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.

Related Links

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

The Energy Hog: You or Your Neighbor?

  • Some power companies are sending out charts and graphs that compare you to your neighbors. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

Air conditioners are running full-blast
in much of the country right now.
Shawn Allee reports some
utilities are sending out info that might
get you to turn them down a bit:

Transcript

Air conditioners are running full-blast
in much of the country right now.
Shawn Allee reports some
utilities are sending out info that might
get you to turn them down a bit:

Ever wonder if you’re an energy hog compared to your neighbors?

Well, some power companies are sending out graphs and charts to tell you.

Commonwealth Edison is a utility in Illinois.

It’s sending energy comparison letters to 50,000 customers this August.

Val Jensen runs the company’s program.

Jensen hopes competition will get people to conserve, because power bills alone don’t work.

“Despite pretty compelling economic reasons for customers to become more efficient at using energy, a lot of them don’t do it. Despite what they teach you in Economics 101, most customers don’t behave in the traditional, rational way.”

Jensen says, if enough people conserve energy, utilities can avoid building expensive new power plants.

Commonwealth Edison is just the latest utility to try energy comparison reports.

Power companies in New York and other eastern states will try them this year.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Car Sharing Goes Solar

  • Chris Duffrin, Executive Director of the Neighborhood Energy Connection in St. Paul, plugs in the HourCar Prius parked at the Mississippi Market. It has a battery in the back, and now the electricity to recharge the battery comes from solar panels on the store. (MPR Photo/Stephanie Hemphill)

Car-sharing programs are more
popular now that gas is more expensive.
People like saving money as well as reducing
their carbon footprint. One car-sharing
project is going all the way in its mission
of reducing global-warming impacts. Members
can do errands without burning an ounce of
gas. Stephanie Hemphill reports
on a non-profit group that converted two Toyota
Priuses to run on battery power – and charges
the batteries with the sun:

Transcript

Car-sharing programs are more
popular now that gas is more expensive.
People like saving money as well as reducing
their carbon footprint. One car-sharing
project is going all the way in its mission
of reducing global-warming impacts. Members
can do errands without burning an ounce of
gas. Stephanie Hemphill reports
on a non-profit group that converted two Toyota
Priuses to run on battery power – and charges
the batteries with the sun:

At the Mississippi Market food co-op in St. Paul, there’s a brand-new
solar collector on the roof.

The electricity goes to a box attached to a lamppost in the parking lot.
A cord comes out of the box; at the other end of the cord is a normal
three-prong plug, and it’s plugged into the back end of a Prius.

“The battery is installed in the spare tire wheel hub.”

Chris Duffrin is taking me for a spin in the Prius.

“You just unplug the plug back here, and you enter the car just like
the rest of our cars — you use your key fob to scan in. That pops the
locks open.”

The key fob is programmed with your account information. It gets
you in the car, and tells the computer when you’re using the car and
when you bring it back. The key to the Prius is in the car.

“power up…”

The computer screen on the dashboard displays all kinds of
information, including data on the most recent trip.

“There’s the trip I just took to South Minneapolis for a meeting; we
went 18 miles round-trip; we got 94.8 miles per gallon. With our plug-
in we often get in the 90s, and at times we’re running over a hundred
miles per gallon.”

There’s still an engine in the front, and it kicks in when you accelerate
quickly. But the primary power is delivered by the battery. These
vehicles get about twice the mileage of a standard Prius.

Chris Duffrin is Executive Director of the nonprofit Neighborhood
Energy Connection. One of its projects is HourCar, a three-year-old
car sharing program.

“You can get some trips in this car where you are literally emitting no
carbon.”

It costs about $10,000 to add the battery, and the solar collectors cost
about $18,000.

“What we’re trying to do is demonstrate that, when those prices start
coming down, this is something people can do. And not just for
themselves, but if they share a car and share those costs, then this
can become a really efficient, clean way of traveling.”

Duffrin says at first, the people who joined HourCar were mostly
motivated by concerns about the environment. But now people want
to save money on gas. He says membership grew by 70% in the last
year. Still, it’s a tiny number: there are 650 members. They share 16
cars, parked at about a dozen locations around St. Paul and
Minneapolis.

The payment plans include a monthly fee and a charge per hour and
per mile.

HourCar is helping just a tiny handful of people reduce their carbon
footprint. But their individual choices are moving the whole society
toward better answers, according to J. Drake Hamilton. She’s a
climate change expert at Fresh Energy.

