Sally Johnson moved to Lakewood Heights 18 years ago, a single mother looking for a neighborhood close to downtown where she could raise her kids and build some home equity.
To her, the neighborhood had subtle charms.
“It was something about the modesty of the homes, the old trees, it was very mixed, diverse. It seemed more laid back than a lot of parts of
She hung on through the economic downturns of the 1980s, when she says she lost 40 percent of her investment. She had no regrets until a year or so ago, when she suddenly found herself living next door to a half-million-dollar home — and saw more like it sprouting up and down her block.
Now, she’s among many neighborhood residents fighting what might be called “Invasion of the McMansions.” Aging homes, some still habitable, are being torn down and pricey new ones built in their place at sales prices that can have a huge impact on property values throughout the neighborhood.
“It’s a hard thing to live in a neighborhood that is being destroyed. I mean the character,” Johnson says.
To be sure, there are other views on the teardown trend. Melanie Vanlandingham, president of the Lakewood Heights Neighborhood Association, wants to be sure the issue doesn’t pit old vs. new homeowner.
She notes that younger families invigorate the area and says new homes boost property values. But she’s worried that too much disruption could affect the stability of
“The real concern is that some of the neighborhood will be perhaps labeled as ‘neighborhood in transition’,” Vanlandingham says. “Even with the building going on in our neighborhood … we don’t feel that’s something that defines us as ‘in transition.’”
Concern about teardowns has spread across our neighborhood, from
to
Elsewhere in the city, other venerable neighborhoods have already been transformed. The teardown trend may have started in the Park Cities, but now many homeowners in Preston Hollow are bemoaning the changes in their older neighborhoods.
Ironically, the issue hit the boiling point just after
The comprehensive plan will undoubtedly provide a roadmap for long-term development. But many homeowners say they want the city to step up enforcement of existing ordinances that would ease construction-related problems caused by the new homes right now.
The litany of complaints is similar in neighborhoods where teardowns are common: Homeowners say construction crews clamber around before dawn, waking neighbors and leaving rutted roads and trash in their wake. Complaints to developers receive no or inadequate response, some homeowners say. And the city’s code enforcement teams are spread too thin to take consistent action. Even operators at the city’s 311 hotline don’t know where to route the calls, homeowners say.
They also complain that the problems persist long after the new homes are complete. Some say the replacement homes are built on such tall foundations that runoff routinely floods neighboring lawns. They also complain that the new two- and three-story homes tower over the older ones, eliminating their privacy and, in some cases, literally blocking their sunlight.
“They threw mortar all over the side of my house when they were building,” says Johnson, who is an architect and board member of Preservation Dallas. “They work on Sundays. I had to call the cops.”
“There is no enforcement of these rules (on noise and construction limits). No red tags happened that I ever saw,” she says. “They put it on a big old pad that’s three feet in the air from my lot.”
Some developers say they are aware of the complaints and working to be sensitive to existing homeowners.
Elizabeth Newman has built about 34 custom homes in
She says neighbors aren’t always sorry to see homes torn down. In Lake Highlands, for example, she says some teardowns weren’t on proper foundations and weren’t insurable.
“Believe me, the homeowners are just thrilled,” she says of people who live near the uninsurable homes.
Elsewhere, she says, her team has worked with an arborist to ensure that the new construction has little negative impact on the environment.
“We’re going to better the neighborhood,” she said. “Yes, we’ve taken out some trees, but we’re trying to save as much as possible. A lot of them are trash trees.”
Policymakers say
“This is a nationwide issue,” says council member Veletta Forsythe Lill, who chairs the council’s comprehensive plan subcommittee.
“We want to see redevelopment in the city,” says council member Lois Finkelman, whose district includes Preston Hollow. “We also want to see our older neighborhoods preserved in some fashion.”
The question, of course, is how. Historically, some neighborhoods have gotten the city to designate them as conservation districts, which helps regulate the pace and type of growth that is permitted.
But many local experts say conservation districts aren’t viable as a widespread remedy. For starters, it can take from 18 months to two years to get the paperwork through City Hall. By that time, much of the development that longtime homeowners dislike has already overwhelmed a neighborhood.
Second, conservation districts are akin to historic districts, which are designed to preserve the architecture of a particular area. Often, neighborhoods that want to slow the proliferation of new construction don’t have a well-defined architectural style.
But that hasn’t stopped some neighborhood residents from trying to stave off the advancing teardown phenomenon. Residents in a
“You get the teardowns, and the value of my house goes down,” says Beth Roberts, who has lived in the area since 1989. “We’re trying to stop it. I’ve walked the blocks, and there is overwhelming majority for the teardown opposition.”
While her house was built in 1952, some of the others nearby date to the 1940s.
“We’re talking about keeping the look of the neighborhood,” Roberts says.
City officials are quick to point out there already are some laws on the books, which at least theoretically would help them put the brakes on construction-related problems.
“There are penalties. We can cite them, we can fine them, we can red tag them,” says Theresa O’Donnell, head of the city’s development services department.
But many homeowners say they get little relief when they call the city to report problems.
“The way things are set up right now, there is just very limited real-time code enforcement,” says Michael Jung, a former city Plan Commission member. “Unless there is some political pressure to do a specific thing, there is virtually no code enforcement in this city on nights and weekends.
“It’s hard to come to grips with for two reasons: One is a planning reason, and one is a political reason,” he says. “The planning reason is: It’s hard — not impossible, but hard — to define precisely what it is that is objectionable compared to what is not.”
In other words, the city can’t just ban “McMansions.” The city needs to specify what, exactly, makes them objectionable to some residents.
As for the political problem, Jung says, “
But even if there was an easy answer to the construction-related problems, such as noise and debris, some longtime homeowners say they still don’t want to live next door to the huge new homes or the people in them.
“It is a different type of person that moves into those houses. There is a huge values shift in our neighborhood,” Johnson says. “There’s loss of privacy, there’s a loss of appreciation of the style of the neighborhood.”
“It’s like having the big, rich boys put up a mansion next to you,” she says. “I think they look at our houses and think, ‘Uh, what a mess. Look at that thing, it’s falling down.’”
“There’s a lot of resentment and frustration out there.”
