http://www.dallasobserver.com/issues/2002-07-25/feature.html/1/index.html Since we've talked about homeowners' associations and the issues involved, I thought I'd post a link to this Dallas Observer article from this week's issue that touches on some similar issues from the M Streets in Dallas. In this case, people in this older neighborhood are concerned about homeowners tearing down the older houses and replacing them with "McMansions" and want to set up a district that will make that harder for homeowners to do. One of the funny quotes to me, though, was this: Hunt assured them the district isn't going to be that restrictive. The main goal, she says, is to make sure all the houses, particularly new ones, look the same from the front. Kind of ironic that in wanting to save the neighborhood from building these McMansions that all look the same, they want to pass a rule saying all the houses have to look the same. (I understand that's not what they mean, but it was a funny way to put it.) At any rate, I thought some people might find the article interesting like I did.
mrpaige -- thanks for the link. Sounds like wht we're going through here in the Houston Heights. The McMansions are bothersome to people who feel they destroy the character of a neighborhood by trying to cram a 3,500 sq. ft house on a lot built for a 1,200 sq.ft house. You end up with three-story monsters built out to the lot lines on all sides. Of course new home builders make consessions to the historic character of the Heights by putting gingerbread trim around the front door. Gee, thanks...
As a future home buyer (2 or three years away), I will avoid home owners associations with strict rules. Not that I'm for McMansions in the heights or wherever, but I'd like the flexibilty to improve my property in whatever fashion I want.
I lived in a historic district at one time. It was the original "suburban" neighborhood--- six blocks from downtown... LOL! We were faced with certain parties wanting to tear down some of the most majestic homes (with large lots) to build medical offices and parking lots adjacent to the hospital 6 blocks further away from town. Who wants a parking lot across the street from your well-kept vintage 1900 home?! The HD designation passed (1981) and 2 more neighborhoods won like designation in our community over the next 10 years, but just this past year another neighborhood applied and it was defeated. Those folks wanted to keep their great neighborhood (I used to live there too) from turning into a student ghetto. Who can blame them? While there are some restrictions and inconveniences, in the larger view of things I'm all for historic districts. I miss my old historic house.
Here's a letter printed in today's Dallas Observer regarding the M Streets controversy. I thought it was mildly amusing, even though it's a little much to invoke the war on terror, if you ask me. Martha Stewart does Dallas: Rose Farley's "Trouble in the House of Tudor" was thoroughly enjoyable. However, I wish the article had explored the deeper issues involved in the M Streets architectural disputes. Defenders of the old Tudors claim their homes are "authentic." This is historically short-sighted, for if the homes were indeed authentic, they would be in England, where the Tudor style originated among the royal family of the 1500s. The Tudor houses in the M Streets are no more authentic than Main Street in Disneyland, the world capital of simulation. The Tudor houses are simulations of the original Tudors, with the Tudor-esque McMansions being merely the postmodern offspring, simulations of previous simulations. Plano is a derivative of the M Streets, for both are areas where everyone strives to "fit in" (as was mentioned several times in the article). Like the residents in the monstrosities of Highland Park, those in the M Streets live in homes born of an architectural helix wrapped tightly around visions of kitsch and cloning for wannabe royal families. In effect, the M Streets are row upon row of Main Street Mini-Me's. Modernism and modern architecture have largely been exhausted, as wave after wave of untalented architects and developers ruined or ignored the promise of architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and engineers such as Buckminster Fuller. As typified by the M Streets and the suburban sprawl rippling around the world, the masses have long rejected modernism and are now content to clone and copy every past style, unable to imagine anything new or innovative, authentic or individualistic. When M Street residents describe the houses as "homey" and "quaint," or like "gingerbread houses," then kitsch has indeed triumphed over modernism. Geniuses like Wright and Fuller are relegated to architectural artifacts, swept aside in the aesthetic reign of Queen Martha Stewart, the ruler of the new royal families! However, there are no "heroes" in the Tudor tyranny, for the dispute illustrates the current state of democracy in America. Proponents of preservation mentioned "the democratic nature" of the movement, illustrating how democracy means little more than the freedom for the larger group to gang up on the smaller group and impose their will through the laws of the state. Can we imagine what would happen if some renegade decided to build one of Fuller's clear geodesic domes on the M Streets? This is a curious fate for a country at war with terrorism, claiming to stand for freedom yet imposing a code of conformity at home that is truly frightening. Who needs genius or individualism in the M Streets when the neighborhood already amounts to a theme park zone, a provincial Main Street with the parental lineage of Walt Disney and Martha Stewart?
