The Future of McMansions (Part Two)

  • The study found that differences in architectural style stuck out most, but after that, height. (Photo source: Brendel at Wikimedia Commons)

There are some ugly terms used
to describe big, grandiose homes.
Critics call them “Garage Mahals,”
“starter castles,” or “McMansions.”
These insults are flung around
in towns where people worry big
houses are sapping the character
out of neighborhoods full of smaller,
older homes. Shawn Allee
met a researcher who hopes to tamp
down the heated rhetoric:

Transcript

There are some ugly terms used
to describe big, grandiose homes.
Critics call them “Garage Mahals,”
“starter castles,” or “McMansions.”
These insults are flung around
in towns where people worry big
houses are sapping the character
out of neighborhoods full of smaller,
older homes. Shawn Allee
met a researcher who hopes to tamp
down the heated rhetoric:

Jack Nasar studies city planning at Ohio State University.

He got interested in the term “McMansion” because it was used in his own neighorhood in Columbus.

“A realestate agent was befriending older people so that when they died she’d be able to get their properties, tear down the house, and then build a much larger house. I started to wonder whether this was happening elsewhere.”

Nasar says teardowns, and the insults used to describe them, are common in many towns. And some local governments are restricting how big these homes get or even what they look like.

Nasar says, with governments stepping in to the debate, there’s more at stake than just name-calling.

“You’re talking about controlling what goes on on somebody’s private property. So, you would want to have good evidence to use as a basis for that decision.”

Nasar recently studied just what it takes for a house to get big enough or different enough for people to say, “yuck” or hurl an insult like “McMansion.” Nasar and a research partner created computer models of streets with rows of houses.

For each test, they made most houses normal, but changed up something about one of them – stuff like the architectural style, the height, or maybe distance between the house and the street. Then, they showed these models to people.

“We had them rate these streets in terms of compatibility, we had them rate them in terms of visual quality or preference.”

Differences in architectural style stuck out most, but after that, height.

“The effect started to be most noticeable when the in-fill house was twice as large as the stuff around it. So, in terms of regulations, it suggests maybe a community could get by saying, ‘you could do a tear-down replacement that’s twice as big as what’s around it,’ but you wouldn’t let it get any larger than that.”

This is a controversial finding.

Some communities keep height range much lower than “twice as big” figure and sometimes they restrict width, too – something Nasar found doesn’t matter so much.

I thought I’d bounce some of his findings off someone involved in the teardown issue.

“This also was a demolition of a small home.”

Catherine Czerniak drives me around Lake Forest, a Chicago suburb. She’s the community development director, and she gets the praise or blame about how teardowns get done.

Czerniak says Nasar’s findings make sense, especially the idea that style matters most.

“We often say height and size aren’t necessarily the key roles -it’s how the design is done.”

But for Czerniak, there’s a hot-button issue Nasar did not measure.

Lake Forest has lots of tree-lined streets and people like how the trees obscure the houses.

“And really, the landscaping really defines the character of the community. Even the estates on the east side, were not there to shout from the street, here I am, look at me.”

To make the point she drives past a mix of old homes and replacements.

I can hardly tell which is which.

“As we go down the street, take note that even though there are some big homes back here, you still feel you’re in a country lane.”

Czerniak says Nasar’s research might quiet down some debates but people will always fight over specific details. After all, Nasar’s test subjects gave quick judgements on computer models.

She says, in the real world, critics spend years nit-picking every little thing they hate about a teardown replacement home and whether it’s going to ruin their neighborhood.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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The Future of McMansions (Part One)

  • Brian Hickey runs Teardowns.com, a real-estate marketplace for teardown properties. Some communities complain that the teardown market encourages the growth of so-called 'McMansion' replacement homes that are seen as too large and out-of-place for their neighborhoods. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Your home may be your castle,
but, for some people, too many
homes are as big and grand as
castles. Critics call these homes
‘McMansions,’ and they complain
they’ve ruined neighborhoods
filled with older, smaller houses.
The McMansion fad fizzled during
the real-estate bust. Shawn Allee looks at whether it could
return:

Transcript

Your home may be your castle,
but, for some people, too many
homes are as big and grand as
castles. Critics call these homes
‘McMansions,’ and they complain
they’ve ruined neighborhoods
filled with older, smaller houses.
The McMansion fad fizzled during
the real-estate bust. Shawn Allee looks at whether it could
return:

I head to a Chicago suburb called Hinsdale to understand the hub-ub about McMansions. Over the past twenty years, one in three Hinsdale homes got torn down to make room for mostly bigger ones.

