A Letter to Incite the Community
I have given very serious thought to what I'm about to write for at least two years. Some of what I'm going to say will be controversial, but my goal is to incite a community dialogue.
For those of us in the real estate or construction business, our Island's rapid gentrification is no secret. Our home prices have skyrocketed due to consistently small inventory and a constantly high demand. We have a high quality lifestyle, a wonderful caring community and a beautiful natural environment that is the envy of people everywhere. That's what's driving up the prices and changing the face of the island.
A person must have a fairly high income to afford a home here. To some extent we are reflecting a national trend which seems to be dividing us into just three classes of people: the poor, the rich and the filthy rich. There is a disappearing middle class and working class that are surprised to now find themselves qualifying for low-income status.
Here's a sobering statistic from the National Association of Realtors; 40% of all homes sold in the US in 2005 were second homes! Second homes are defined as vacation homes and investment purchases. Amazing isn't it! Least you think I'm just bad-mouthing wealthy people, let me ten you that my real concern isn't about money, but about values.
We have always had wealthy people on Vashon island, or as my grandmother used to say, "The well to do." If it were not for these people we wouldn't have Vashon Allied Arts, the Heritage Museum, Vashon Community Care Center, our wonderful parks and open space, the Land Trust and dozens of wonderful non-profits. These people are the backbone of our community and we would be a poorer, sadder place without their generosity.
What I'm talking about is echoed in what I hear from people around the Island who ask: How do we keep the soul of our community as wonderful as it is now? How do we keep the character of our island the way we know and love it? How do we ensure that everyone, regardless background or of income, will find a place here? How do we keep our community values over time?
I've been thinking about this a great deal. I've been reading about similar issues in communities all over the country. Many towns and villages are facing the same problem There are many reasons for these changes, but the one thing that they all seem to share, which many define as the most basic problem, is the increase in mega-mansions. The McMansions, as they are called in many places, are huge, over-size homes being built in established communities all over the country. They come with an attitude.
According to a recent Article in the magazine Utne, Mega houses are "ostentatious symbols of America’s class divide." As a new generation of very wealthy people flaunt their wealth, community after community is struggling to come to grips with this phenomenon and the changes it brings.
In an interview discussing the McMansion problem in Connecticut, a local town planner for Greenwich stated, "It used to be that for old money, the more money you had, more you hid it." That has been very true for Vashon as well. Many of our citizens with older money choose to live simply. They eschew ostentatiousness and use their money to do good things in our community and the world.
One way many cities and towns all over the country are beginning to address this issue is by limiting the square footage of new construction major remodels. Now, before the property-rights folks get all over my case let me say that I believe strongly in private property rights. HOWEVER, "your rights end where my nose begins" as the saying goes. What I mean by that is simply that using far more than your share of our water and other natural resources is doing me, and our community, damage.
Very large houses take more of our precious resources to build in the first place, and way more of our resources to sustain. If we put a limit on square footage we could save those resources. One example that illustrates this point of view is the fact that the construction industry nationwide contributes 40% to our waste-stream annually. Did you know that? That’s according to the Seattle King County Master Builders Association. Much that is generated by the construction of mega-houses.
Popular books talk about the fact that really large houses are not only a huge waste of material and energy but are not even comfortable to live in. Many of their huge rooms remain empty while the family really lives in only a small part of the structure. It's sobering to realize, for instance, that some of the private homes on Mercer Island and in nearby Medina are larger than the White House in Washington D.C. as well as several Seattle hotels!
California, according to a recent news program, is moving vigorously to control the size of new homes since they learned that air conditioning these behemoths is the major cause of the rolling brownouts that their state has been living with these last few summers.
Cities and .towns all over the country are voting to limit home size. Maryland, Connecticut, Idaho, Colorado, and many other places are outlawing mega-houses and, in many cases, not allowing tear downs of average sized homes being replaced by a 10,000-square-foot house.
