AT first glance it appears to be an average North Shore house with a modest design.
The exterior doesn't showcase any noticeably grand features.
Sitting on a 50-by 150-foot lot, the structure does not appear to stand out, and yet its owner has regrets about what he calls the "monster home" he built.
"What I did, because the value of the land was what it was, I took the edge of the house right to the extreme boundary that I was allowed to," explained Alan Nixon.
The District of North Vancouver councillor talked candidly about the family home he built in the Pemberton Heights neighbourhood in 1994, as he thumbed through photos of houses on his block. One photo of his home shows its proximity to the neighbour. Nixon's much larger house is a scant four feet from the fence line separating it from the small cottage next door. Seen in this new context, his home appears to be just what he describes: a monster.
"These are the people that when I built my house I didn't give any thought to talking to," said Nixon slowly, pointing to the smaller home sitting uncomfortably in the shadow of its looming neighbour. The people in that home were longtime friends of his parents, he explained. The relationship between the two families was strained for years after the new house was built.
"I didn't pay attention to my neighbours. I didn't pay attention to what it was going to be like to look at this gigantic wall, two storeys high, with one window in it, or maybe three windows," said Nixon. He noted the two families eventually did become friends again, but the damage was done.
Nixon's parents were living in a small saltbox-style home on the property before they decided it was time to downsize. They had lived in the home since 1953, and offered the land to their son. As part of the deal, Nixon built a new home on the property for his family that incorporated a suite for his parents. The new build ballooned to 2,900 square feet, of which 800 square feet comprised a full suite for Nixon's parents. His parents lived in the home, with Nixon and his family, for almost 15 years before they passed away. While recognizing the home served its purpose as an alternate form of housing for two generations of one family, Nixon is still not pleased about his decision to build the way he did.
"I didn't give much thought, quite frankly, to how it was going to fit in with the neighbourhood," he said, adding he believed at the time he had to build bigger to maximize the value of the lot, but if he knew then what he knows now, he would have done things differently.
At just less than 3,000 square feet, Nixon's home may not be considered a typical monster home. However, Kevin Vallely, a residential designer in North Vancouver, who has designed large homes (5,000 square feet and up), agrees that the term "monster home" can refer to the design of a house rather than just its size.
"Part of the description of a monster home also is not only necessarily its excess in size, but it's also its lack of detail, its complete disregard for everything else except volume and size," he said. "Generally they're big, nondescript homes with not a lot of care and detail put into them because, once again, the money's put into just creating volume."
Vallely said it's difficult to put a firm figure on what an acceptable size house should be. "I don't think we can make a broad sweeping statement of saying 3,000 square feet or 2,000 square feet's going to be adequate for anybody, but the reality is there's examples out there with homes, in fact in my mind many, many homes, most homes, there's probably too much space."
He said every family should consider the use of space in their home.
"Is it well-used space, or is there a lot of sort of dead, empty space? And does it just create more clutter and a feeling that you have to get more, acquire more, to fill this space, which is, in effect, unused?" asked Vallely.
A good architect can create a subtle design that swallows up the fact that a house is five or six thousand square feet, according to Janice Harris, former mayor of the District of North Vancouver. "Then you have more inept architecture that is crass and doesn't suit any part of the landscape or the streetscape and it looks every inch of its five or six thousand square feet," she added.
Harris said she first started hearing about monster homes on the North Shore around 1990. Then a councillor, she recalled two homes on West Balmoral that sparked debate about the issue.
"You've got to remember that generally speaking houses had been under-built on their lots prior to the '90s. In other words, you had these large lots and homes that weren't 'maxed out'; they never built to all their allowable square footage," explained Harris.
She noted many homes were closer to a modest post-war size and scope. "We hadn't worked ourselves up into a total frenzy in terms of renovations and everything looking like Home and Garden."
The two West Balmoral homes that caused a stir in the neighbourhood were large structures that went up on the south side of the street, blocking the view across to Vancouver previously enjoyed by the row of older housing stock on the north side of the street.
"It was a revelation to everybody that they were allowed to build something so large. Well that was because every other home was 'underbuilt,'" said Harris.
