Speech

Battling Teardowns, Saving Neighborhoods

Commonwealth Club
San Francisco, Calif.
June 28, 2006

A growing disaster is tearing apart many of America's older neighborhoods. They're being devoured, one house at a time, here in the Bay Area, across California, and in scores of communities from coast to coast.

I'm talking about teardowns - the practice of purchasing and demolishing an existing house to make way for a new, much bigger house on the same site. Teardowns wreck neighborhoods. They spread through a community like a cancer, destroying the character and livability that are a neighborhood's lifeblood. I believe teardowns represent the biggest threat to America's older neighborhoods since the heyday of urban renewal and interstate highway construction during the 1950s and 60s.

Here's how it works: Developers and home-buyers look through desirable neighborhoods for a building lot that can lawfully accommodate a much bigger house than that which currently stands on it. The property is acquired, the existing house is torn down and a bigger house is constructed in its place. There are variations: Sometimes a large estate is leveled and subdivided to accommodate several new houses; in others, several smaller houses are cleared to make way for a single, massive new one.

It's a simple process, but it can totally transform the streetscape of a neighborhood and destroy its character. It's especially destructive in older and historic communities.

Teardowns are occurring all over America - from fashionable resorts such as Palm Beach and Palm Springs to the inner-ring suburbs around Washington and Chicago and the Richmond District here in San Francisco. The trend has become so alarming that the National Trust included "Teardowns in Historic Neighborhoods" on our list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2002. Back then, we identified 100 communities in 20 states that were having major problems with teardowns. That statistic was troubling in 2002 - but four years later, the news is much worse: Today we can document the impact of teardowns in more than 300 communities in 33 states. The National Association of Home Builders says that 75,000 houses are razed and replaced with larger homes each year.

To alert people to the fact that the teardown cancer continues to pose a serious threat, our 2006 11 Most Endangered list includes the community of Kenilworth, Ill., which is being especially hard-hit. The streets of this village just north of Chicago are lined with fine early 20th-century houses, many of them designed by distinguished architects - such as D. H. Burnham, who designed the Merchants Exchange and Mills buildings in San Francisco's Financial District. There are about 830 homes in Kenilworth dating to the 1920s - but the town is under siege: Almost 50 houses have been demolished, most of them in the past 3 years alone, and most of them have been replaced by hulking McMansions that are as much as twice the size of the architectural treasures that have been lost.

Sadly, Kenilworth isn't alone. Similarly disturbing statistics are coming out of other communities. Let me give you just a few examples:

In Dallas, more than 1,000 houses have been demolished in the early 20th-century areas of Highland Park and University Park. In most cases, the size of the new houses ranges from 6,000 to 10,000 sq.ft. - which means they loom like mountains over the smaller, older homes that remain.

  • In Denver, at least a dozen historic neighborhoods are experiencing teardowns, with many 1920s and '30s bungalows being replaced with new houses three times as big. More than 800 teardowns have occurred since 2003, and the number increased by an alarming 78% between 2004 and 2005.
  • Closer to home, the San Mateo County communities of Palo Alto and Menlo Park have seen a wave of teardowns in recent years. With median home prices hovering around $1.3 million and vacant lots increasingly scarce, more than 450 older houses were torn down and replaced between 2000 and 2005.
  • Even the work of well-known architects is at risk. In the Chicago suburb of Bannockburn, a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright was bought by an owner who planned to demolish it; fortunately, public outcry led him to sell it to a preservation-minded buyer. That story has a happy ending, but others don't. In New Canaan, Conn., more than a dozen classic Modernist houses, some of them the work of prominent architects such as Marcel Breuer, have been knocked down and replaced by sprawling new residences. And in Rancho Mirage, Calif., a museum-quality home designed by Richard Neutra in 1962 and purchased for $2.5 million in 2003 was demolished without warning.