I am clearly prejudiced here, but frankly, if your ego is so large that takes 10,000 square feet of house or more to contain it, you may not be the kind of person who cares about our community or its values.
What are some of those values? Well, to me they include both a sense of live and let live and, at the same time, a deep concern for each other and our Island family. It's been my observation that we believe in sustainability and protecting the natural environment that brought most of us here in the first place. We care very much about our independence. We do our own studies, form our own committees, direct our community will to solving problems. We don't like to rely on an outside force to make decisions for us. We value our old Island families with all of their quirks and take pride in our ability to integrate people of different needs and backgrounds into the streetscape of our town.
It isn’t just the use of resources and the esthetic considerations that concern me. It's really my own (yes, I'll admit it) prejudicial attitude about what kind of people need a mansion. I recently went into one of the data base programs I use as a real estate broker and starting looking at the names of well over 20 or so households that have homes over 5,000 square feet on Vashon. There were only a couple of names I knew. It's not that I know everyone on the Island to be sure, but I think I do know most of those involved in our community in some way.
Keep in mind that many of these huge homes are second homes. Several are empty for most of the year. Some estates have two or three houses on them. There is the main mansion which is more than 5,000 square feet and then there is a 2,000-square-foot guest house and, of course, the maid's quarters at 1,000 square feet. Are you surprised at this? There are even a few homes that are well over 10,000 square feet! With a few exceptions these are not folks you see at the local fundraisers or community events. Many of them live very much apart from the rest of us.
Now clearly these folks have the right to live here and not be involved with the community in any way. We have always been a destination for summer people who came and went to their private hideaways and may or may not have interacted with the rest of us. I don't mean to say that only those who want to be involved can live here. I'm just using that as one way to measure values. I hope that as a community we can talk about this and further define what it is that we want to save and come up with ideas for doing so.
My hope is not that we end up with complicated restrictions and conditions like many communities on the Eastside of King County. I don't think anyone here wants to be told what color they can paint their house or how many cars they can have in their driveway. (Yes, there are several places within King County where those rules and more are enforced.) But we have to find a way to draw a line of some sort if there is any hope of preserving what we have.
In my own business I take some care to work with people I feel will be an asset to our community, people who will buy locally, serve on nonprofit boards and cherish our diversity. My own belief is that those kinds of people don't feel the need to own a 10,000-square-foot mansion in order to feel important and successful. Am I wrong about this?
I hear from people in the community more and more that things are changing. That Vashon is changing. I hear more complaints about rude customers, demanding clients and people who treat the help at our local businesses with contempt. More telling even than that is uniformed workers. As I drive around I see yard crews in uniform and visit homes with a uniformed maid or cleaning person. Does that seem like Vashon to you?
At a few events over the last year or two I've begun to notice that the help are becoming invisible. One drops their dirty dishes on a tray without even looking at the person carrying it. One doesn't need to pick up after oneself because "the maid will get it" or "the cleaning crew will manage that." I thought I left that sort of distain in Los Angeles 40 years ago. Maybe it's just that my working-class background is becoming transparent below the thin surface of "respectability" bought with a master's degree in education and many years in business.
As a contrast, I recently attended a wonderful anniversary party for an Island couple I know and love. As I walked in to drop something off in the kitchen, I got in line to hug the dishwasher and cook who also happen to be good friends. They were busy preparing food but stopped a moment to talk to guests and hug friends. That's Vashon to me.
I know my words will upset and anger people, even some of my friends and clients and certainly some of my fellow Realtors. But my goal is to get something going here, folks. I worry about this stuff. I want to see discussions, planning meetings, public commentary. I want to get this ball rolling and see where it lands.
I would like to live here the rest of my life and that could be a while. I'd like to feel as comfortable here in 20 years as I do now. I vote for a 5.000-square-foot limit to any single family residence built on Vashon Island. I believe that if your ego can't fit into that size space then maybe this just isn't the place for you. It can be done if we have the will and the desire to do it. What do you think?
