**Official** Real estate developers are completely out of control.

[Fausto]

I'm not sure how things are in other big cities, but here in Atlanta there has been a trend toward moving back intown from the suburbs (mostly to avoid our horrible traffic). As many of these suburbanites have money to burn, there has been increased demand for bigger houses intown (many of the already-developed areas have sub-2500 square-foot homes built prior to 1980). Developers have taken to buying these older homes, knocking them down and building 5000+ sq/ft monsters that are totally out of place in the neighborhood.

The absolute worst offender is a developer named Fred Milani who built a 15,000 sq/ft replica of the White House in an older residential area near me. :|

The aberration he calls home.

A house typical of that area.

A good article in the local paper about this asshat and others like him.

 

[minendo]

Same thing is happening in the suburbs of Chicago.

 

[Zombie]

<---- does not understand your anger.

 

[RagingBITCH]

Well it increases the property value of those houses doesn't it? And is this thread **Confirmed** as well?

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: Zombie
<---- does not understand your anger.

You must not own a home then. It has to do with the continuity and charm of a neigborhood as well as having some buffer zone between you and your nearest neighbors. If they build a 10,000 square foot house on a 1/4-acre lot your privacy just went to hell. Plus a mansion amongst small ranch homes just looks fscking ridiculous.

 

[Encryptic]

Sheesh....a fvcking replica of the White House in a residential neighborhood? This guy is an ass of the highest order...

 

[Zombie]

Originally posted by: Fausto

Originally posted by: Zombie
<---- does not understand your anger.

You must not own a home then. It has to do with the continuity and charm of a neigborhood as well as having some buffer zone between you and your nearest neighbors. If they build a 10,000 square foot house on a 1/4-acre lot your privacy just went to hell. Plus a mansion amongst small ranch homes just looks fscking ridiculous.

Article does not say that a 10,000 sq. ft house is not 1/4 acre lot. It say they bought out more than one small house and put up a bigger house. What is wrong with that?

I am also going by the example give in original post. 2 2500 sq. ft houses or 1 5000 sq. ft house, what is the differnce ?

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: Encryptic
Sheesh....a fvcking replica of the White House in a residential neighborhood? This guy is an ass of the highest order...

Yep. Fifteen thousand square feet. Most of the homes around it are no more than 2,000.

 

[ivol07]

Originally posted by: Fausto

Originally posted by: Zombie
<---- does not understand your anger.

You must not own a home then. It has to do with the continuity and charm of a neigborhood as well as having some buffer zone between you and your nearest neighbors. If they build a 10,000 square foot house on a 1/4-acre lot your privacy just went to hell. Plus a mansion amongst small ranch homes just looks fscking ridiculous.

Privacy? What's that?

<------- Lives in California

 

[StageLeft]

Haha his house is awesome, fausto

I tell you - only in Alabama or I guess georgia have I ever seen trailers next to mansions. Literally I have seen a trailer park next to a mansion in alabama. In nova scotia there were zoning laws for that sort of nonsense but in the US, or at least AL, it seems that nobody gives a hoot! We have zoning laws in our current neighborhood so I know such a problem will never happen to me, but much of the state does not.

 

[maziwanka]

holy crap that house is off the chain.

 

[Shockwave]

Stimulation of economy. Betterment of land. Umm, whats the problem? You wanna livei nthe ghetto surrounding by ******* and crack heads tryin to shoot you, mug you, rob you and kill you?

 

[Confused]

Did anybody else notice the:

GOD :heart: YOU

on the lawn of the "White House"?


Confused

 

[conjur]

DeKalb County, like other metro Atlanta governments, has little power to regulate the fast-growing phenomenon of infill development. Like governments across the country, metro officials are not prepared to handle the surging appetite for urban living that is remaking central cities and close-in suburbs.

BS!

They can pass laws restricting growth pending environmental and traffic impact studies. Or, they could just deny the zoning changes.

