Friday, July 24, 2015

Changing Times

Our neighborhood could be described as "charming", "family-oriented", "tree-lined" and, perhaps even "old".  At least that's how I look at it and love it.  It's what drew us to this 'hood in the first place.

But all that's changing thanks to "McMansions".

I do not love it.

My favorite home in the area recently bit the dust to a developer's plan for "progress towards the future".

Here it is...  Gorgeous, beautifully maintained and in pristine condition-- literally move-in ready-- all 3,000 square feet of it.  Problem is that this beauty, although on a shallow lot, is located on a double wide lot and that made it a developers dream.


First a "Notice" of demolition was posted and then, way too shortly thereafter, this started...


After that it was hard even walk down the street anymore.

The sad ending is that two, count 'em TWO 5,000 square foot houses will be built on the lot in it's place.  Two monster houses in the place of one lovely home.


This isn't the first sad story like this in our community-- it's actually being written about in the newspapers and talked about on the television and radio news all the time.  But developers have deep pockets and it appears, at least so far, nothing "legally" can be done to minimize the overbuilding of lots.

I totally get "progress" and an owner's right to do with their home/property what they want to-- really, I get it.  But I don't get the pile of rubble that once was a perfectly good home that's now in a landfill somewhere.

Or maybe I'm just really sad that the landscape of our neighborhood is changing-- literally.

Is this happening in your neighborhood?

Welcome to www.TheFiftyFactor.com  -  Joanna Jenkins

26 comments:

  1. It happens, but in a notable case a few months ago, neighbors saved a house and prevented two McMansions. A lot of factors had to come together, but St. Paul already has strong neighborhood (district) councils and strong activism. You can read about it on a Facebook page, "Save 1721 Princeton from Teardown."

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  2. Yes, across the alley, two awful mcmansions are being built on small lots. No room for gardens or kids to play, and they will peer down on to neighbors' yards. Creepy.

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  3. that older home was beautiful! Too bad.

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  4. I agree, the older home looked so lovely. Greetings!

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  5. The deep pockets always seem to win the day. In our little town many old miners houses have been torn down and replaced with giant houses that cover the whole lot.

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  6. What a shame. Greed has no sense of propriety, does it?

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  7. This happens everly day in our neighborhood. I've actually written about it a few times. Very few of the builders want to take into consideration the character of the neighborhood. If I could buy all of them, I would and I would rehab them!

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  8. This is happening in the neighborhood in which I grew up in town of La Canada Flintridge, CA (near Pasadena). My brother still owns the house we grew up in -- a 1,000 square foot two bedroom, one bath house on a big lot. The surrounding homes, all built in a development for returning veterans after World War II, tended to be a little larger, but modest and charming. Now McMansions dot the landscape and the tone of the neighborhood has changed. What I loved about it as a child was its socio-economic diversity. We lived between a college professor and a used car salesman. The neighbors across the street included a lawyer and a waitress at Fosters Freeze. Now the neighbors are all driven professionals who snap up these properties, tear down the existing homes, even ones beautifully remodeled, and build hideous McMansions and avoid neighbors.

    My brother also owns a home in West Los Angeles in a neighborhood built in the 1920's for teachers, firemen, etc. The homes are modest, Spanish type dwellings and though there are a few McMansions scattered around, most of the original homes are still standing and have been improved over the years. It's nice to see. I attended a fourth of July block party there earlier this month and it was great -- people barbecuing and offering food to neighbors passing by, kids frolicking in the street in rented inflatable water slides, neighbors sitting on their lawns talking and enjoying the day. It reminded me so much of my childhood, though these neighbors, too, were professionals, mostly doctors and college professors at nearby UCLA. But there was a different mindset. They have mostly chosen to live in and enhance the beauty of smaller old Spanish homes rather than craft some ego-driven monument to their wealth. It was good to see.

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  9. It's not happening in my neighborhood, but the face of Green Bay has changed dramatically in recent months; the Green Bay Packers bought up a couple of blocks and razed them both, erasing a Kmart, Big Lots, gas station, and a few other smaller stores. It looks so bare now, and I wonder what will go in its place.

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  10. I think it's just the luck of the draw. Some places change, some don't. The neighborhood that I grew up in looks exactly the same as it did in childhood. I'm in the process of selling my current home, which is the same as when it was built in 1925. Yet I see these huge houses that no one can afford to upkeep going up everywhere. There's just no accounting for taste.

