Bill could give county municipalities more control over McMansions

Similar legislation passed last year in Montgomery County

Thursday, Jan. 18, 2007

by Dennis Carter

Staff Writer

McMansions, or one-time single-family homes that are torn down or renovated to create much larger structures, could threaten the character of older neighborhoods throughout the county, officials said.

A bill slated to be introduced by Del. Barbara Frush (D-Dist. 21) of Beltsville next month would allow Prince George’s cities and towns to set guidelines for homeowners looking to build larger homes.

The legislation would be similar to a bill passed last year granting Montgomery County municipalities the power to create requirements for construction and repair of single-family houses.

Del. Ben Barnes (D-Dist. 21) of Laurel said the bill, which was introduced to the Prince George’s House delegation earlier this month, has ‘‘a very good chance of passage.”

Although McMansions have altered the character of neighborhoods in any part of the county with ‘‘traditional, bungalow-style housing,” Del. Doyle Niemann (D-Dist. 47) of Mount Raineer said cities like College Park — with its neighborhoods full of small single-family homes — need the McMansion bill to pass.

‘‘[McMansions] can overwhelm those neighborhoods,” said Niemann. Homeowners in Mount Rainier have torn down small houses and erected homes several times the original size. ‘‘Those homes can just dwarf everything else,” he added.

Del. Joseline Pena-Melnyk (D-Dist. 21) of College Park said several neighborhoods in College Park — including Berwyn and College Park Woods — have seen their communities altered by McMansions.

‘‘You can imagine having a small house and suddenly having a huge house right next to you,” Pena-Melnyk said. ‘‘It can block the sun, and a lot of times it can be uncomfortable for residents.”

Giving local governments control over the building of large homes would also set rules and prevent conflict among neighbors unhappy with the development.

‘‘This will allow for some sense of order and ... possibly prevent arguments among neighbors,” she said.

Last March, Bethesda’s Greenwich Forest Citizens Association publicly protested mansionization in their community.

College Park Councilman Robert Catlin (Dist. 2) said many McMansions being built in College Park are not owner-occupied, built primarily for student housing.

Having a say in the design of the larger homes would be an essential part of the long-awaited authority granted by the McMansion bill, Catlin said.

‘‘Sometimes, in addition to being a giant mass, [the design] is totally out of the character of the neighborhood,” he said. ‘‘It will be a case-to-case issue. You have to look at each specific example very closely.”

After housing prices skyrocketed several years ago, homeowners looked for single-family homes to tear down and replace with a home two or three times its size, College Park officials said.

Replacing single-family houses with McMansions has only become financially feasible for homeowners in recent years, Catlin said.

‘‘The numbers didn’t used to work, but now they do,” he said.

Jim Peck, director of research for the Maryland Municipal League (MML), said his organization would support the Prince George’s legislation, just as it whole-heartedly supported last year’s Montgomery County McMansion bill.

‘‘This is a problem that has caught the attention of many of our municipalities,” Peck said. ‘‘We applaud the sharing of planning and zoning powers so municipalities can clean up their own back yards.”

Laurel is the only municipality out of 27 in Prince George’s with zoning authority.

E-mail Dennis Carter at dcarter@gazette.net.