I registered a domain name and need to work on the content still and get it up and running. It's targeted to those who seek to stop sprawl and look to wiser land development policies.

 

[Banana]

Better that they return to the city than to increase the horrid suburban sprawl.

<---Guilty of living in suburbs.

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: Shockwave
Stimulation of economy. Betterment of land. Umm, whats the problem? You wanna livei nthe ghetto surrounding by ******* and crack heads tryin to shoot you, mug you, rob you and kill you?

Um....there's a BIG difference between revitalizing run-down neighborhoods and bastardizing existing ones. This is an upper-middle-class white neighborhood, not the ghetto.

 

[Encryptic]

Originally posted by: Shockwave
Stimulation of economy. Betterment of land. Umm, whats the problem? You wanna livei nthe ghetto surrounding by ******* and crack heads tryin to shoot you, mug you, rob you and kill you?

Wow, that was a really good point......NOT.

The point is that this crap is making the neighborhoods more expensive for people like the retirees mentioned in the article who have lived there for years. Not to mention, houses like that monstrosity the real estate guy built don't fit into the neighborhood at all. Maybe he should invest in cleaning up the ghetto instead of fvcking up a nice neighborhood for the people that live there.

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: conjur

DeKalb County, like other metro Atlanta governments, has little power to regulate the fast-growing phenomenon of infill development. Like governments across the country, metro officials are not prepared to handle the surging appetite for urban living that is remaking central cities and close-in suburbs.

BS!

They can pass laws restricting growth pending environmental and traffic impact studies. Or, they could just deny the zoning changes.

I registered a domain name and need to work on the content still and get it up and running. It's targeted to those who seek to stop sprawl and look to wiser land development policies.

Oh man....you don't know how corrupt Atlanta government is. Half the people who could regulate this kind of stuff probably get massive campaign donations from the developers. I only wish it were as easy as you say.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: Fausto

Originally posted by: conjur

DeKalb County, like other metro Atlanta governments, has little power to regulate the fast-growing phenomenon of infill development. Like governments across the country, metro officials are not prepared to handle the surging appetite for urban living that is remaking central cities and close-in suburbs.

BS!

They can pass laws restricting growth pending environmental and traffic impact studies. Or, they could just deny the zoning changes.

I registered a domain name and need to work on the content still and get it up and running. It's targeted to those who seek to stop sprawl and look to wiser land development policies.

Oh man....you don't know how corrupt Atlanta government is. Half the people who could regulate this kind of stuff probably get massive campaign donations from the developers. I only wish it were as easy as you say.

It's gotta start somewhere. They don't call them grassroots movements for nothing

Make some noise!

Get others to make noise.

Soon enough, the politicians can't ignore the noise!

 

[Fausto]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: Fausto

Originally posted by: conjur

DeKalb County, like other metro Atlanta governments, has little power to regulate the fast-growing phenomenon of infill development. Like governments across the country, metro officials are not prepared to handle the surging appetite for urban living that is remaking central cities and close-in suburbs.

BS!

They can pass laws restricting growth pending environmental and traffic impact studies. Or, they could just deny the zoning changes.

I registered a domain name and need to work on the content still and get it up and running. It's targeted to those who seek to stop sprawl and look to wiser land development policies.

Oh man....you don't know how corrupt Atlanta government is. Half the people who could regulate this kind of stuff probably get massive campaign donations from the developers. I only wish it were as easy as you say.

It's gotta start somewhere. They don't call them grassroots movements for nothing

Make some noise!

Get others to make noise.

Soon enough, the politicians can't ignore the noise!

It's going to take a lot of noise as they keep some of their money stuffed in their ears from what I understand. :|

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: Fausto

Originally posted by: conjur

DeKalb County, like other metro Atlanta governments, has little power to regulate the fast-growing phenomenon of infill development. Like governments across the country, metro officials are not prepared to handle the surging appetite for urban living that is remaking central cities and close-in suburbs.

BS!

