Suburban Frisco is in a quandary. Some residents and city officials are trying to figure out a way to discourage developers from building ugly 3,500-square-foot homes with vaulted ceilings, gilded bathrooms, and those arched doorways that give people who live below Mockingbird the cold sweats.

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          Some would see this news as an opportunity to take cheap shots at Frisco, such as wondering why people there have suddenly decided to alter their reason for being. But I try to rise above that sort of pettiness. In the interest of fostering better relations between our neighborhood and our neighbors to the north, I’d like to offer my help in solving their problem.

 

My credentials, of course, are impeccable. I grew up in a suburb (which means I have studiously avoided them since leaving home at the age of 18), I have written extensively about urban sprawl and Frisco-style McMansions, and I have actually been to Frisco. Took a field trip up that way one Sunday afternoon, drove around a couple of gated communities, and then fled in terror back down the toll way.

 

The problem, according to some city officials, is that all of the houses in town not only look alike, but they’re designed in such a way as to discourage neighborhood interaction. Residents drive through their gate, speed around the curves until they get to their driveway, open the door with the remote, pull inside, and never see their neighbors. In addition, the city’s zoning requires lots of at least 7,000 square feet for single-family homes. That means developers must build huge houses, which makes them expensive and ensures that only families with children will buy them. The point being that a little diversity — older, retired couples, for example, or grandma and grandpa living in a condo down the street — would make the suburb a more pleasant place to live.

 

The city council voted last month to write an ordinance to give home builders and developers some zoning leeway, allowing them to put townhomes in some areas set aside for single family and allowing lot sizes as small as 4,000 square feet nestled among the McMansions. Needless to say, this has been hugely controversial, not the least because the city is offering developers all sorts of incentives (including the ability to avoid public hearings in selected cases), but also because the entire idea is so un-Frisco. After all, if someone wanted to live in a smaller house, they could live down here.

 

And, as ideas go, the suburb is on the right track. But before they go too far, they should consider the following:

 

• Not many developers are to be trusted. Ever. For any reason. This is neither good nor bad, but a fact of life. Developers build houses to make money, not to win architectural design awards. Any plan that revolves around counting on developers to do the right thing is flawed to begin with.

 

• Townhomes and duplexes (the latter of which has been specifically excluded from the plan) are not evil, assuming they aren’t built in huge quantities on vast tracts of land. Sprinkle them in among a neighborhood, as we do in East Dallas , and they’re quite pleasant. This may be difficult for some to believe, but not everyone wants to live in a 4,000-square foot house with six bedrooms and three baths. Some of us think that’s kind of ostentatious.

 

  Alternative development like this does not necessarily lower property values. A $250,000 house in the next block is not going to make my $800,000 home worthless. Now, Section 8 housing across the street from my $800,000 home may lower its value, but I can’t imagine anyone is suggesting that for Frisco. And even then, as many residents of this neighborhood can attest, having a crummy group of four-plexes around the corner hasn’t done much to lower home appraisals in the past couple of years.

 

This will be a trying time in Frisco, what with trying to break their McMansion habit. I’m here to help, in anyway I can. And I promise not to be too smug about it.