In the fourth month of the neighborhood uproar known as overbuilding or mansionization, the chairman of the Planning Commission, the doctor in this case, is seeking to strike a balance between development and critics.
“Balance is our goal,” says Kevin Lachoff, who went on to describe his guiding philosophy:
“We are acknowledging that people are building homes today at times to the maximum extent permissible without necessarily the same regard for the rest of the neighborhood.
“It is important that we preserve owners’ rights to improve their properties and to update the housing stock in the community.”
Since June, City Hall has been peppered with complaints – largely from Carlson Park – about overbuilding. The City Council listened. Shortly, they turned over the matter to the advisory Planning Commission, which could meet as many as three times next month before turning in its recommendations to the Council in November.
Among the pondered consensus changes, the commissioners have directed city staff to return Oct. 21 with a plan for changing the side and rear setbacks from 4 feet and 10 feet on the side and back and 5 feet and 15 feet.
“We did that,” Mr. Lachoff said, “to increase the separation between neighbors and, hopefully, increasing privacy.
“Among primary concerns expressed by the public were privacy and maintaining both sunlight and a view. They were against two-story homes built right to the property line because they said that was a threat to both privacy and sunlight.
“We want to increase the separation, potentially if both sides of the lot were developed,” the chairman said.
The Planning Commission also is revisiting the method by which the garage is counted in square footage.
If it is an attached garage, essentially part of the home, it would be included in the calculation for the house. If the structure is separate, it won’t count.
“We are trying to encourage people to keep a side driveway as an even greater buffer between houses,” Mr. Lachoff said.