This disaster goes by many names. In New Jersey, the practice is often called "bash-and-build." In Colorado, teardowns are known as "scrape-offs." In Oregon, the new houses are sometimes called "snout houses" because of the big, protruding garages that dominate their facades. In other places they're known simply - and aptly - as "bigfoots" or "monster homes."

Whatever you call it, one teardown usually sparks others. A New Jersey builder says, "It's a trend that keeps on rolling. Builders used to be afraid to be the first person in a neighborhood to tear a house down. Now they're looking around and saying they don't mind taking the risk."
Why is this happening?

Three factors are at work in the spread of teardowns.

The first is the rise in real-estate prices. In some areas, home values have doubled or tripled over the past decade, and this leads developers to look for "undervalued" properties - many of which exist in older neighborhoods.

The second factor is the trend toward bigger houses. In 1950, the average American home incorporated less than 1,000 sq.ft. By 2005, the average new home had more than doubled in size, to 2,412 sq.ft. According to the National Association of Home Builders, almost 40% of new homes have four or more bedrooms; that's more than twice as many as in the early 1970s - despite the fact that the average family size decreased during that same period. Subdivisions of luxury homes of 5,000 sq.ft. and more are becoming commonplace. Clearly, burgers and french fries aren't the only things in America being "super-sized."

The final factor is that many people are looking for an alternative to long commutes or are simply fed up with the soulless character of sprawling new subdivisions. For these people, older in-town neighborhoods and inner-ring suburbs are enormously appealing because of their attractive architecture, mature landscaping, pedestrian orientation, easy access to public transportation and amenities such as local shopping districts, libraries and schools.

The problem is that too many people try to impose their preference for suburban-style mini-mansions on smaller-scale neighborhoods where they just don't fit. And since most of these older areas offer few vacant lots for new construction, the pressure to demolish existing houses can be intense. A modest cottage gets torn down and hauled off to the landfill, and what goes up in its place is "Tara" on a quarter-acre lot.

Neighborhood livability is diminished as trees are removed, backyards are eliminated, and sunlight is blocked by bulky new structures built right up to the property lines. Economic and social diversity are reduced as costly new "faux chateaux" replace more affordable houses - including the modest "starter homes" that our parents knew and that first-time homebuyers still search for today.

The ironic - and tragic - result is that teardowns wind up killing the very qualities that made the neighborhood attractive to newcomers in the first place.

In some places, teardowns are acceptable or even desirable. Replacing outdated and inefficient structures is sometimes necessary if a community is to remain economically viable. But in recent years the pace of teardowns has amounted to an orgy of irrational destruction.

Sound older houses should be cherished as an irreplaceable legacy from the past - but instead, in community after community, they're being discarded like yesterday's newspaper.

  • In Tenafly, N.J., when citizens protested the demolition of a house that was considered one of the town's most important historic places, the developer told them, "I don't look at this house as historic. I look at it as being a potentially unique situation for subdividing that is allowable by ordinance."
  • In the Chicago suburb of Winnetka, a rare pre-Civil War house was purchased by a new owner who wanted the site for his new luxury home. He tore the old house down - and then decided to move to another state. The neighborhood now has a vacant lot where one of its most significant landmarks used to stand.

While the destruction of historic houses is wasteful, environmentally unsound and unnecessary, it's often just the beginning of the problems caused by teardowns.

It's not uncommon for a demolished older home to be replaced with a new one that is three times as big as any other house on the block. These structures loom over their neighbors and break the established building patterns of the area. Front yards are often given over to driveways, and three- or four-car garages are the dominant elements in the façade. Floorplans are often oriented to private interior spaces, making the new houses look like fortresses that stand totally aloof from their surroundings.

In the Silicon Valley community of Willow Glen, owners bulldozed a small 1928 cottage and built a three-story, 3,500-square-foot house in its place. The owner said, "Willow Glen is a treasure" - but the president of the neighborhood association responded, "It's mind-boggling to say you love our neighborhood and then come in and tear down a beautiful smaller house and build a huge one. Then all of a sudden you have ‘big-little-big-little', and the ‘littles' look really little..."