Brian Hickey drives me past one-story brick and wood houses.

Then there’s a huge one, with stucco and Spanish tile.

Hickey: “This is an example of something where someone would go, this is more Florida-like.”

Allee: “It looks like it walked off the set of Miami Vice or something like that.”

Hickey: “Yeah.”

Bigger, mis-matched homes sprouted up in Hinsdale during the real-estate boom, and for some, Brian Hickey’s partly to blame.

He runs tear-downs dot com. Hickey finds and sells homes to tear down, and maybe replace with McMansions … or ‘replacement homes’ as he calls them.

Anyway, during the housing bubble, teardowns increased … and so did complaints.

Allee: “Some of the arguments I’ve heard against the teardown phenomenon is that we’re basically tossing perfectly good houses into landfills.”

Hickey: “See, that’s not accurate. To take some of these homes and bring it up to what people in this community would expect in terms of housing amenities, it doesn’t make sense to renovate when you can build new for less.”

The big-home trend faded recently, but if the soft real-estate market improves, you gotta wonder: will people build big again, or will they keep smaller, older homes?

Hickey thinks old homes might lose.

Hickey: “At some point a buyer simply won’t pay that price to live there.”

Allee: “In that one story …”

Hickey: “In that one story, two-bedroom, small kitchen – that the land will be where the value is.”

Some real-estate pros say Hickey’s right: people want big, and they’ll build what they want, where they want.

Others say, the game has changed.

Local governments in Dallas, Denver, and other cities are starting to regulate teardowns, like Hinsdale did.

(sound of a printer)

Robert McGinnis prints me 60 pages of Hinsdale’s zoning codes.

“Hot off the press, it’s still warm.”

McGinnis runs Hinsdale’s building commission. He says the code got up to sixty pages partly because of teardown complaints.

McGinnis: “Pollution issues, the loss of sunlight in some cases.”

Allee: “Loss of sunlight? What do you mean by that?”

McGinnis: “Some of these houses are so tall they end up physically blocking out some of the sunlight.”

McGinnis says it’s hard to stop teardowns – you can just delay or improve them.

“I would like to think, at some point, Joe Q. Public says, ‘I’d really like to live in Hinsdale, but I can’t afford to heat and cool a McMansion,’ so they’re going to look at building a smaller home.”

But McGinnis says this could be wishful thinking.

So, I thought I’d ask some Hinsdale homeowners about the small-home idea.

Just outside McGinnis’ office, I find Greta Filmanaviciute. She’s stuffing official demolition signs into her car.

Filmanaviciute: “I was getting permits. We’re going to tear down old house and building the new house.”

Allee: “Are you guys looking at a house that’s bigger than what you have now?”

Filmanaviciute: “No, actually, we are sizing down, but that’s because we’re a three-person family and I don’t want to have a huge house and then we have high utility bills. This is perfection for us, actually.”

Filmanaviciute says preservationists might not like that she’s tearing down her place, but her neighbors are glad she’s keeping things modest.

She says she’d be proud to start a small-home trend.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

To Dam or Not to Dam

  • Residents on Boardman Pond are upset about the water level dropping after the pond was drawn down because of safety concerns at a nearby dam. Homeowners here are worried that if the dams are taken out, they'll lose their waterfront property permanently. (Photo courtesy of Jim and Joane McIntyre)

America has been a country that builds
dams. There are more than 75,000 major
dams in the US. But now, a lot of those dams
are getting old and they’re breaking down.
That means people who live near those dams have
some choices to make. Rebecca Williams has
the story of neighbors who are debating what
to do with their river:

Transcript

America has been a country that builds
dams. There are more than 75,000 major
dams in the US. But now, a lot of those dams
are getting old and they’re breaking down.
That means people who live near those dams have
some choices to make. Rebecca Williams has
the story of neighbors who are debating what
to do with their river:

We’ve built dams for good reasons – they can produce electricity and help
control floods. But a lot of the dams in the US are 50 or even a hundred years
old. In dam years, that’s really old.

