Human scale out - gigantism in

Politicians promise, but only builders deliver.  If the city (any city) only did some "code busting" testing on its own codes, it might find out where the 10,000 SF loopholes are.  To test a code, get several (or a lot of) smart people (residents - not developers with a conflict of interest), hand them the development codes, and see what awful thing they can design and still keep it legal. 

In the end, every project will still depend upon code interpretation.  If the planners like it, even if the project looks just like one they denied 2 years ago, they can approve it with new reasoning applied.  The trick is to get community values, codes that can't be busted, and planners all working together.  This ugly task is up to the City Council to accomplish.  Guys?     

Boy this story is getting old.  How many people in how many cities and how many countries are feeling and saying the same things?

How do we keep our cities and neighborhoods "human scale"?

Return of 'mansionization' has some L.A. homeowners grumbling
LA Times, May 4, 2014  By Emily Alpert Reyes

Excerpts:

Six years ago, Los Angeles politicians imposed new limits on the size of new and renovated houses, promising to rein in what they called "homes on steroids" dwarfing blocks of smaller buildings.

But as the housing market rebounds and construction picks up, many homeowners complain that "mansionization" has revved up — reigniting long-standing policy battles and sometimes bitter fence fights over the face and feel of L.A.'s neighborhoods.

Builders are snapping up smaller, older homes, razing them and replacing them with bigger dwellings. Increasingly, sleek, square structures are popping up along streets known for quaint bungalows.In Hollywood, for example, members of a neighborhood group objected to a spec home exceeding 3,000 square feet, being built on a Stanley Avenue block lined with older, smaller homes — most of them under 2,000 square feet. Aggravated by the "out of place, enormous" residence, Amy Aquino of the Sunset Square Neighborhood Assn. said the group hired a land-use consultant to examine how it was allowed.

"Everything they were doing, hideous as it is, is all completely legal," Aquino said.

The builder behind the home, Amnon Edri, said that as long as his project meets requirements, it shouldn't be a problem.

"If the city code allows it, and you want a bigger house, you have the right to a bigger house," he said. "This is America. It's a free country."

Neighbors pushing for stricter rules fear that outsized, out-of-character buildings will drag down their home values. Edri and others maintain that bigger homes boost prices for their neighbors.

For decades there was "kind of a consensus about what a Southern California house should look like" — low, rambling and open to the landscape, cultural historian D.J. Waldie said. That philosophy, along with requirements imposed by builders, gave rise to uniform neighborhoods lined with homes of similar sizes and styles, Waldie said.

But in a growing city with scant undeveloped land and changing tastes, some Angelenos see things differently. They look at older neighborhoods and think, "'this is where the good life is lived,'" Waldie said. "'But I don't want to live in a 1,300-square-foot house.'"  Doesn't this mean they should go elsewhere to build their big house?  Isn't the "good life" they are covetous of,  due to the smaller, intimate (human-scale), relaxed landscape that was created in generations past?  When the landscape changes, the "good life" will go with it.  

The Baseline Mansionization Ordinance was approved in 2008 as the city was slipping into the housing slump. It was meant to stop homes from expanding, as Councilman Tom LaBonge put it, "like the Pillsbury Doughboy."

Under the new rules, a 5,000-square-foot lot in a typical residential zone generally could not have a home of more than 2,500 square feet of "residential floor area," including extra buildings — or a total of 50% of the lot size. Before the change, a home of up to 7,000 square feet, not including garages, could be built on the same size lot, according to the planning department. But the law includes special exceptions. Builders can get a bonus to build 20% or 30% larger than ordinarily allowed if they design their homes to be environmentally friendly, or if they adhere to certain scaling requirements of home facades and upper floors. The home Edri is building on Stanley Avenue, for example, was allowed hundreds of feet of additional floor area because part of the facade was recessed, according to its building permit.

Critics point out that some construction that can bulk up the appearance of residences isn't counted against the size limits. Up to 400 square feet of "covered parking area" can be excluded from city calculations, for example.