Lets put an end to the 3000 sq ft house on the 4000 sq ft lot

Megahomes multiplying, but how big is too big?

In an area with little land to build new houses, residents are fighting the megahome — McMansions that balloon to the edges of their properties, three-story giants that block views from quaint craftsman bungalows.

Seattle is considering new laws to limit the size of houses replacing those torn down on single-family lots. In Bellevue, residents came to a meeting with city staff Wednesday night to complain of huge homes that block out the sun and “overpower” the neighborhoods.

Yes, yes, so yes. Every time that we see a nice house with nicely scaled houses all around it, we have to do the math in our heads to figure out what a 3 story behemoth next door would do to our views, privacy and light. It’s happened to several of our friends and to us in our last house to a lesser extent. I would also like to see the extermination of the “buy a house, build 4 townhouses” style of development that is also rampant. The city should get serious about zoning to either maintain neighborhoods as single family, reasonably-sized homes, or they should designate neighborhoods as targets for high-density zoning and compensate the local homeowners appropriately. Right now, it is a higgly-piggly where high-density building (houses built to the edges of their lots, town-homes and condo developments are going into the middle of established single-family neighborhoods and destroying them like a cancer from the inside out.