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  11. I'm more of a keep the old homes and fix them up - they have good bones and who needs a darn mcmansion anyhow. All that space and people are hardly ever home to enjoy it. I also think it's a good thing to have kids share rooms and adjust and compromise with their siblings - gives them skills as adults that will be valuable. Sorry to hear your neighborhood is changing, sometimes change just isn't that good.

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  12. In some neighbourhoods in Ontario Canada there are now bylaws to make sure new builds have to be 'in keeping' with the style of the existiing homes. When we lived in BC in the 90s, many small cottage-type homes were being razed for enormous new builds. Now, this is happening less.

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  13. Ugh. I feel for you. This isn't happening in my neighborhood (and I doubt it will) but it IS happening at my up-north neighborhood. I fear that one day the loud neighbors on the other side of one of the last vacant lots on the lake will sell the lot and you know what will go there. I suppose that would be better than the neighbors tearing down their place and building one. (These are the loud neighbors from my current July 4 post!) The lot is the only thing that keeps us sane! I feel for you. (There is an annoying one down the road -- really big next to all these nice but small, more humble cottages with the obnoxious sign that says "welcome to our cabin." Few things tick me off as much as that sign!)

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  14. Progress? Is this what it's called? Truly sad. I know it is hard to see this happening to your beautiful neighborhood. I haven't owned a home since my very earliest CA days. My oldest son's dad still lives in that nice home in Fullerton, next to the Brea town line. When we moved there in 1975 from Tampa, we were on a cul de sac, with no houses beyond us. We had great neighbors on the entire block. I chose to move to San Francisco when Ed and I divorced and we remained good friends. He wanted to stay in the house so Shawn would always have a home. Of course, there's not an empty spot now anywhere on the hill above, most of the neighbors moved away - except the little boy Shawn always played with when he visited his dad ( now a lawyer in Washington, DC ). Shawn and his dad attend Paul's wedding in Key West a few years back. Someday Shawn will have the house that Ed and Lois have lived in since their marriage. I'm glad. Of course, it wasn't a super fancy neighborhood but a nice one, in a nice part of Orange County.

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  15. It's happening here too. So sad to see lovely old. Uildings replaced, in our case, with blocks of flats.

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  16. Not where I'm living now, but the house I lived in up until 3 years ago (renting) in a lovely old neighborhood - was knocked down and a giant house put in its place. The house I moved out of was crap, but the new one has no character and is totally out of place on that street. But for the right price I imagine the other houses will go too ..

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  17. Oh what a shame ~ such beauty destroyed for ever. Same thing happened not far from me. a beautiful manor which was a care home in which Maria worked and managed for a while, was bulldozed and now is the site for some hideous flats . . . so sad :(

    On a brighter note I am a grandpa again. A little girl, Rosa . . :)

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  18. Yes it is. So sad. In a medium sized city in Australia anything on a large block is fair game. Horrid ugly units are springing up everywhere. That was a beautiful home...I understand your pain.

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  19. The same thing is happening here. A house got torn down around the corner from me, and now they are building FIVE houses there! In fill housing.... sad.

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  20. Such a reflection on current materialistic values. Why in the world would anyone need a 5,000 square foot home?

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  21. That's truly sad! I've seen townhouses being built where you can literally stare into your neighbor's rooms from your own! Why people want to live like that I have no idea!

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  22. Oh that had to be heartbreaking to experience. I have distant relatives who bought and raised their family in her grandmother's house. It's a gorgeous old home which they modernized beautifully, marrying the old with the new. They were raising three kidlets there and I always felt completely comfortable in their roomy home.

    Then they decided they needed a much bigger place and could not find what they were looking for. I am at a complete loss to understand how whatever price this home would bring would not afford this well to do family something larger within the neighbourhood. Instead, they razed this gorgeous home and rebuilt on the property. I don't get how just destroying this gem could be more affordable than selling and buying elsewhere.. and how they could stand to lose it to begin with. I haven't seen the new home but I'm told it looks cold and cavernous. And heartbreaking.

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  23. So much I could say but it would echo the others who have commented. The house, the poop - I suppose everything has it's price. Hope your new yard is a success, regardless of the smell.

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  24. so sad…and no, that doesn't happen around here…i mean sure, it must and i wouldn't know about it, but on a regular basis, no…that's not the norm here.

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