Nixon also remembers the monster homes on West Balmoral. As a result of the controversy, he said, that area was one of the first neighbourhoods to adopt neighbourhood zoning. Part of that zoning capped heights and made setbacks wider to preserve view corridors.
Soon after, council embarked on a process to allow each area in the district to design their own guidelines to reflect the character of their particular neighbourhood.
"It was a very labour-intensive process on the part of staff," said Nixon.
It was also expensive. Interestingly, Nixon said although many of the neighbourhood plans reduced height and toyed around with side-yard setbacks, many didn't make significant changes. Few of the neighbourhood zones ever said they were going to significantly reduce the allowable square footage or the floor space ratios, said Nixon.
"It wasn't a huge revolutionary shift, but it was an effort, shall we say," said Harris.
After a few years, the district shut down the process, and some of the common patterns found in the individual neighbourhood zoning plans were included in its overall plan. However, Nixon agreed that because the program ended before the process was complete, a few neighbourhoods were left out.
Jerome Irwin is a longtime resident of the Lower Capilano neighbourhood. He was part of the neighbourhood zoning process, and said his neighbourhood was one of the ones that got left out. He said he now thinks those involved in the process were really just meant to rubber stamp the major plan, which was to create larger multi-family houses and larger high-density settings.
Irwin, founding president of the Lower Capilano Community Residents' Association, discussed a number of significant incidents of monster home builds in his neighbourhood, including one just a couple of doors down from his own home. Two larger homes replaced a single home on the lot. The homes were built right to the property lines, severely reducing privacy between neighbours, said Irwin. The neighbour directly beside the new homes was forced to move out because of the intrusive nature of the new builds, he said.
"He just couldn't take it anymore. He almost had a nervous breakdown, had to sell out. So that's the human fallout."
However, larger homes seem to be more the norm these days because the housing stock has changed everywhere, said Harris. Even in West Vancouver, which used to be largely a community of bungalows and summer homes, "You've got castles and fortresses there now that didn't exist there before," she added, noting people in general seem to be able to shrug it off more these days because larger homes are so numerous now it's not such an event.
However, larger homes have not been controversial in many areas of the District of West Vancouver, perhaps because the tony municipality has larger lots that can hold larger homes.
"I don't like the term 'monster' because if you stay within bylaws on a larger lot, you're building a house that is comparable to the lot," commented Bill Soprovich, longtime West Vancouver councillor.
All homes on the North Shore are subject to certain height, setback and allowable-floor-space restrictions through zoning bylaws. If monster homes fall within regulations, they are not illegal. Soprovich said he has been tough on development over the years, but doesn't think it's all bad, and council has been able to work with developers in recent years to demand quality construction and quality finishings.
"The question of the monster house issue was, I think, a term used a long time ago when we did Whitby Estates," says Soprovich. The British Pacific Properties' West Vancouver development boasts large lots with large houses, many well past 5,000 square feet, but Soprovich suggests the lot size is there in the Whitby Estates to support larger homes.
"There are a lot of larger homes above the highway where this monster (term) came from way back when," says Soprovich. "We haven't had so much of it of late."
The area from about Third Street on the east side of Taylor Way to 31st Street below the highway is a straight-lined grid, with a roadhouse-lane pattern, explains Soprovich. He lived in the area and says it still has beautiful little homes; some are old, some are new, but they haven't been "monsterized."
Soprovich said he asks people what they like about West Vancouver and the answer often is, "Today. I like what it is today," he noted. "So we got there by controlled growth, we got there by paying attention to the developments, we got there by paying attention to quality construction, quality design, and we took the initiative to go ahead and plan our areas well."
Patty Rust is a longtime North Shore resident living just west of the Ambleside grid in the Bayridge area of West Vancouver. At about 4,700 square feet, Rust's home could be considered a larger single-family home by some standards, but it is in a unique neighbourhood. Nestled among mature landscaping on a lot a little more than a third of an acre on Rose Crescent, her home and the 6,500-square-foot home next door are barely noticeable to each other and to the rest of the block because of the size of the lots, said Rust.
