4300sqft house. Plus a 20% area bonus if you meet some pretty simple additional requirements like LEED. In the R1 zones with a 5000sqft min. lot you can build up to 50% with the same extra 20% area bonuses. So basically the ordinance will not stop anyone who wants to build a 3500sqft house on their 50X100 lot. This was just to shut the NIMBY's up so the called it "anti- mansionization" no wonder it past unanimously

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2008/05/
mansionization.php#comment-98438

[jb]

Communism at its best!

[Dan]

LA is about re-invention. The politicians are trying to preserve things that shouldn't be preserved. In 100 years will we all wish we lived in shacks?

I don't like McMansions, but LA is not a suburban area: We shouldn't try to zone things like it is...

[peter m]

One more: "The city has been criticized for years for not doing more to preserve the look and character of existing neighborhoods against "tear-downs," in which property owners demolish original homes and replace them with dwellings often two or three times larger."

This has been a favorite LA bubble topic theme of mine: the excessive teardowns you see all over La hoods both in rich and poor areas, to be replaced by some unsightly 4000-6000 sq ft zero-lot McMonster, plunked right down in a neighborhood of tidy WWII-era built single family homes. Better yet the buyout of several small sfh's, razing them, and replacing them with a 10- unit mccondo complexe. Or a row of 5-10 cheap crappy mccondos sited all in a row, all alike and and painted in garish clown colors.
.
On the one hand property owners do have a basic right, within limits, to do as they please but on other hand there is a fine line between property owner rights and neighborhood specu-vestors/infestors who only trash and destroy a tidy old hood by repeated razings and teardowns, flips, unsightly remodelsl

[Robert in Palm Springs]

It is about time we got back to reasonable proportions. Proportions has been out of whack in almost every way: houses too big for the lots, windows and rooms too big for the house, cars too big for the drivers, bodies too big for their own good, pay too big for performance (see Countrywide; also Godzilla).

This is a good idea although it might be a bit fairer if the square footage maximum was based on the size of the lot. At any rate, it should help get things back into proper proportion. Something like this should have been done long ago.

[Mark]

Although pretty heavy handed, I'm all for it. Every year 1000's of people stand in line to tour moderate sized bungalows in Bungalow Heaven. The houses also sell for top dollar per sq. ft. If people were building 5000 sq. ft. boxes in that neighborhood, at some point only the lots would have value. And, the charm would be gone. Not all neighborhoods are so unique, but how did we get to where we only value the monster house?

[sharon]

We have been experiencing McTownhouses in Pasadena for years. This is a city which is supposed to be fierce in protecting it's rich historical architecture. One big stucco (mediteranian?!?) townhouse after another next to our beautiful original craftsman homes. So sad. What I want to know is who is getting paid off to push these through? Where are the preservationists? Enough already.

[pugtv]

Two thoughts -

1. I don't think anyone will be upset with kicking Lefty out of skid row in order to build a high end condo.

2. If ShockG's house looks like crap, why preserve it?

=)

[Wilbur Varela]

So what about the homes that are already built, that bulge over every square inch? Here in Studio City, there are several already in process. I guess their owners are lucky, as their homes will be worth far more, in the years to come.

[Corntrollio]

After reading this, I feel that the new ordinance is reasonable. It does not affect the hillside areas and the coastal zones. I've reposted the table on page 27:

Zone Minimum Lot Size Maximum SFR Floor Area
R1 5,000 sq-ft 3,000 sq-ft
RS 7,500 sq-ft 4,050 sq-ft
RE9 9,000 sq-ft 4,320 sq-ft
RE11 11,000 sq-ft 5,280 sq-ft
RE15 15,000 sq-ft 6,300 sq-ft
RA 17,500 sq-ft 5,250 sq-ft
RE20 20,000 sq-ft 8,400 sq-ft
RE40 40,000 sq-ft 16,800 sq-ft

http://cityplanning.lacity.org/Code_Studies/
Housing/CPC%20Action%20-%20CPC-2007-106-CA.pdf

[cass]

This is great news!

[anon]

Wow.
Instant equity for anyone who's already got a McMansion.

[Carolina]

"making it harder for developers to convert low-income housing on skid row into luxury lofts."

After reading this article, now I understand who was smoking the pot referenced in the previous blog article. Stealing property rights from landowners, preventing renovation, rebuilding, and renewal of housing stocks will not spur investment and improvement in the city.

[Gman]

Hey! That's my mom's house! She designed it herself.

[Cal]

OT: I read the Fannie Mae transcripts today and I thought there were a couple of blockbusters in there

It is pretty long i'll just cut the few sentences that I thought were pretty amazing and people can read the rest at the link.