Apart from their visual impact, teardowns can profoundly alter a neighborhood's economic and social environment. A rash of teardowns can cause property taxes to rise - and while this may be a good thing for communities in search of revenue, it can drive out moderate-income or fixed-income residents. Those who remain start to feel they've lost control of their neighborhood to developers and speculators. A house that once might have been praised as "charming and historic" now gets marketed as "older home on expansive lot" - which is realtor language for "teardown." Once that happens - once the value of an older house is perceived to be less than that of the land it's built on - the house's days are probably numbered. And sadly, the neighborhood's days as a viable historic enclave may be numbered too.

It doesn't have to be this way. There are alternatives to teardowns.

First of all, prospective builders should realize that most older, established neighborhoods simply can't accommodate the kind of sprawling new mini-mansion that is appropriate on a suburban cul-de-sac. People who want to move into the city can often find development opportunities in underused historic buildings and vacant land in older areas. Even in areas where vacant land is scarce, existing older houses can be enlarged in sensitive ways: A new zoning ordinance in Coronado, Calif., for example, gives homebuilders "bonus" square footage if they incorporate design elements that maintain the historic character of the community.

No one is saying that homebuyers shouldn't be able to alter or expand their home to meet their needs, just as no one is saying that older neighborhoods should be frozen in time like museum exhibits. A neighborhood is a living thing, and change is both inevitable and desirable. The challenge is to manage change so that it respects the character and distinctiveness that made these neighborhoods so appealing in the first place.

There is no single "magic bullet" that will stop teardowns once and for all - but growing numbers of communities across the country are developing and using a variety of planning and preservation tools to control them. Some of these tools protect existing buildings from demolition or insensitive alteration. Others encourage new construction that respects the character of the neighborhood instead of ignoring or eroding it. Here in San Francisco, as in other places, city leaders and community activists are investigating sensitive ways to bring additional density to single-family neighborhoods.

Information on these tools - and additional background on the teardowns issue - is contained in a Teardowns Resource Guide that the National Trust has compiled. It's summarized in a handout that's available for each of you today, and you can find more on our website, www.nationaltrust.org.

Let me mention a few things that people and communities can do.

First and most important, communities must realize that they aren't helpless in the face of teardowns. They have choices: They can simply take the kind of community they get, or they can go to work to get the kind of community they want. They have to decide what they like about the community and don't want to lose. They must develop a vision for the future of their community, including where and how to accommodate growth and change. Then they must put in place mechanisms to ensure that their vision is not compromised.

Ideally, this consensus-building should take place as part of a comprehensive planning process - but that can take time, and sometimes the pressure of teardowns calls for immediate action. In those situations, some communities have provided a "cooling-off" period by imposing a temporary moratorium on demolition. This moratorium prevents the loss of significant structures while allowing time for residents and city officials to develop effective means of preserving neighborhood character.

One of those means is local historic district designation. Notice that I said "local historic district." Many people believe that listing a property in the National Register of Historic Places is enough to protect it, but that isn't true. The only real protection comes through the enactment of a local ordinance that regulates demolition, new construction and alteration in a designated historic area. More than 2,500 communities across the country have enacted these ordinances. Most of them require that an owner get permission before demolishing or altering a historic building; many also offer design guidelines to ensure that new buildings will harmonize with their older neighbors.

If historic district designation isn't feasible or appropriate, other forms of regulation may work. Conservation districts or design-review districts can address issues such as demolition and new construction with less administrative burden than historic districts. Floor-area ratios or lot-coverage formulas can remove the economic incentive for teardowns by limiting the size of new buildings. In the same way, setback requirements, height limits and open-space standards can help maintain traditional neighborhood building patterns. At least two communities in San Mateo County have recently adopted regulations of this sort to limit the height and floor area of newly-built homes.