“Right now we’re sittin’ on an earthen dam, which is Union Street dam.”

Sandra Sroonian lives in Traverse City, Michigan. It’s a touristy town on a
bright blue bay of Lake Michigan. The Boardman River flows into the Great
Lake and it cuts right through town. There are four old dams on the
Boardman.

The utility company that licensed those dams decided they weren’t profitable
anymore. So they gave up the licenses, and now the city and county are trying
to decide what the heck they’re gonna do with the dams.

Sroonian is an engineer who’s turned into a mediator of sorts. She’s helping
people here sort through all the options. Some of the dams could be made to
generate power again, or some of the dams could be taken out to restore the
river to a more natural state. The water would be faster and colder.

“So depending if you’re a fisherman or fisherperson you may feel it’s a benefit
to remove the dams to improve the fishing along the river.”

She says other people want a whitewater park to kayak on.

But the Boardman is a blue ribbon trout stream, it’s one of the best. Biologists
say it’d be even better without the dams.

And then, there are the people who say they have the most to lose if the dams
are taken out.

(sound at Boardman Pond)

Jim and Joane McIntyre live on Boardman Pond.

“When we bought this house 14 years ago it never entered our minds that we
wouldn’t always be on this wonderful little piece of paradise.”

McIntyre says if the dams are taken out, their pond will be drained. They’ve
actually gotten a taste of that already. Because of safety concerns at one of the
dams the water level in the pond was lowered. The McIntyre’s dock is 25 feet
above the water. They can’t even get their boat out on the water.

“We would be having this interview floating around on our electric deck boat
with an adult beverage (laughs). But we’re not able to do that. So from that
standpoint we’ve lost some of the attractiveness of living on water – it’s
beautiful but we want to use it.”

The McIntyres say they want what’s best for the river. But they also want to
keep their waterfront property. And they say it’d make more sense to produce
electricity from the river.

And that’s what this debate is boiling down to: energy versus property rights
versus the environment versus the economy.

Mike Estes is the Mayor of Traverse City. He says boosting the local economy
matters most.

“We’re trying to increase tourism here. Traverse City is already a destination
spot for people to visit – they visit because of our golden sand beaches and the
bay. Adding the river to it is simply going to add to that mix.”

This dam debate has lasted more than three years – there’ve been lots of studies
and dozens of public meetings. Some people here joke they won’t be alive by
the time the whole thing gets resolved.

But a decision on this Michigan river is expected by the end of the year. Most
people think it’ll be a compromise – maybe keep some of the old dams, take
some out.

A lot of towns close to rivers all across the nation will be having these same
debates.

And you can bet that not everyone’s going to be happy.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Pedaling While Reclining

  • Peter Stull making adjustments for prospective customers. Recumbent styles vary from very upright for easy cruising to very low-slung for serious speedsters. (Photo by Lucy Martin)

Bicycles are about as green as you can
get. They’re economical and provide great
exercise. But a lot of people draw the line
at hunching over those skinny, hard seats.
There are bikes that offer more ways to ride,
whatever your age or size. Lucy Martin reports:

Transcript

Bicycles are about as green as you can
get. They’re economical and provide great
exercise. But a lot of people draw the line
at hunching over those skinny, hard seats.
There are bikes that offer more ways to ride,
whatever your age or size. Lucy Martin reports:

“This pump gets used a lot, so sometimes it doesn’t want to stay on.”

(Sound of employee operating tire pump)

The air pump beats the gas pump every time. Bikes are pretty simple to use. No gas, no bus fare.
Check the tires and you’re good to go.

(Sound of blast of tire pump air)

A lot of people who don’t bike now wish they could too. And that’s where recumbent bikes can help.

(sound of entry bell chimes, door opens and closes)

“A recumbent is a bike where you sit down with your feet out in front of you and it’s comfortable like
your office chair. It’s comfortable like the chair you watch TV in. It puts you in a seated position like
the car you drive.”

That’s Peter Stull. Nearly 30 years ago he took a one-room school house and turned it into a business
called The Bicycle Man. The small store in Western New York has become a magnet for shoppers
interested in bikes that feel good.

Employee: “Where you guys coming from?”

Customer: “Ottawa, Canada.”

Employee: “Yeah? Locals.”