“When companies and policy makers see that people really want
better options out there — they want smarter ways to get to work, and
they want cleaner cars — that’s a time to step in and say, ‘Okay we’re
raising the bar, we’re keeping climate and people’s pocketbooks in
mind, and we’re making better choices available everywhere.'”

HourCar is installing another solar battery-charger at a light rail
station. Members say as mass transit options improve, more people
will be able to get along without their own car.

For The Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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

Trees as Odor-Eaters

  • Researchers at the University of Delaware have found that planting trees around poultry farms has many benefits (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

As suburbs are built closer to
farms, there are sometimes complaints
about the odors. Researchers are now
working to smooth things out between
farmers and their new neighbors. Jessi
Ziegler has the story on one
of the simple solutions they found:

Transcript

As suburbs are built closer to
farms, there are sometimes complaints
about the odors. Researchers are now
working to smooth things out between
farmers and their new neighbors. Jessi
Ziegler has the story on one
of the simple solutions they found:

If you’ve ever driven by a chicken farm, you know the
smell can get pretty bad.

So, imagine living by one, and smelling it every single day.

Well, researchers may have come up with a solution –
trees.

Planting a few rows of trees around a farm can do all sorts
of good.

They capture dust and ammonia. And they block noise
and odor.

Also, they make the farm look a lot prettier. Which,
researcher George Malone says, can make a big difference.

“There’s been other studies to indicate that attractive
farms, statistically, have less odor than unattractive farms.
Perception is reality of what we deal with.”

And the perception is, the better you think a farm looks,
the better you think it smells.

For The Environment Report, this is Jessi Ziegler.

Related Links

Cutbacks in Toxic Release Reporting

  • New rules from the EPA thousands of companies will no longer have to publicly disclose when they release toxic chemicals. Some companies were required to report the release of 500 pounds or more of certain chemicals. The new rule raises the reporting requirement to 2000 pounds.

The Environmental Protection Agency lets companies release toxic chemicals
into the environment. But they’re supposed to file detailed reports on the
kinds of chemicals they release. Mark Brush reports – under a new EPA rule,
some of these companies will no
longer have to tell us how much they pollute:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection Agency lets companies release toxic chemicals into the
environment. But they’re supposed to file detailed reports on the kinds of
chemicals they
release. Mark Brush reports – under a new EPA rule, some of these companies will no
longer have to tell us how much they pollute:

If you want to know what kind of pollution is released near your neighborhood – you
can
type in your zip code on the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory website.

In the past, companies had to report if they released more than 500 pounds of a
certain
kind of toxic chemical. But now, some companies won’t have to report unless they
release 2000 pounds or more.

Tom Natan is with the National Environmental Trust. His group analyzed the new
rules.
They found that around 3,600 companies will no longer have to provide their neighbors
with detailed information:

“And if I were living nearby, I would want to know that these chemicals were being
released in these amounts from that facility. If you don’t necessarily know that
you’re
being exposed then there isn’t anything you as a citizen can do about it.”

The EPA says these new rules will ease some regulatory burdens on industry. Congress
is expected to take a closer look at the new rule in its next session.

For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

School Districts Encouraging Urban Sprawl?

  • School districts tend to like bigger homes on larger lots because the districts rely so heavily on property taxes. (Photo courtesy of USDA)

Each year, Americans build a staggering one and a half million new homes. A lot of environmentalists say too many of these houses are big, single family homes on spacious lots. They say that wastes farmland and natural areas. But suburban planners say they’re forced to build that way by local governments, such as school districts. The GLRC’s Shawn Allee has more:

Transcript

Each year, Americans build a staggering one and a half million new
homes. A lot of environmentalists say too many of these houses are big,
single family homes on spacious lots. They say that wastes farmland and
natural areas, but suburban planners say they’re forced to build that way
by local governments, such as school districts. The GLRC’s Shawn
Allee has more:


Jamie Bigelow makes a living building houses in suburbia. He takes a
dim view of his profession. For Bigelow, most suburbs don’t let
neighbors be… well, good neighbors. After all, homes are too far apart
for people to really meet one another and everyone has to drive far for
work or to just go shopping. According to Bigelow, families are looking
for something better.


“We believe there’s a growing market for people who want to be
interconnected and live in interconnected neighborhoods and housing,
primarily in the suburbs, no longer supplies that.”