Not all approaches require government involvement. Local preservation organizations or neighborhood groups can offer programs to educate realtors and new residents about the history of older neighborhoods and provide guidance in rehabbing or expanding older houses. They can acquire easements to ensure that the architectural character of historic buildings is permanently protected. They can provide low-interest loans to help encourage sensitive rehabilitation. Incentives such as these are particularly effective when combined with technical assistance and some form of tax abatement from state or local government.

As I said, none of these is a one-size-fits-all solution - but they are working in communities all over the country.

  • In Dallas, the City has created Neighborhood Stabilization Overlay Zones to allow residents to set standards for height, setbacks, front façade area, garage orientation, and total square footage for new buildings.
  • In the Chicago area, residents and officials from more than 20 communities have formed the Chicago Suburban Alliance, which shares information, best practices and strategies for dealing with teardowns.
  • Cities as diverse as Atlanta, Ga., Chevy Chase, Md., and Palo Alto, Calif., have adopted moratorium measures to temporarily halt teardowns and give civic leaders time to assess their land-use and zoning policies. The mayor of Chevy Chase described the action as a chance to "take a look at where we're going as a town."
  • One very important success was won here in California. In Santa Monica, proponents of teardowns targeted the city's preservation ordinance, charging that the city's policy of referring demolition permits for older houses to the landmarks commission was an infringement on property rights. Preservationists and opponents of teardowns rallied and succeeded in defeating the ballot initiative that would have undermined the ordinance.

In these and other places, what's most important is that people are taking action instead of just sitting back and letting teardowns destroy the place they call home.

It may surprise you to know that teardowns do have some proponents - or at least some apologists.

As was the case in Santa Monica, some people say that efforts to control teardowns amount to a violation of private property rights. I disagree.

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states in part "...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." Those few words express one of the most important rights enjoyed by Americans. It enhances our freedom, gives us security, helps protect our personal financial investments. But it is not absolute. Rights are - and always have been - tempered by responsibilities.

The Fifth Amendment does not give owners the right to use their property in a way that harms the rights or welfare of others. Indeed, restrictions on land use - such as zoning laws, for instance - were first created to protect owners' rights and property values against the potentially harmful actions of other owners. The value of a parcel of land derives in part from the improvements made by its owner, of course - but it also derives from public improvements paid for by the community as a whole - and from the labor, investments and good stewardship of neighboring owners.
What I said a moment ago is worth repeating: Rights are tempered by reponsibilities. We all should be able to enjoy an attractive, livable environment - and we all have a responsibility to ensure that our actions don't prevent our neighbors from doing just that.

Some people go so far as to claim that teardowns actually support smart growth by directing new-home construction to already-developed areas, thereby increasing density and offering an alternative to suburban sprawl. Again, I disagree.

Tearing down a smaller house to build a bigger one simply adds square footage, not population density. In addition, teardowns affect neighborhood livability, reduce affordability, consume energy, and send thousands of tons of demolition debris to landfills. That doesn't sound like smart growth to me.

Equally important, teardowns exact too high a price in the wasteful destruction of our nation's heritage. Of course we need to encourage investment in existing communities as an alternative to sprawl - but not at the expense of the historic character that makes older neighborhoods unique, attractive and livable. Some say that change is simply the price of progress - but this kind of change isn't progress at all; it's chaos.

The National Trust is committed to helping local residents put the brakes on teardowns. It will be a huge job - but it's eminently worthy of our best efforts.

From 19th-century Victorians to 1920s bungalows and 1950s Eichlers, the older houses that grace our communities are valuable historical documents in brick and wood, steel and glass. They trace the changes in taste, technology and lifestyle that have shaped the community over the centuries - and with their varied styles and details, they are a visual banquet for residents and visitors alike.

America's older neighborhoods are important chapters in the story of who we are as a nation and a people. Working together, we can keep that story alive. Working together, we can keep America's older and historic communities intact so that generations to come can live in them, learn from them, be sheltered and inspired by them - just as we are today.