The average new American home is now 2400 square feet. Smart Growth
advocates say we’re buying big houses on big lawns and making the
problem of urban sprawl worse. Lester Graham talked with Chris Micci.
He’s a land development manager for a residential homebuilder. He’s
also a former lobbyist for the Real Estate Building Industry Coalition
in Charlotte, North Carolina. Micci says buyers see bigger as better:
Transcript
The average new American home is now 2400 square feet. Smart Growth
advocates say we’re buying big houses on big lawns and making the
problem of urban sprawl worse. Lester Graham talked with Chris Micci.
He’s a land development manager for a residential homebuilder. He’s
also a former lobbyist for the Real Estate Building Industry Coalition
in Charlotte, North Carolina. Micci says buyers see bigger as better:
CM: Typically, most suburban home buyers are looking for that larger lot, larger home.
And, you know, I can’t say there’s an absolute reason for why that is, but it’s what the,
what the customer or the consumer in the marketplace looks for.
LG: A lot of people see home as status and in fact, generally, I’m wondering how people
view their home or their house as it relates to their status in life.
CM: Oh yeah, absolutely, people definitely relate their home to their status. Obviously,
you know, for the majority of us out there, the home is the single largest purchase
financially in a person’s life…in their lifetime. As such, they see that home as a symbol of
their status and you know, appropriately so, want it to reflect that kind of status. Which,
you know, in turn reflects a larger home.
LG: Homebuilder associations say that local governments often drive the market for
bigger homes and bigger lawns because they zone areas so that lots have to be a certain
size. The idea is to draw those wealthier residents, upscale neighborhoods, so tax revenue
will come with those valuable properties. So builders have to build big houses to recoop
their money from the large land purchases. How much of a factor is government zoning
and regulation in the trend of big houses and big lots?
CM: Oh, I think it’s enormous. I think it’s probably about 95% of the entire equation when you
look at it. What they see is, they have to be able to see the ability that the development is,
in their minds, paying for itself. It’s paying for the government services that it provides.
As such, they see larger lot, larger home, higher sales prices as an answer to that to help
pay for those services… and that may or may not be the truth.
LG: Do you see places where towns are working with developers so that they can have their big
suburbs but still find a place for affordable housing within the same general area?
CM: There’s been one approach to it that I don’t necessarily agree with, but it’s called
“inclusionary housing.” What it typically does is the local government will require a
developer to include about 10% of dedicated housing as considered “affordable.” And
affordable can mean just about anything. There really is no clear, working definition of
what affordable is. A lot of folks out there that have their homes, they see that as a large
investment in their life. They see a lot of high value in that investment. As such, they get
concerned that with a proportion of affordable housing in their community that has to be
mandated and dedicated as such, that it could, in fact drive values down.
In a better case scenario is when local governments work with the folks in the industry to
put together, you know, a master plan community where you can include both segments
of affordable housing, higher end housing… a mix of retail, commercial space, et cetera. I
think you’ll see more success in efforts like that than you will in mandated housing.
HOST TAG: Chris Micci is a land development manager for a residential homebuilder in
North Carolina. He talked with the Environment Report’s Lester Graham.