Does This Spec House Fit?

RaleighRob
03/17 01:17 PM

The Over-the-top link has a very nice pic of the original house.  Quite nice and cute really….why would anyone tear that down?  A shame.

Rusty
03/17 02:37 PM

It keeps poking at all the typical questions… What responsibility do we have to our neighbors? What (if any) rights to our neighbors have with respect to decisions on our land? Etc, etc.

The sense of scale seems amplified by its proximity to the street (much closer than the neighbor)

Rafe
03/17 03:28 PM

Nothing like a million dollar house with a brick facade and crappy siding on the sides and back.

Georgia
03/17 04:45 PM

I am struck by the “3,400 gallon rain water reclamation tank to supplement the irrigation system.” If I was downstream from Raleigh, I would hope not all the water in Raleigh is recaptured for lawn-irrigation purposes.  Another way around the concept of working together to create a better community, if you ask me.

FallonParkCryBaby
03/18 05:47 AM

Georgia,

The new owners plan on selling the 3400 gallons to Pepsi Bottling to create more bottled water.

Christopher Triplett
03/19 06:40 PM

The old home wasn’t much of a looker, but at least it had some vintage character.

The new one is a disgusting box of matchsticks.  I wish people and builders would stop using “store-bought” plans out of plan books.  They’re all hideous and completely disrespectful to our neighborhoods and landscape. 

We all deserve a lot more enrichment.

EVERYONE should make a stink about ugly houses.  And the buyers should have more intelligence when they put their money somewhere.

-CJT

http://ginkotron.com

Kermit
03/19 11:06 PM

Guess where water goes after it runs off of your roof and into your reclamation tank and through your irrigation system and onto your lawn:  That’s right, downstream.

There are both bigger and smaller houses on that block.  According to Wakegov, the “concerned neighbor’s” house is only 556 square feet smaller than this new “giant” and there’s a 4549 sqft house two doors east, at 2710…  And of course the 45,000 sqft Church of Christ is just a couple houses over, too.

And how about that concerned neighbor’s view across the street?  ( http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=35.798584,-78.670532&spn=0.004438,0.010042&z=17&layer=c&cbll=35.796353,-78.670578&cbp=1,183.4967049820409,,0,5.50767965968732 ).  Yeah, those have been that way for 5 years.  That’s the “quietude” that this guy bought into in 2003.

So, to answer your question, yes, it looks like that spec house fits right in.

rnb
03/20 02:36 AM

it’t not about square footage, but SCALE. and clearly this poor neighbor has had enough.

the thing that is the most offensive to me is this trend of tearing down perfectly good houses to build new. our society is obsessed with new new new and we are quickly running out of resources. if you need bigger, there are ways to tastefully add on to a house (see hobgood’s marvelous version a few articles ago) without completely throwing away all that remains useful in an existing home.

these developers can certainly feel good about one thing…creating their own job security. they build crappy houses (see: cheap siding on 90% of that million dollar house) so more will be needed in 10 years when this one is no longer new or in decent condition.

spiro
03/23 09:11 PM

This new house will look much better than the messy box that was there before.

It seems that the neighbor has an envy problem.  He is lucky that someone has the guts to invest there.

Bo Bromhal
03/24 01:39 PM

What is “crappy siding”?

What “rights” do fellow citizens have beyond the municipal zoning laws? 

The zoning laws require a property setback, and they require a height restriction.  While most older homes in a lot of the neighborhoods don’t approach the height restriction (nor, quite frankly do most of the new homes) - there are plenty of older homes that would violate the current side yard setbacks of R-4 zoning.

MikeB
03/25 03:08 PM

I understand the fact that there are other large homes in the area, but if you stand in front of the home being built, you can see how out of place it seems. It’s unfortunate that it is being built there, but there is nothing in place to keep it from happening. Should something be put in place? If we want to remain in a free market environment, we should allow this to happen, acknowledging the right of the buyer to refuse to purchase such a home, understanding that it is out of place/crappy siding/etc. and therefore not worth $1 million. By having the buyer refuse, the builder must reduce the price, implicitly acknowledging future endeavors of this type will not be profitable.

CVB
03/27 12:12 AM

Gee, I’m very concerned about teardowns and infill disturbing the character of the neighborhood as well as the sheer wasted resource and environmental damage of scraping off a perfectly good house and replacing it - plus the sheer arrogance of dissing a perfectly good house when there are actual HOMELESS people around. Oh, and the quality of construction on these things seems much more disposable - as if anticipating the next round of infill.

But I’m not seeing this as the poster child for teardown and infill. There’s plenty worse. Oh, and the rainwater collection concern raised by Georgia is a non-issue.

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