So, about ten years ago, Bigelow and his father tried building one of these
interconnected neighborhoods in a Chicago suburb. They wanted shops
and parks nearby. They also wanted to close some streets to cars, so kids
could play safely near home, but one detail nearly derailed the project.


Under the plan, houses would sit close together on small lots. The local
zoning board hated this idea. According to Bigelow, they said small houses
would break the local school district’s budget.


“They want large houses on large lots, because for the school district,
that will give them a lot of taxes with not as many kids because there’s
not as many houses.”


The planners wanted Bigelow to build bigger, pricier houses. Bigelow and his
family fought that and eventually won. They did build that compact suburban
neighborhood, but victories like that are rare. Often, the area’s local
governments try to protect schools’ tax revenue by promoting large homes and lawns.


“They’re actually behaving, or reacting, very rationally.”


That’s MarySue Barrett of the Metropolitan Planning Council, a
Chicago-based planning and advocacy group. She says growth
sometimes overwhelms schools, and it can catch taxpayers and parents
off guard.


“They don’t have the revenue from their local property tax to pay for
hiring new teachers, so their class sizes become thirty-two, thirty-three.
And that family who said, Wait a minute, I came out here for good schools, now
I’m going to an overcrowded school? It’s the last thing I thought was
going to happen.”


From the schools’ perspective, larger lot sizes solve this problem. Big
lots mean fewer kids per acre. Larger houses bring in more property
taxes. That means higher taxes cover costs for the few kids who do
move in.


Barrett says the trend’s strongest in states like Illinois, where schools rely
heavily on property taxes. She says in the short term, the strategy keeps
schools flush, but it also pushes the suburban frontier outward, into rural
areas. That wastes land and hurts our quality of life.


(Sound of kids coming out of school)


The day’s over for this high school in Northern Illinois. A throng of
teens heads toward a line of thirty yellow school buses. Some of them
spend up to three hours per day riding between school and home.


Inside, Superintendent Charles McCormick explains what’s behind the
long rides. He says the district’s large size is partly to blame, but there’s
another reason. The area’s subdivisions are spread among corn fields,
far from existing towns and from each other.


“Well, the land use pattern itself disperses the students, so when you look
at what bus routing means, the position of one student can add ten to
fifteen minutes to a route.”


McCormick says local governments in his school district encouraged big
homes and lots, but even his schools can barely keep up with the costs of
educating new students. He says suburban planners just can’t risk
bringing in smaller homes and more kids.


“Well, if you were to run a business the way growth affects school districts,
you’d be broke because you cannot keep up with rapid growth that produces
for every student, a deficit.”


That’s because even high property taxes don’t fully pay for each
student’s education.


Land use experts say reliance on property taxes for education puts
suburbs in a tight spot. Some want to try allowing smaller homes or
even apartments, but school funding’s a stumbling block.


Like other reformers, MarySue Barrett has been pushing for an
alternative. She wants state government to kick in a bigger share of
education dollars. The idea’s to have enough funding for each kid, regardless
of how large or expensive their home is.


“And if we have a different way of paying for our schools that’s less
dependent on the property tax, we’ll begin to move away from this
problem that’s put a choke hold on so many communities.”


It will be an uphill fight, because states are reluctant to change their tax
structures, but Barrett says it’s the worth the political cost. She says, if
we want alternatives to suburban sprawl and its traffic congestion, we
need new ways to pay for education.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

A Home for Unwanted Big Cats

  • A tiger sits inside a cage at "Valley of the Kings Sanctuary and Retreat" in Sharon, Wisconsin. (Photo by Christina Shockley)

When you think about lions or tigers, you probably think of African savannahs or Asian jungles… or the zoo. You probably don’t think about exotic cats living in the
house next door. But the number of big cats in homes has grown over the
years. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports on one woman who has turned her home into a sanctuary for big cats that need a place to live:

Transcript

When you think about lions or tigers, you probably think of African savannahs or Asian
jungles… or the zoo. You probably don’t think about exotic cats living in the house next
door. But the number of big cats in homes has grown over the years. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports on one woman who’s turned her home
into a sanctuary for big cats that need a place to live:


“Hi, handsome… hi, handsome. He loves to be scratched. He has absolutely no teeth.
He had every single one of his teeth taken out and he was declawed by a movie producer
in California. So he’d be safe to sit next to stars. Isn’t that sad? You can scratch and
cuddle him. He can’t hurt you in any way.”

Charlie is a big black panther.

He lives at “Valley of the Kings Sanctuary and Retreat” in the little town of Sharon,
Wisconsin.