People regularly travel long distances to check out the extra-large selection.

“We have a couple kinds of customers. And one is the customer who is a serious road-bike geek for
decades and he just got a report, from the doctor, saying ‘you can’t’ because of wrist, neck, prostate –
something – you can’t ride anymore. Or, maybe runner, can’t run anymore. And they really want to
stay active. They come to us.”

Stull sees plenty of brand-new bikers too. They come in every age and shape. His motto is ‘Ride before
you decide’, because there are so many variables to consider.

“You know, if you look at a racing bike, you give up everything for speed. But did you want speed? Or
comfort? Or Durability? Or foldability? Or – would you like me to show you the compromises on our
design?”

Stull spends a lot of time testing and tinkering in the shop out back. He’s on a quest to build even better
bikes. No single style can do everything for everyone. But Stull says recumbents can solve a number
of common problems.

“If you’re uncomfortable–like have a pain issue on a traditional bicycle? This will probably eliminate
it. If it’s a hip or a knee issue, maybe it won’t help. If it’s a balance issue, then maybe a trike recumbent,
with three wheels.”

I had to try the cool trike bikes. I wasn’t sure what to expect. They were amazing. Really low and super
fast. But they need a lot of room to turn. Stull says trike bikes give some of his physically challenged
customers the bike freedom the rest of us take for granted.

(Sound of Stull greeting customers)

Saturdays get busy. I asked John and Deb Wegman why they bothered to drive 90 minutes from
Rochester.

John Wegman: “My wife. (laughter) Yeah. That’s it! Exactly!”

Deb Wegman: “Be honest.”

John Wegman: “Well, we wanted to try them because they’re supposed to be very comfortable and a
different kind of ride. And this is the place to come, because you can’t find them anywhere else. All
the other bike shops have maybe one. And you can test drive it in the parking lot for a hundred yards,
maybe.”

Lucy Martin: “And you’re about to go out on a ride of as long as you want?”

John Wegman: “Right. And we can come back and try another one, and do it again, if we want to.”

Recumbents are hard to find. They can cost a bit more too. But Stull says any good bike that’s cared
for should last for years.

(Sound of a car whooshing past.)

After maybe 20 minutes, John and Deb come back.

John Wegman: “That was a lot of fun – a very comfortable ride.”

Deb Wegman: “It was great! Yeah, I’m actually going to have them change the seat, on that one ’cause
I’m interested in the wider seat.”

Lucy Martin: “Try that bigger seat?”

Deb Wegman: “Yeah.”

The Bicycle Man carries basic recumbents all the way to slick racers. They sell regular bikes too.
Whatever buyers chose, Peter Stull recommends taking enough time to find the right bike for each
body. He says comfortable bikes get ridden. The rest just sit around and rust.

Recumbent bikes are beginning to catch on across the nation. But, active baby-boomers might just
make bicycle shops think about peddling more of them.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lucy Martin.

Related Links

Fuel Prices Hit Auto Factories

  • High gas prices are cited as one cause for SUV and RV factories closing (Photo by Ben VanWagoner)

High gas prices are changing what people
buy in car showrooms. Gas guzzlers just aren’t
selling as well anymore and it’s affecting US
manufacturers. Mark Brush reports:

Transcript

High gas prices are changing what people
buy in car showrooms. Gas guzzlers just aren’t
selling as well anymore and it’s affecting US
manufacturers. Mark Brush reports:

GM announced it’s closing four of its truck and SUV plants. And Winnebago Industries
recently announced they’re closing their biggest RV manufacturing plant. High fuel
prices are helping to drive the closings.

For the last fifteen years, sales of SUVs and light trucks have beat the competition from
smaller cars. But that’s changed in the last couple of months. Now, smaller cars are
selling better.

Charles Territo is with the Alliance for Automobile Manufactures. He says the recent
hike in gas prices have hit a nerve.

“I think for years people have been trying figure out what that pressure point is. When
consumers will actually change their driving habits and change their behavior. I think
we’re finding now that we’ve probably reached that price.”