"First to help borrowers, who are current on their loans, but trapped and unable to refinance into the better loans that are available, we will allow refinancing of Fannie Mae loans that are upto 20% underwater and to safe, affordable fully amortizing loans"

"we are teaming up with the Self-Help Credit Union, one of our long time partners and some of the worst hit communities in order to get families into REO foreclosed properties on a rent-to-own basis. "

"And finally effective immediately we will buy new jumbo conforming loans at a price which is flat to conforming or portfolio asset acquisitions through the end of the year. What this means is that though jumbos are not TBA eligible, but we think they should be, we will be pricing them as if they were TBA eligible. "

"We will also institute concurrently with that a set of prudent lending guidelines to ensure the jumbo borrowers can own and not just occupy those homes in high cost areas."

http://tinyurl.com/6pok32

Looks like some borrowers will get principal reductions, some renters will get some new rentals, jumbo guidelines look like they are tightening at the same time the jumbo spread appear to be narrowing.

[jb]

Gentrification is GOOD. 90% of LA needs to be razed. It's an ugly nasty cesspool not worth saving. I'd rather see "mcmansions" than rat-shacks...

[Diane]

Here in the Palisades there is never-ending construction of these monstrosities. They are crude, vulgar and the worst part is that the ego-maniacs who build them as testaments to their egos apparently don't care for the look of God's green earth as the house usually covers every speck of land. The amazing thing is that most of these people have small children. I guess they just keep them inside all day. Why should they experience leaves and grass when they can stare at characterless, overdecorated interiors all day.

[John]

seriously. Lets stop people from building nice houses and kicking out drug dealers in run down shacks...

Making a neighborhood nice is a baaaaaad thing..

[E]

If people drove around some of the areas surrounding Hancock Park they can see where the 1800-2500 sf houses are far more charming than stuffing a huge box on a 7000 sf lot.

Why does everybody want a huge house anyways? I grew up in a 5000sf+ house in Hancock Park and would never in my life want to own a property like that.

The 10,000+ sf houses just boggle my mind.

To each his/her own I guess.

[perks]

You don't need a 6000-square foot faux-Tuscan monstrosity to have a "nice" house. Nor do you need entire blocks of them to have a "nice" neighborhood. It's quite pathetic, really, that everyone thinks bigger equates to better, and that so many seem to assume that limiting the construction of ginormous homes will kill off Los Angeles. That's completely bogus. I bought a much smaller house than I could have afforded, and I've discovered I love the freedom that comes with having to live more sparsely and by being surrounded by less "stuff" when I'm at home

A quick anecdote before I get to my next point: Over the past couple of years, two houses on the block where I used to live had additions put on. Both more than doubled the original square footage, and both created houses of approximately the same size. One house was a pseudo-Mediterranean beast that spread from one edge of the lot to the other and became an immediate eyesore. The other house was designed to fit in with the existing neighborhood, and despite being much larger than everything else on the block, it fit in perfectly. For that reason, nobody minded the latter house.

I don't mind someone coming in and renovating a house so it looks nice. Or adding on. Or even tearing the place down and rebuilding it. But there are definitely plenty of wrong ways to do it. The city has needed to step in and insist that renovations or tear-downs be done in a manner fitting of the neighborhood context for a long time. I don't necessarily think that limitations on square footage alone will solve the problem. However, but it's a good place to start until they can find something that really works.

[Jason]

good.

[Rich]

There's a hidden issue here that municipalities, especially in water- and power- limited California will need to address: each new dwelling and each expanded dwelling creates a burden on resources, so planners need to decide how much of a resource to allocate for each legal occupant of a building and create penalties for exceeding that. If a house is being built with square footage that requires much more electrical and water and sewer service than the number of bedrooms would indicate, or much higher than some objective standard, it should pay a tax or perhaps be denied permits altogether. This is one of those matters where the community has an interest in what you do with your property if you're making a claim on shared resources....

[Dave P]

Pete, I gotta call BS on all these McMansion haters. "Preserve neighborhood character"? Is that what we call all of these WWII 3 bed-1 bath homes that are 1100 or less? With the LA exclusive 1 inch pink bathroom tiles?

Just about everyone finds these homes unliveable as is and adds a master bath or back room addition or knocks out walls at the first opportunity. I'll admit some of these homes may be cute, but most are totally unsuitable for modern living.

Post-war, a guy might have had 1 or 2 pair of pants for work and 1 suit for sundays. So that 3x4 ft closet in the "big" bedroom would work. Not so much anymore. We also don't sit as a family in the living room and listen to Uncle Milty on the radio anymore, so a better entertain space is needed.

