Finding a home to live in can be challenging but living in a neighbourhood you love only to find that a monster home is being built next door can be very upsetting.
You've probably seen a monster home built in your neighbourhood or one nearby. Those homes have two or three times the square footage of all other houses and they tower above the rest of the neighbourhood by two or three stories. I'm no urban planner but as a society aren't we supposed to be increasing and consolidating density to manage population growth? How does building three-or fourstory monster homes for one family increase density?
As one of the North Shore News readers put it, "These new houses are mostly to replace teardowns, many of which did not have hedges at the front but had mature shrubs, perennials and natural stone features. Planting nothing much more than a cedar hedge in front of a new monster home demonstrates a lack of creativity by the developers. The cost of better landscaping is almost insignificant when compared to the cost of the land and house."
With each new monster comes the overbearing distraction of the house itself and the bland new landscaping that chews up the scenery and amounts to nothing more than landscape-Valium. Monster homes continue to be built with weak landscape design, loss of mature trees and a disharmonious consideration of the front yard's landscape value and its impact on the neighbourhood's landscaping. And municipal fence height restrictions do not currently reflect the need for privacy and the increased height of new monster homes.
Good neighbours care and make an effort to provide some measure of beauty in their front yards for the whole neighbourhood's benefit. Of the monster homes I have seen, the landscaping is rather sparse in the front yard and usually designed to screen out the neighbours. And what's worse, developers are allowed to cut down many of the mature trees and shrubs, so the owner can have a view or fit the monster on the lot. What about the neighbour's view from the street? New building construction does require a development permit application process to provide a forum for requesting adjustments or improvements to the project, including landscaping issues. But how many people can actually obtain a change in landscape design for a new monster home through such a process?
On the issue of tree retention, trees are very important managers of rainfall and stormwater runoff. When mature trees are cut, the rainfall runoff into streams increases, which causes erosion and scouring of the stream channel and that can be devastating for downstream home owners, not to mention the increase in property taxes required to build more storm sewer infrastructure to deal with increased runoff. Trees also increase property value, provide homes for many forms of wildlife, add to the esthetic quality of neighbourhoods and provide shade to cool our ever-warming world. And don't all North Shore municipalities have tree retention bylaws? Or, are those laws only for the 99 per cent not the one per cent? I suppose that allowing monster homes to be built to gradually replace all older homes in any given neighbourhood will eventually even out the problem - in 20 years or so.
Designing and installing quality landscaping does cost money and it requires someone who is knowledgeable and experienced to undertake the work. As a general rule, the value of landscaping for new homes should be in the range of 10-15 per cent of the cost of the home. Well-designed front yards are meant to greet visitors and add beauty to the neighbourhood - to fit in. Landscape features in the front yard, such as stone stairs and retaining walls, diverse planting beds, well-chosen trees and landscape lighting create beautiful vignettes in the neighbourhood. Front yards are meant to be communal not exclusionary. The monetary value of existing mature plants and trees is real and definable. Where possible, retention of existing plants and landscape features is always cheaper than planting or building new. But the intangible or intrinsic value of those plants cannot be easily determined, especially within the context of making the rest of the community feel comfortable and reassured toward new construction. Shouldn't developers and municipal councils apply the same standards of development used for low-rise and highrise residential projects by requiring communityappropriate landscaping for monster homes?
Todd Major is a journeyman horticulturist, garden designer and builder, teacher and organic advocate. stmajor@shaw.ca