For those of us in the real estate or construction business, our Island's rapid gentrification is no secret. Our home prices have skyrocketed due to consistently small inventory and a constantly high demand. We have a high quality lifestyle, a wonderful caring community and a beautiful natural environment that is the envy of people everywhere. That's what's driving up the prices and changing the face of the island.
A person must have a fairly high income to afford a home here. To some extent we are reflecting a national trend which seems to be dividing us into just three classes of people: the poor, the rich and the filthy rich. There is a disappearing middle class and working class that are surprised to now find themselves qualifying for low-income status.
Here's a sobering statistic from the National Association of Realtors; 40% of all homes sold in the US in 2005 were second homes! Second homes are defined as vacation homes and investment purchases. Amazing isn't it! Least you think I'm just bad-mouthing wealthy people, let me ten you that my real concern isn't about money, but about values.
We have always had wealthy people on Vashon island, or as my grandmother used to say, "The well to do." If it were not for these people we wouldn't have Vashon Allied Arts, the Heritage Museum, Vashon Community Care Center, our wonderful parks and open space, the Land Trust and dozens of wonderful non-profits. These people are the backbone of our community and we would be a poorer, sadder place without their generosity.
What I'm talking about is echoed in what I hear from people around the Island who ask: How do we keep the soul of our community as wonderful as it is now? How do we keep the character of our island the way we know and love it? How do we ensure that everyone, regardless background or of income, will find a place here? How do we keep our community values over time?
I've been thinking about this a great deal. I've been reading about similar issues in communities all over the country. Many towns and villages are facing the same problem There are many reasons for these changes, but the one thing that they all seem to share, which many define as the most basic problem, is the increase in mega-mansions. The McMansions, as they are called in many places, are huge, over-size homes being built in established communities all over the country. They come with an attitude.
According to a recent Article in the magazine Utne, Mega houses are "ostentatious symbols of America’s class divide." As a new generation of very wealthy people flaunt their wealth, community after community is struggling to come to grips with this phenomenon and the changes it brings.
In an interview discussing the McMansion problem in Connecticut, a local town planner for Greenwich stated, "It used to be that for old money, the more money you had, more you hid it." That has been very true for Vashon as well. Many of our citizens with older money choose to live simply. They eschew ostentatiousness and use their money to do good things in our community and the world.
One way many cities and towns all over the country are beginning to address this issue is by limiting the square footage of new construction major remodels. Now, before the property-rights folks get all over my case let me say that I believe strongly in private property rights. HOWEVER, "your rights end where my nose begins" as the saying goes. What I mean by that is simply that using far more than your share of our water and other natural resources is doing me, and our community, damage.
Very large houses take more of our precious resources to build in the first place, and way more of our resources to sustain. If we put a limit on square footage we could save those resources. One example that illustrates this point of view is the fact that the construction industry nationwide contributes 40% to our waste-stream annually. Did you know that? That’s according to the Seattle King County Master Builders Association. Much that is generated by the construction of mega-houses.
Popular books talk about the fact that really large houses are not only a huge waste of material and energy but are not even comfortable to live in. Many of their huge rooms remain empty while the family really lives in only a small part of the structure. It's sobering to realize, for instance, that some of the private homes on Mercer Island and in nearby Medina are larger than the White House in Washington D.C. as well as several Seattle hotels!
California, according to a recent news program, is moving vigorously to control the size of new homes since they learned that air conditioning these behemoths is the major cause of the rolling brownouts that their state has been living with these last few summers.
Cities and .towns all over the country are voting to limit home size. Maryland, Connecticut, Idaho, Colorado, and many other places are outlawing mega-houses and, in many cases, not allowing tear downs of average sized homes being replaced by a 10,000-square-foot house.
I am clearly prejudiced here, but frankly, if your ego is so large that takes 10,000 square feet of house or more to contain it, you may not be the kind of person who cares about our community or its values.
