Comments on: Floor Area Ratios – Bulk and Volume

By: john

john — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 04:05:32 +0000

In Seattle, things are just the opposite. Height limit is 30′ , but with roofs of min. 3:12 slope and a peak with a return, they are allowed to go to 35′. Planar roofs are not allowed this extra 5′.

By: FlatRoofFan

FlatRoofFan — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 22:57:43 +0000

The Eastside of Seattle is full of homes from the 50’s and 60’s with flat roofs. Personally I find them much less offensive than the peaked roof’s on the faux-craftsman style McMansions that are now in style. Given the same amount of square footage, a well designed house with a flat roof will block much less of the sun and the view than a McMansion with a monstrous pitched roof. Ask anyone on Mercer Island who has lost their view of the water due to all the old 60’s houses being replaced with pitched roofs.

By: ARDELL

ARDELL — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 06:01:34 +0000

To Jeffrey, Kirkland didn’t have FAR code restrictions until 1999. They are proposing some fine tuning of the 1999 code. Bulk and volume of housing becomes a more heated issue where there are views involved. The little house with a view can now only see the neighbor’s walls surrounding them, instead of the Lake Washington view they had before the homes around them were torn down and replaced with bigger homes. You also get less sunlight, a big issue here in Seattle, if the homes around you start to tower over you.

In L.A. I saw a house so surrounded with monoliths that mold started grown on the little old house and even in the dirt surrounding the house.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 04:17:10 +0000

Great topic, Ardell. Interesting article this week in The Economist on creeping nanny-ism in government. The traditional way to exert architectural control over a neighborhood has bee the homeowners’ association. I have been President of several, and one thing I particularly recall is that if the association does not exercise its review and consent power consistently, then it loses the legal power to block anything. While I can appreciate that a city building department might want to defend the bastions of good taste (in their opinion), or ensure that any new development is “in keeping with the neighborhood” (Jeffrey’s phrase above), that is all a very slippery slope. With Ardell’s Kirkland example in mind, I might suggest to the people of the neighborhood that the reason their property is worth so much is precisely because someone with money who wants to live there can build the McMansion of their dreams. Denial of rights to ‘highest and best use’ has been the subject of quite a few legal wranglings lately. This topic will be the gift that keeps on giving

By: JeffreyCentex

JeffreyCentex — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 03:23:52 +0000

A perspective from an outsider – one who wishes to move to Seattle, but who cannot currently afford it (from the land of $140,000 homes that would be $350,000 in Seattle)…

In my part of Texas, the following constraints can be put on all construction:
1. Setback (Front/Back/Side/Aerial)
2. Exterior Const. Material (Brick, Wood, Stucco, etc. – percentages of each type can be specified, especially pending # 3 below)
3. Neighborhood Type (if other homes in the vicinity are one-story, you cannot build a two-story house without acceptance of the majority of your neighbors)
4. Historical Districts & Visual Zones

Austin is having problems with what they call “McMansions” – see http://www.escapesomewhere.com/austinblog/2006/02/moratorium_passed_on_mcmansion.html . I can say this is a problem there – you can have a street of two bedroom cottages and then have this Taj Mahal that completely fills the area of the setback.

We don’t have FARs here – you can put anything on a lot if it is in keeping with the neighborhood and if you don’t have to rezone or get a special use permit (i.e., constructing a storage building or swimming pool in a setback, etc.). Once you ask for one of those, anything and everything is fair game and is on the table.