McMansion Law Toothless, Scourage Continues Unabated
LA NEIGHBORHOODS Dick Platkin The Mayor recently signed a new ordinance adopted by the Los Angeles City Council to halt the construction of McMansions on small hillside lots. These elected officials vow that this ordinance will stop the mansionization process in hillside areas. But will it? If the Hillside McMansion ordinance is filled with loopholes similar to those of the Baseline McMansion ordinance enacted several years ago for non-hillside areas, hillside residents should be very wary. This is because the Baseline ordinance still allowed McMansions to be constructed -- as long as they were less than about 4,500 square feet. Since this p rovision effectively green-lighted nearly all McMansions, especially in the R1-1 zone, the Mansionization process has continued unabated in Los Angeles. To begin, McMansions are those boxy, massively oversized, suburban-style spec houses appearing in older neighborhoods, such as Beverly Grove, where I live. They are all two stories and built by