Utah neighbors conflict....

[anniemcu]

But seriously, can you blame him for not wanting his view obscured? Personally, I would have just lived with anything other than a blatant infraction, but what a view.

It was just plain assinine to not expect some disgruntlement on the part of the person who's lovely view you just stuck your fat houseline permanently in the middle of. Inconsiderate at best, downright a flip-off in it's own right at worst.

Not that I don't get your views on the matter, but what I want to know is why he violated code in the first place. It was bound to cost him much money to correct, and he would have been caught sooner or later.

... the original 'flip-off' in this instance, the defiance of the rules ... an 'I dare you to stop me' challenge that some folks are just used to winning.

[cowtime]

This problem is happening in lots of places according to folks on the Am Bungalow site. Tearing down great old houses, built with great materials , to put up monstrosities, built with shoddy materials, and often shoddy workmanship is a sin. I seriously doubt any of those houses will be strong enough to be standing as long as the ones they replaced. The irony is that often the reason they choose the site of the older home for their new home is the wonderful neighborhood. They never realize that their new home destroys the very neighboorhood that drew them there.

On the up side, some communities are getting the right picture. Folks are restoring these homes, and when that is not possible, demolishing the old, but building new versions of the house that was unsalvagable. New bungalows,and American foursquares are being built all over, even entire housing developments to try to replicate the neighboorhoods of the past.
Here's a new"old" house-

[dwinterfield]

Not that I don't get your views on the matter, but what I want to know is why he violated code in the first place. It was bound to cost him much money to correct, and he would have been caught sooner or later.

So some people like to gamble. "Hey once it's up they won't make me take it down" often works.

I've also observed that the folks who intentionally break the rules will scream the loudest for enforcement if someone else breaks the rules to their detriment.

[emmline]

This is lovely. The art of architecture is not all lost. But it sure seems like it some places.

[Innocent Bystander]

Architecture does not easily slip into the vernacular without the danger of corruption by trade.

[Tyler]

We have a few "new" old houses going in up near the University of Utah where I used to live as a wee lad. The old houses there are fantastic little things (and fetch about two to two and a half times what my current house cost, which is why I don't live up there), and I occasionally visit the area just to see the houses again. Many of them are being remodled and restored, and a few are being completely reconstructed...
there are a few, though, who come in and throw up a monstrosity where a treasure once stood.
To me, it's like they tear down a bit of my childhood when they tear down one of those houses...maybe I just have an emotional attatchment to the area, i dunno.
I can't remember, but I think Susan mentioned she lives around that area, so she'd know what I'm talking about.

[susnfx]

I can't remember, but I think Susan mentioned she lives around that area, so she'd know what I'm talking about.

No, I live in North Salt Lake (just outside the actual Salt Lake Valley). I work in the University of Utah/Avenues area, though, and have seen a lot of homes undergoing restoration. They're really treasures and I'm glad to see them saved.

It was just a few blocks north where one of the ugliest fights went on a couple of years ago, with a man tearing down a modest older home and putting up a huge thing that filled his entire lot, with windows and balconies looking directly into his neighbors' back yards. He said he wanted enough room for his kids to stay when they came to visit. I doubt any of his neighbors are speaking to him yet.

Susan

[CountryKitty]

It was just plain assinine to not expect some disgruntlement on the part of the person who's lovely view you just stuck your fat houseline permanently in the middle of. Inconsiderate at best, downright a flip-off in it's own right at worst.

Not that I don't get your views on the matter, but what I want to know is why he violated code in the first place. It was bound to cost him much money to correct, and he would have been caught sooner or later.

... the original 'flip-off' in this instance, the defiance of the rules ... an 'I dare you to stop me' challenge that some folks are just used to winning.

Keep in mind that most people have their houses built by contractors. The home owner may have done a lot of the designing, but someone else surely did the building--the contractor should've known the code, but probably didn't give a hoot past getting paid. And moving on, leaving the homeowner with the end results.

[djm]

There was a lot of that sort of trouble a few years ago in Vancouver BC, where Asian money was being wooed, and they'd come into very expensive/exclusive neighbourhoods, with large, elegant old Victorian mansions, bulldoze these down, and build concrete blocks that went to the very edge of all property lines, and two or three stories high. Those moving in gave no value to green, open spaces. To them, anything that was not part of their house was a loss and a waste. Esthetic clashes of culture are bound to occur in such situations.

djm

[DaveM]

Don't you guys have any planning permission to obtain before you build a house? I tried to get permission to remove a doorway into my ground floor flat and was knocked back because it didn't fit in with the look of the flats to the left and right. Ultimately the planning people have the right to knock back anything you propose here in Scotland, and if you get on the wrong side of them then basically you're Donald Ducked.