Federal researchers say that people are driving a lot less. The Federal Highway
Administration reports that the number of miles traveled for the month of March was one
the sharpest drops on record.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Clear-Cut Demonstration Angers Forest’s Neighbors

  • Stands of pine like this have been clear-cut to demonstrate an option that forest owners can take to manage their property. (Photo by Keran McKenzie)

Most forests in the Great Lakes region are privately owned. That concerns the U.S. Forest Service because the agency says many forest owners don’t know how to properly manage their woodlands. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports that a new education project that demonstrates tree-harvesting techniques has angered some residents:

Transcript

Most forests in the Great Lakes region are privately owned. That concerns the U.S.
Forest Service because the agency says many forest owners don’t know how to properly
manage their woodlands. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports that a
new education project that demonstrates tree-harvesting techniques has angered some residents:


(sound of chain saws)


Workers are cutting down trees in a fifty-year-old pine crop. At the same time, state
foresters are leading a botanist, a private tree farmer, and a reporter through this forest
education site. One of the foresters, Rick Miller, is directing the chain saws to show what
needs to be cut for what’s called a “crop tree release.”


“This one here we selected out with the orange flags, the trees that show the best form and
dominance in the crown. They have a nice big healthy crown. And then what we’re doing is removing
any trees that are touching the crowns of those ones that are orange, and just opening it up
to give the crown more room up there to spread out and possibly increase their growth and their
vigor.”


A forest owner who wants to make money off his pine stand might do a crop tree release to
improve the quality of the remaining timber. The bigger the tree, the more money it’s worth
to a logging company.


Heading deeper in, a crop of pine trees lined up like soldiers trails to our right, and wilder
hardwoods shade us from the left. There are signs to demarcate different timbering techniques:
improvement cut, understory removal, selective cut. Project manager Frank Corona stops at one
section of oaks, maples and cherries.


“You have small trees, medium trees, some larger trees. Trees are probably selectively
harvested in here and you have all different ages of trees in this stand…”


The cool shaded path abruptly opens up. The lush canopy is replaced by harsh sunlight.


GRANT: “Oh wow, so this is the clear-cut…”


CORONA: “This is the clear-cut.”


The forest is gone… cut to the ground. All that remains are the 120 hardwood stumps on
the torn-up dirt. Botanist Steve McKee suports construction of the demonstration site.
But he also loves trees.


GRANT: “What do you think when you see that clear-cut?”


MCKEE: “Well, clear-cuts are never pretty, ya know? So, uh, I think the most shocking thing
for me is I’ve walked in this my whole life and it was surprising. But I knew it
was coming too, so…”


But some people in the community say they didn’t know the demonstration project would include
clear-cutting older trees. Anne McCormack hikes the Mohican nearly every day, clearing trails,
cleaning garbage, or enjoying the woods. The education site has been roped off from the public
during construction. But she found out there was a clear-cut demonstration in an old growth
section of the forest.


“So, I just was… I was just shocked. I mean I can’t say anything more. I just felt
terrible for… I felt terrible for the trees that stood there since before white settlers
were even in Mohican. And there they just were bulldozed and chain cut for education.
I mean, it doesn’t add up.”


McCormack’s not the only one who’s upset. A lot of people didn’t realize this is what
the Forest Service had in mind. Back at the clear-cut site, Corona says many trees suffer
from disease when they mature to 120 years. He says it’s a good age for private land owners
to consider the clear-cut option.


“This was a time where before they would rot out or anything and we see more damage, more
susceptibility health-wise in the entire stand, we could make a harvest in here and utilize
those trees and start this whole new cycle of growth in here.”


The foresters and forest owners say clear-cutting is a viable option, and just one of the
many examples at the demonstration project in the Mohican forest.


Tree farmer Scott Galloway says people need to understand that owning a forest is another
form of family farming. For instance, he got a call recently from a man who inherited 30
acres and needed money right away. He doesn’t know how to manage his tree crop.


“Where does he go? How do you make the right decisions quickly? The faster he can make
decisions, in his lifetime with his forest, the sooner he’ll be able to enjoy the benefits
of those decisions. It’s all about forestry, wildlife, natural resources. So the more education he
can get, the better those decisions will be and the better off all of us are environmentally because of it.”


The Forest Service says a demonstration project is needed because forest acreage is getting
cut up into smaller and smaller parcels. That means the forests are owned by more and more
people who need to know how to manage their timber. The Forest Service hopes this project
will help them make better decisions.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Grant.

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