I'm not claiming that I love the look of every single one of these big box homes, but there are damn sure more liveable that row after row of 1947 homes.

btw, looking at the law, I don't think it's as sweeping as people give it credit for, but all this crying about preserving integrity is getting on my nerves.

[Jeannie]

I wish that someone would come over to Cambria and do the same thing. We have so many wonderful, cute, vintage homes and cottages that are being torn down for hideous, box like structures that destroy the character of the neighborhood. But because Cambria is not a city, but an unincorporated area, we do not have the ability to pass a local ordinance with the same ease.

[Joseph C]

Pasadena was a lot more prone to McMansions about five years ago. I know, because I own a house in Pasadena that I had been planning to tear down from when I first bought it. (The house is a 2bd/1ba fixer. I was single at the time.)

My own plan is to replace it with a house comparable in size and character to the neighborhood; but in the time that I've lived there, two almost-McMansions went up, with garages taking up a large chunk of the front face of the house.

Last year, when I re-visited the city codes, the rules had changed significantly -- the allowed house-to-lot size percentage had come down, the setbacks more stringent, and they also instituted new rules on the placement of garages (if your neighborhood has mostly garages in the back, new construction is not allowed to have garages in the front).

With the new rules, it's impossible to legally build a over-sized zero-lot home. (Thank goodness!)

The one saving grace is the allowance made for below-grade space (i.e. basements). If not for that, it would be nearly impossible to build a large-enough worthwhile house on a 150' x 50' lot to fit my family.

[Not Sure about Mansionization laws]

Our soldiers are over in Iraq protecting our lives and rights and the city council of Los Angeles is taking them away. In my neighborhood, the retirees (1-2 people per home) call anyone building a 2nd story "Mansionization." The picture used for this topic doesn't appear to be a McMansion, it's like the Brady Bunch house with a new front. Homes were built that size and larger during the turn of the century to the 1930s. Someone explain to me why leaving skid row alone to rot even more is a good thing. I'm so confused.

[MyLessThanPrimeBeef]

When will the city do something about celebrities endorsing politicians?

Why should anyone, even lowy politicians, be so harrasse and besmirched?

[Tombstone Realty]

Hah.

It's easy to say "Stop converting low income housing, it hurts the poor!" when no one is actually wanting to pay to convert these hotels anymore anyway.

Betcha when the business climate swings back up in 2013, this promise will be forgotten.

[Ed Cornell]

Hey, how am I going to fit my giraffe in my entry?

[I live in L.A., too]

I am not a homeowner, but I hope to be in the next year or so. When I do purchase a property, if I want such tight restrictions, I will move into a planned community with a homeowners' association. It seems that this ordinance turns most of the city into a homeowners' association, and it takes away many of the privileges and freedoms this society associates with owning property. In my ZIP code, 90025, we have seen much of this development in the last three years, and it has generally improved the neighborhood. The condo units are especially helpful, as they add much-needed housing to meet our overall housing shortage. Whenever we limit development, we artificially elevate prices, and that is generally a bad thing.

[I live in L.A., too]

I am not a homeowner, but I hope to be in the next year or so. When I do purchase a property, if I want such tight restrictions, I will move into a planned community with a homeowners' association. It seems that this ordinance turns most of the city into a homeowners' association, and it takes away many of the privileges and freedoms this society associates with owning property. In my ZIP code, 90025, we have seen much of this development in the last three years, and it has generally improved the neighborhood. The condo units are especially helpful, as they add much-needed housing to meet our overall housing shortage. Whenever we limit development, we artificially elevate prices, and that is generally a bad thing.

[Franc]

Good. The city should impose more limitations against developers and individuals against this sort of stuff. Screw capitalist greed and excess. This is not communism at its best, these are fair and sensible socially conscious policies. I don't see anything wrong with being sensible or socially conscious. I'd rather be a socialist than a greedy individualist/capitalist drone.

[kosher krab]

This just allows the city to demand more (ie sidewalks, sewers) before they grant the McMansion variance.

[brian]

Remember that keeping too large lawns on lots with too small houses, like people were used to back east after WWII has streched the water resources (meager anyway) to the limit. Zero lot is not in keeping with neighborhood character in LA. It is not Manhattan, but lots should be smaller and more drought tolerant and california native planting should be used. While McMansions and sprawl are bad in this regard the post WWII ranch house development pattern aren't very good either.

[sheila]

how can people on here gabble about the "housing shortage" when week after week we see over 40,000 houses for sale in LA and doubtless 5 times that many rental units? what housing shortage???

mcmansions are a waste of resources, an eyesore for neighbors, runoff nightmares and an embarrassment to occupants, whether or not they realize it. i dare "Notsureabout..." to walk up to a Marine just back from a tour of Iraq and thank him for risking his life for our McMansions. what utter crap.