What are some of those values? Well, to me they include both a sense of live and let live and, at the same time, a deep concern for each other and our Island family. It's been my observation that we believe in sustainability and protecting the natural environment that brought most of us here in the first place. We care very much about our independence. We do our own studies, form our own committees, direct our community will to solving problems. We don't like to rely on an outside force to make decisions for us. We value our old Island families with all of their quirks and take pride in our ability to integrate people of different needs and backgrounds into the streetscape of our town.
It isn’t just the use of resources and the esthetic considerations that concern me. It's really my own (yes, I'll admit it) prejudicial attitude about what kind of people need a mansion. I recently went into one of the data base programs I use as a real estate broker and starting looking at the names of well over 20 or so households that have homes over 5,000 square feet on Vashon. There were only a couple of names I knew. It's not that I know everyone on the Island to be sure, but I think I do know most of those involved in our community in some way.
Keep in mind that many of these huge homes are second homes. Several are empty for most of the year. Some estates have two or three houses on them. There is the main mansion which is more than 5,000 square feet and then there is a 2,000-square-foot guest house and, of course, the maid's quarters at 1,000 square feet. Are you surprised at this? There are even a few homes that are well over 10,000 square feet! With a few exceptions these are not folks you see at the local fundraisers or community events. Many of them live very much apart from the rest of us.
Now clearly these folks have the right to live here and not be involved with the community in any way. We have always been a destination for summer people who came and went to their private hideaways and may or may not have interacted with the rest of us. I don't mean to say that only those who want to be involved can live here. I'm just using that as one way to measure values. I hope that as a community we can talk about this and further define what it is that we want to save and come up with ideas for doing so.
My hope is not that we end up with complicated restrictions and conditions like many communities on the Eastside of King County. I don't think anyone here wants to be told what color they can paint their house or how many cars they can have in their driveway. (Yes, there are several places within King County where those rules and more are enforced.) But we have to find a way to draw a line of some sort if there is any hope of preserving what we have.
In my own business I take some care to work with people I feel will be an asset to our community, people who will buy locally, serve on nonprofit boards and cherish our diversity. My own belief is that those kinds of people don't feel the need to own a 10,000-square-foot mansion in order to feel important and successful. Am I wrong about this?
I hear from people in the community more and more that things are changing. That Vashon is changing. I hear more complaints about rude customers, demanding clients and people who treat the help at our local businesses with contempt. More telling even than that is uniformed workers. As I drive around I see yard crews in uniform and visit homes with a uniformed maid or cleaning person. Does that seem like Vashon to you?
At a few events over the last year or two I've begun to notice that the help are becoming invisible. One drops their dirty dishes on a tray without even looking at the person carrying it. One doesn't need to pick up after oneself because "the maid will get it" or "the cleaning crew will manage that." I thought I left that sort of distain in Los Angeles 40 years ago. Maybe it's just that my working-class background is becoming transparent below the thin surface of "respectability" bought with a master's degree in education and many years in business.
As a contrast, I recently attended a wonderful anniversary party for an Island couple I know and love. As I walked in to drop something off in the kitchen, I got in line to hug the dishwasher and cook who also happen to be good friends. They were busy preparing food but stopped a moment to talk to guests and hug friends. That's Vashon to me.
I know my words will upset and anger people, even some of my friends and clients and certainly some of my fellow Realtors. But my goal is to get something going here, folks. I worry about this stuff. I want to see discussions, planning meetings, public commentary. I want to get this ball rolling and see where it lands.
I would like to live here the rest of my life and that could be a while. I'd like to feel as comfortable here in 20 years as I do now. I vote for a 5.000-square-foot limit to any single family residence built on Vashon Island. I believe that if your ego can't fit into that size space then maybe this just isn't the place for you. It can be done if we have the will and the desire to do it. What do you think?
posted by Emma Amiad at
12:17 PM
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