"They're big lots, with big hedges and they're set back," she noted. "They've got the setting for a big house."
Her home, which she designed, replaced an old 1,200-square-foot cottage that previously stood on the lot, but was in bad shape and had to be torn down. The neighbours were glad to see it go, said Rust, who bought the property with the intention of building a new, larger home for her family, which includes her husband and two sons.
"These were all cottages along here," she said of the neighbourhood, adding: "They kind of looked abandoned, overgrown and not maintained, and the grass was two-feet high."
Rust said her neighbourhood, which has no sidewalks and few streetlights, is "really an old country lane," but the homes are transforming, with many new homes replacing old ones. A few of the small cottages remain, however, including an original rail ticket office. With one son engaged and one on his way to university, Rust's home is now up for sale, as she and her husband downsize. She said she enjoyed her large home with its open-concept space spread over three floors, noting it was well-used.
In this case, Rust's home was perceived to fit on her surrounding block, so she was not guilty of what some people call "block busting." The term refers to inserting a structure that is significantly different in design and scale into an established block. Usually block busting is met with a negative reaction from neighbours.
However, a recent case of significant change in one neighbourhood in the City of North Vancouver was brought to council by area residents who wanted the change. Although not a textbook case of block busting, it did represent a potentially significant change in the style of homes in the area.
In 2006, city council considered a density shift involving an area from the north side of the 300-block of East Keith Road to the south side of the 300-block of East 13th Street. The west half of the block was a single-family zone with the ability to rezone to something more, typically duplexes, while the eastern half of the block didn't have that potential.
"I know it's caused angst for some people, but it was actually residents who came and approached the city and said they wanted to have the same ability," explains Gary Penway, director of community development. He added that a resulting study and survey showed the majority of property owners in the area wanted the same zoning. Penway said the mid-block area was interesting in terms of development and density, but had nothing to do with the streetscape. Although council agreed to the zoning change, it kept the same building envelope and setbacks.
"It's just a question of in that building are there two dwelling units, or is there one with a secondary suite?" said Penway.
Despite having to revisit its somewhat arbitrary mid-block zoning line, the city was ahead of the planning curve when it comes to monster homes.
Penway explained the city didn't have any floor-area restrictions for many years, but picked up on the monster home issue when it hit Vancouver in the 1980s.
"There were some really big homes even built back in 1910 when we had no regulations," he explained, noting the city did have a height limit at 35 feet and some setbacks, so it wasn't wide open, but people could still build a pretty big building.
Penway said the planning department saw what was happening in Vancouver and started to see a few buildings they thought were getting too big, so decided they better address the issue.
In what Penway called a pre-emptive move, the city made zoning adjustments in the 1980s and 1990s, which brought in a height envelope, and increased backyard setbacks to get a more traditional front and rear yard.
"It's not like big homes are something new. The 1950s homes tended to be the kind of bungalows that became smaller," he said. Land was plentiful and sites were pretty cheap back then, he added. "These days the land value is high and people tend to build every square foot they can, and that's sort of how the market has changed."
When you've got homes where the land is assessed at far more than the house, the developers have to build to the maximum allowed in order to maintain a profit margin to make it worthwhile, said Harris.
Nixon agreed. "We don't see many people coming to the district wanting to build houses that are less than what is allowed."
When people's net worth is so tied up in real estate and their personal home and what it's worth, this drives a lot of decisions that almost by necessity don't take into account the quality of life or the impact that you have on other people, he added.
"And mine is a prime example of that. I built my house almost knowing that in all likelihood within 10 years I was going to be selling it, and so when I built it, I built it with that very much in the front of my mind."
When asked if it was the right thing to do, he answers quickly: "No, it wasn't the right decision."
Harris also laments the loss of some of the North Shore's traditional housing stock.
"I'm sad to see that we so holus-bolus abandon some of these smaller, older homes and we don't value them," she said. "It feels like a vanishing era."
Next Sunday: the discussion continues, with a look at the difficulties and politics of heritage home preservation.
