City officials in Alexandria are cracking down on the phenomenon of “mansionization,” which they fear is disrupting the character of traditional neighborhoods. Locations in the core of the Washington New Urban Region have gotten so valuable that people are tearing down older, smaller houses and building mansions that dwarf their neighbors. The trend, in the words of Alexandria mayor William D. Euille, “threatens to undermine the harmony” of the city.
City council has enacted emergency legislation to block the re-development and plans to take up a permanent solution, limiting the size or height of new homes, according to an article by Annie Gowen with the Washington Post. Arlington County, she noted, is grappling with similar problems.
The mansionization controversy pits two competing views: One view says that a property owner should have the right to build anything on his property as long as it doesn’t actively obstruct or interfere with his neighbors’ properties. A contrary view notes that an inappropriate structure can diminish the value of neighboring properties, which rely upon a consistent neighborhood “look and feel” for their value. Neighbors, or the city acting on their behalf, should have the right to veto a building that, by size or architectural inconsistency, is jarringly incompatible.
There is an argument to be made that city and county zoning codes are regulating the wrong thing: They restrict supposedly “incompatible” uses, such as housing, professional offices and small retail stores from being located in proximity to each other when, in fact, the intermixture of such uses often is highly desirable. What local governments should regulate is incompatible heights and sizes that disrupt the continuity of streetscapes. In other words, no 10,000-square-foot mansions shoe-horned into a street of 1,500-square-foot townhouses or cottages.
Frankly, I’m not sure where I stand on these issues, but I’ll continue to track them for Bacon’s Rebellion.