Dave

[susnfx]

Unfortunately, nobody even thought of these possibilities when the codes were put in place for the older neighborhoods. Now most of the cities locally are revising codes and putting in height restrictions, requiring your home to fit in with the established neighborhood--too late for the places where monstrosities were built that started the brouhaha.

Susan

[Redwolf]

I don't know about code violations, but Salt Lake is having a real problem right now (as are other cities, I understand) with people going into an established neighborhood of older, smaller homes, tearing down a home and building a grotesque McMansion in its place, blocking not only the view but even the sun! Because we're in a fairly small valley (if traffic on the freeway is light I can get from the north end of the valley to the south end in 30 minutes or less), a good percentage of the homes are either on the hills with views looking over the valley, or on the valley floor with views of the mountains. So when people put in these monstrous homes, they block somebody's view one way or the other. All the local cities are scrambling to bring codes up to date so that new homes have to conform to the neighborhood house size.

I sometimes look at the multi-million dollar homes on the hillside above my house and wonder how they feel when somebody builds on a lot just below them--another four-story multi-million dollar home--and blocks their view, or a good part of it.

Susan

That's a major bone of contention in Santa Cruz right now as well. Most of the original oceanview homes were single-story bungalows. Those lots are now worth millions, of course, and when wealthy people buy them, the first thing they do is build a huge, two or three story house that takes up most of the lot and destroys the views of all the people living around them in their classic bungalows (not to mention their property values, since anyone buying their lots now would HAVE to rebuild in order to get the ocean view). Laws are being passed to limit the size of new construction, but that doesn't help much if you're already living behind a "McMansion."

Redwolf

[anniemcu]

Not that I don't get your views on the matter, but what I want to know is why he violated code in the first place. It was bound to cost him much money to correct, and he would have been caught sooner or later.

... the original 'flip-off' in this instance, the defiance of the rules ... an 'I dare you to stop me' challenge that some folks are just used to winning.

Keep in mind that most people have their houses built by contractors. The home owner may have done a lot of the designing, but someone else surely did the building--the contractor should've known the code, but probably didn't give a hoot past getting paid. And moving on, leaving the homeowner with the end results.

The codes are there for a reason. It's required that they meet those codes, and inspection is also required to ensure it... If it's the contractor's fault for not complying, it should be the contractor's responsibility to fix.

[djm]

The problem, I think, is much as susnfx suggested: that the planning regulations are coming in far too late to preserve older neighbouhoods. Sometimes this is good, and sometimes not, depending on the neighbourhood, and depending on what is being suggested to replace old houses not intended to be kept.

As I alluded to above, not everyone shares the same tastes, so what is one person's eyesore is another's historical legacy. Let's face it: a lot of these older homes are too small to be of much use. They can't accommodate modern kitchen appliances. They have inadequate fire evacuation routes. They are often too expensive to retrofit or upgrade. Plus a community's needs change over time. Perhaps more room is needed for schools or business or industry.

While I personally love the older architecture, we can't run around blindly declaring every rickety old shack a heritage site. There has to be room for the living, too.

djm

[Wanderer]

According to Snopes, there's more to it than just a guy building a little over code and then getting mad when made to re-do it.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/risque/ventcover.asp

According to Snopes:
When the guy was first building, he was excavating dirt from a hill that he and his neighbors shared. They complained to the city, and made him do a soil test (at about $3000) even though the previous land owner had already had one done. This also delayed his construction by four months.

Then, when the house went up, the neighbors complained again. The guys admitted his house was probably over code "by about a foot" at that exact moment, but would fall within code once all the work was completed, and he had already had his plans improved by the city.

At this point, the guy's out $25,000. I'd be a bit upset too, if his side of the story is accurate.

Here's a Salte Lake Tribune article that essentially has the same information, but with a nice view of the "cactus" from their neighbor's point of view.

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_4188445

My take is that the crux of the disagreement is the neighbor saying "We used to have a view of the mountains. He didn't have to take everyone's view." A new guy moved in and immediately set out to erect a structure into their view (and even in code, the pictures show it's clearly in their view), and they immediately set out to make it difficult for him.