They can pass laws restricting growth pending environmental and traffic impact studies. Or, they could just deny the zoning changes.

I registered a domain name and need to work on the content still and get it up and running. It's targeted to those who seek to stop sprawl and look to wiser land development policies.

Oh man....you don't know how corrupt Atlanta government is. Half the people who could regulate this kind of stuff probably get massive campaign donations from the developers. I only wish it were as easy as you say.

Hell, in colorado springs the head of the county board that approves developments & such is a major developer in the area. He at least had the courtesy to abstain from a recent vote on whether to approve his own development that will put houses within 1500 feet of an airport runway that regularly handles C-130s (and bigger when Ft. Carson deploys). It passed anyway.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: ergeorge

Originally posted by: Fausto

Oh man....you don't know how corrupt Atlanta government is. Half the people who could regulate this kind of stuff probably get massive campaign donations from the developers. I only wish it were as easy as you say.

Hell, in colorado springs the head of the county board that approves developments & such is a major developer in the area. He at least had the courtesy to abstain from a recent vote on whether to approve his own development that will put houses within 1500 feet of an airport runway that regularly handles C-130s (and bigger when Ft. Carson deploys). It passed anyway.

One of the new council members here (our city/county just merged this year) is the head of one of the largest commercial/real estate development companies in the area. I backed a gentleman from the area in which I lived (that was largely farmland a few years ago) in the hopes he could help curtail the expansion. Too bad that didn't work. Already, in the interchange nearest where I lived is underway for offices, restaurants, etc. Despite the fact that the area was supposed to have been untouched (there is development at each of the interchanges in either direction and should have gone to those, instead.)

 

[Thump553]

I really don't understand what the problem is, other than hideous taste, and I do not think the government should be in the business of regulating taste. If the houses meet building code and subdivision standards, so be it.

Bigger, more expensive houses means knocking down a larger number of older homes. Increased tax base, increased property values and decreased congestion result.

As a practical matter, it's a maxim of real estate not to buy the most expensive house on the block as its value will be held back by its neighbors. These people seem to be running contrary to that maxim. Odds are the marketplace will correct them in the future. And its really the market that should be regulating this, not the government.

 

[Quixfire]

I just recently got into land development, thanks to my brother, and I don't see what the problem is. If you own the land you should be allowed to do what you want as long as it doesn?t conflict with any local laws or zoning ordinances.

I personally wouldn't build a 15,000 sq-ft home on a quarter of an acre, but I really don't see the problem here.

I know your concern is about privacy and local property values, but if it's such an issue why don't you move further out in to the country.

You know there is a lot of cites that would love your problem, Detroit is one of them.

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: Quixfire
I just recently got into land development, thanks to my brother, and I don't see what the problem is. If you own the land you should be allowed to do what you want as long as it doesn?t conflict with any local laws or zoning ordinances.

I personally wouldn't build a 15,000 sq-ft home on a quarter of an acre, but I really don't see the problem here.

I know your concern is about privacy and local property values, but if it's such an issue why don't you move further out in to the country.

You know there is a lot of cites that would love your problem, Detroit is one of them.

These people were "further out in the country" a few years ago, and many of them are probably retirees that can't afford to make the move again. I can definitely see their point ... their neighbors house used to be 50 yards away with mature trees providing some privacy, now they are right up against the property line.

A few things they should try to do:

Petition to get zoning laws put in place that enforce minimum setbacks from property lines. Some places have varying setbacks based on number of stories ... ie. taller houses have to be set back further. Probably won't get far on this, considering that the county & city governments either are developers or are owned by them.

Form or re-form a neighborhood association with covenents that specify architectural standards. I'm not a big fan of covenents ... some of them get pretty ridiculous. But they can have their place. Probably difficult to impossible to implement in an existing community though. People that expect to move within a few years won't want to sign on.

Petition for property tax rates for retired/fixed income families to be grandfathered. I know some areas in CA did this when housing booms caused property taxes to skyrocket.