It is always jarring when new building doesn’t blend comfortably with the old in neighborhoods, but that is a result of different expectations those new home builders have when essentially doing infill development by putting their new homes onto old lots.
Trying to govern it is a slippery slope which can often result in cookie cutterness that pleases hardly anyone.
Editorial: A test for McMansions
City guidelines leave room for design
Published 12:00 am PDT Monday, March 19, 2007
The Sacramento City Council is trying to find a way to preserve the feel of its established neighborhoods as residents tear down the old homes and build new ones. A hard-and-fast rule on setbacks and building heights would likely thwart some pleasing and acceptable new designs, but creating some guidelines -- this size is OK, that one will have to be vetted by the neighbors and go through a tougher review -- seems like the way to go.
Proud residents of Granite Bay and Elk Grove, you might want to switch to the weather page. But for capital residents such as Allan Eveland of east Sacramento, some recent remodels got out of hand. "We already have homes that look like they belong in Elk Grove or Granite Bay," he said.
Today's home construction companies, driven by that age-old profit motive, are tending to put a whole lot more home on the same piece of property than in generations past. The residence can then seem out of proportion to the lot itself, not to mention the houses around it.
Elements of modern architectural flair may conflict with an ideal held by traditionalists. Set that view aside for a moment. The McMansion phenomenon is more than a matter of taste. It's real. And an abundance of these houses can change the feel of an old neighborhood.
Sacramento's established neighborhoods -- east Sacramento, Curtis Park, Land Park, Tahoe Park, Oak Park, North Sacramento, etc. -- were built long before McMansion was a word. The lots in those neighborhoods can be relatively compact, sometimes 10 to the acre, but the homes weren't built like big boxes.
