McMansions

An interesting property rights battle continues to shape up in Arlington, Virginia, not too far from my own home...

In Arlington, plans for a palatial, 12,500-square-foot house on Pershing Drive call for a basement ballroom with bar, an indoor swimming pool, a hot tub, five bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a library and a prayer room. The house would be 4 1/2 times the size of the average home on the block.

"Its scale is absurd," said neighbor Alan Tober, who, along with others, worries that the house will be used for commercial purposes -- namely weddings.

But property owner Yogi Dumera said he has no such plans. He is only taking advantage of his large lot, he said.

"I'm within my rights," Dumera, a restaurateur, said of his dream home. "I don't see why people can say anything. . . . Life goes on."

Giant houses such as Dumera's are controversial virtually every time they spring up in established neighborhoods, and for years area governments have made faltering attempts to do something about them. Some jurisdictions set strict height limits, and the District has limited tree cutting in at least one area in an attempt to rein in gigantic residences.

By proposing zoning changes, Arlington County officials are going further than any area government in imposing restrictions. In the coming weeks, they will debate rules that would reduce the square footage that a house and driveway can cover on a lot. If approved, the rules would be the region's first significant limits on so-called McMansions.

The practice of tearing down smaller homes in older neighborhoods to make way for million-dollar construction has grown more popular in recent years as buildable land has disappeared inside the Capital Beltway and property values have soared. The trend mirrors what is happening in other metropolitan areas with older housing stock, such as Boston and San Francisco. Buyers have been eager to replace aging houses with newer, bigger models equipped with modern luxuries such as cathedral ceilings, great rooms and expansive bathrooms. In the past 50 years, the average size of a new home has more than doubled while lot sizes have steadily shrunk, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Driving Arlington's efforts to curb the influx of giant houses are residents worried about construction that they find at odds with the scale and character of their neighborhoods, said County Board Chairman Jay Fisette (D).

"We know we can't legislate good taste or good architecture," Fisette said. "The modifications we've been talking about will keep the worst projects from being viable."

On the other side are developers and an opposing group of residents ready to mount a robust campaign against the regulations, saying they will hurt the average homeowner who just wants to add a deck or kitchen. Arlingtonians, whose property values have increased 70 percent in the past three years, should be able to exercise their current rights, opponents argue.

Furthermore, some critics of the proposal say they suspect that much of the discontent springs from a culture clash between longtime residents of Arlington and new, richer arrivals, many of them wealthy immigrants.

"They flat out don't like these rich people moving in and building big houses. It's a bunch of old liberals, and they've just got to give up," said Terry Showman, a developer who builds homes in the county. That idea is called "silly" by Fisette.

It's a fun issue to debate. Personally, I tend to fall on the side of the new homeowners who want to use their property as they see fit. Of course, I live in a townhouse community with the normal homeowners association issues, so I tend to be sympathetic to people who pay a ton of money for a home and aren't allowed to do waht they would like with their property.

There are reasonable limits that are imposed on property use, as any first-year law student knows (well, any first-year law student who has a real property class -- I'm still questioning whether I did). The funny part of this question is that I'd think that the existence of a mansion-style home in a neighborhood would increase property value for everyone, so I'd expect most people to choose the money over aesthetics. Guess not.