Residents of the town of Chevy Chase seeking to renovate their homes will soon have to comply with building restrictions that limit house size and height, after town council members unanimously passed new regulations aimed at curbing so-called “mansionization.”
The new rules take effect May 17 and limit building height to 33 feet, restrict driveway width to 10 feet and use “floor area ratio” to keep the square footage of homes in line with property size. Council members say they were attempting to find a compromise.
“It’s an issue we’ve been facing for a while,” said Dr. Robert Enelow, vice mayor of Chevy Chase. “How do we balance individual property owner rights, vis a vis the rights of neighbors to not have their sunlight obscured or privacy taken away when a property goes up next door? Communities all over Montgomery County and all over the country have similar concerns.”
Enelow and Councilman Lance Hoffman said members heard from hundreds of the roughly 1,000 Chevy Chase homeowners and that opinions were split on how to deal with people who seek to demolish older houses to build significantly larger ones on their property.
For lots up to 12,000 square feet, the home’s floor space cannot be larger than half the total property size, which Hoffman said allows for larger homes than considered under initial drafts of the policy. Council members say the legislation is the first of its kind in Montgomery.
“We wanted to control houses that are quite out of scale and out of character with our town,” Hoffman said. “But we also did not want to get into micro-detail about what you can and cannot do. I think the new regulations allow you to build a comfortable house, but maintain green space without putting people cheek to jowl against their neighbor.”
Town resident Joan Glickman said the aesthetics of “homes that have gone wild in size” frustrate many residents, but others are also concerned about how oversized homes can affect the environment.
“We’re in kind of an energy crisis right now,” Glickman said.
“The larger a house is, the more energy it uses, even if they are building more energy-efficient homes. Plus, when your neighbor builds big, it can mess up your natural lighting.”