About fifty big cats live here, along with bears, wolf hybrids, goats, foxes, chickens,
domestic cats, geese, ducks… and pretty much anything else that needs a home.

Before they got here, some of the animals—like Charlie— were altered so they’d be less
of a threat to people.

Others were mistreated in circuses… or zoos simply couldn’t take them in. Nearly all of
them would have been killed if they hadn’t found a home here…

Valley of the Kings is a private non-profit run by Jill Carnegie and her husband Jim Tomasi.

They live in a modest farmhouse on the sanctuary grounds. But even that has been partly
turned over to the animals.

At least five domestic cats roam the main floor, and Charlie the panther lives in a room
that’s been modified into a cage.

Jill Carnegie says animals have always been important in her life. She says they fill a
void. Carnegie says in her big family, she didn’t always get the attention she felt she
deserved.

“I never felt loved, but I always felt it from the animals. Their love was unconditional.
They didn’t lie to you. They didn’t betray you. They didn’t stab you in the back. They
didn’t hurt you. They were always, always 180 percent there for me. Always.”

Then, when she was about four years old… Carnegie says she came to believe she had a
gift.

“I remember going out into our side yard, and sending a message to the squirrels to come
and they would all come. And I would have bread and treats for them. And they would
eat, and we would just be really happy.”

Carnegie believes everyone has the ability to communicate with animals, but most people
choose to ignore it. Carnegie says it has helped her understand the big cats in her care.

Out on the sanctuary grounds, it’s clear that every big cat has a personality, like Kia.

Block: “She has a thing about women. She doesn’t like them (laughs).”


(Kia growls)


Chris Block has been volunteering at the sanctuary for about eight years. He says some
of these animals come from people who wanted to keep them as pets.

“But she’s this way to basically most people. She’s very antisocial. (cougar hisses) She
was owned by a truck driver, a cross country truck driver who wanted to get a baby
cougar and wanted to take her in the cab with him.”

Block says average people who buy exotic animals as pets don’t know what they’re
getting into. The cats can attack unprovoked, need special food, and get a lot bigger than
they are when they’re young.

Jill Carnegie, the sanctuary owner, has allowed some big cats to roam free in her house,
including a spotted Asian leopard.

Carnegie would sometimes even let the leopard sleep in her bed at night.

But at least one expert says this is going too far.

Richard Farinato is the director of captive wildlife programs at the Humane Society of the
United States.

“Every time you come into direct contact or you allow someone to come into direct
contact situation, with a big cat, you’re just playing the numbers game. It’s only a matter
of time before someone’s going to get hurt. Badly.”

Carnegie says she knows the cats are dangerous. But she says her bond with the big cats
and her experience working with them sets her apart from the rest.

“Again it goes back to common sense. I’ve been doing this for 32 years. We’ve never
ever had an injury, ever. And again, we’ve only had a handful of cats that have been safe
in the house, that I would trust anybody with.”

Authorities and neighbors have had some concerns about the sanctuary. Jill Carnegie
says she’s not even thinking about giving it up.

But, partly because of the concerns, Carnegie wants to find a new location for Valley of
the Kings.

She says then she’d have more room to expand and take in additional animals that need
homes and care.

For the GLRC, I’m Christina Shockley.

Related Links

Airport Land to Become a Playground for Pups?

  • One airport in the region is considering turning some of its unused land into a playground for dogs and their owners. (Photo by Kat Shurtz)

Large expanses of open land often surround airport buildings and runways as noise buffers. Now, at one airport in the region, there’s a plan to put that land to use. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:

Transcript

Large expanses of open land often surround airport buildings and runways as noise buffers. Now, at one airport in the region, there’s a plan to put that land to use. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:


When Ryan Mccue was a city official in Milwaukee, he says he took call after call from residents complaining that animals were running loose in area parks. The problem was dog owners weren’t keeping their pets on leashes. Now Mccue thinks he’s come up with a solution: set up a dog exercise area on land unlikely to be used for anything else.


“The airport has a lot of land that’s vacant. And it’s a great spot for it. There aren’t very many neighbors around the airport so the dogs barking won’t disturb any neighbors.”


If aproved, the exercise area would be established on land owned by Mitchell International Airport near Milwaukee. He says the 27 acres would be fenced in and kept separate from the airport
facilities. Mccue says, so far, the airport and the FAA are supportive of the plan. And if it’s approved, he says it could be used as an example of how other airports can make use of their open space.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Christina Shockley.