Close proximity to downtown, charming neighborhoods, good
schools: Brighton is the kind of community that real
estate agents love to hate. It’s red-hot popular with buyers but short on
inventory, especially when it comes to big houses.
And a Rochester-area developer has set off a tense
discussion over neighborhood character and property rights. Michael Millner of
MGM Homes has been buying houses in Brighton,
demolishing them, and building larger ones on the same lots. That has alarmed
some residents, who say they’re afraid the trend will ruin the character of Brighton’s
mature neighborhoods.
Reacting to comments from residents in the Home Acres and
Clover Hills neighborhoods, the Brighton Town Board placed a six-month
moratorium on demolitions. That moratorium expires in August. Meantime, town
officials are considering ways to deal with the issue.
At a May 2 public meeting, Brighton
town planner Ramsey Boehner and Brighton Councilmember James Vogel presented a
draft of new legislation that would set up a review process for proposed
demolitions. The legislation would require public notification for all plans to
fully demolish a house. In addition, property owners or developers would have
to get approval from Brighton’s Architectural Commission
and Historical Commission — not only for the demolition but also for the
building that would replace the house. The replacement plan would have to be
approved at the same time as the demolition.
The word often used for
these replacement houses is “McMansions,” but that implies grandiose, obscenely
large houses on small lots. That kind of development has happened in suburban Chicago
and other areas. Fewer than a dozen houses have been demolished in Brighton
since 2000, however, and none have been replaced by oversized mansions. And
Boehner says that during the public meeting, he avoided using the word
“McMansions” deliberately, “because we’re really talking about large-scale
houses being built on small-scale lots, not mansions.”
But Boehner says residents are concerned about the size and
scale of new structures. “It is not just a matter of square footage,” he says.
“If the setbacks are such that they allow buildings to come closer to the
street or to the neighbor next door, but most of the existing homes are set
back quite a bit, you can see what a dramatic change that would mean.”
“And don’t forget what adding another 10 feet in height
could mean,” he says. “If you are next door to that, you’re talking about a
very different property. That’s why some people want to see the zoning
reviewed, too.”
And, he says, there are other concerns. The town wants to be
sure that homes with historic value, including those without landmark status,
have been reviewed before being torn down, he says. And engineering issues come
into play when a larger property occupies a smaller lot.
“You start to get drainage issues,” he says. “Where is all
that water going to go, now that it is covered over with a building? It could
end up next door in the neighbor’s yard where it was once dry,” he says.
Eastland Avenue
resident Sheldon Shapiro, who supports the moratorium, notes that when he was
enlarging his kitchen, he needed the town’s approval. “It seems like we should
be that much more concerned about demolishing a whole house,” he says.
And, he adds, “if you’re going to take a structure down,
maybe you should be required to have a letter of credit or something that shows
that you can replace it with something consistent. Otherwise we could have an
empty lot there, and that invites its own set of problems.”
Babcock Drive
resident Jeffrey Johnstone wants the town to study Pittsford’s regulations on
the demolition of houses more than 50 years old. “They are not necessarily
historic homes,” he says. “But these individual homes create the historic
character of a neighborhood.”
Developer Michael
Millner, who sparked the controversy, says he has enhanced the
neighborhoods where he has demolished older houses and built new ones. They
include properties at 91 Clover Hills Drive,
154 Clover Hills Drive, 1425
Clover Street, and 465
Warren Avenue. Demolitions he planned at 11
Babcock Drive and 32 Southern Parkway are on hold
because of the moratorium.
“I’ve been building in Brighton for
years,” Millner says, “and if you look at the properties I built, whether they
were empty lots that I built out or demolitions that I rebuilt on, I’ve tried
to build something consistent with the neighborhood. I may have taken down a
property that is 1,500 square feet and replaced it with something that is,
let’s say, 3,200 square feet, but there are other large properties already
there similar to it. These are beautiful properties that people want; there is
a demand for them. People move here from San Francisco,
DC, and Boston.
They are working professionals new to the area, and they want to live in Brighton,
but they don’t want to spend two years trying to remodel an old home.”
Realtor Bob Miglioratti, who chairs the board of the Greater
Rochester Association of Realtors, says Brighton should
“be cautious about overreaching.”
“Brighton really does have a serious
shortage of space for new builds,” he says. “The town is already about 94
percent built out. On some streets between Highland
and Elmwood Avenue, we’re
talking about small 1,400 square foot, one-bath houses — and many of them
don’t even have basements. So, yes, there definitely is a market for people who
want to live in Brighton in newer 4,000-square-foot
properties with four bedrooms and three baths.”
Miglioratti also says the town shouldn’t be short-sighted
when it comes to taxes.
“We’re looking at properties with values that top out at
$160,000 to $170,000 and taxes of about $6,000 to $7,000 and replacing them
with houses that are going to generate between $20,000 and $25,000 in taxes.
It’s a windfall. And there is absolutely no evidence that I know of that
indicates this reduces property values. If anything, it’s the exact opposite.”
Brighton Town Supervisor Sandy Frankel says neither the town
nor the people favoring the moratorium want to halt new home construction. And
she says this is not about government interference.
“The laws and regulations are always subject to change and
should be viewed as living documents,” she says. “The moratorium was generated
by the public and the Brighton Historic Preservation Board. We want people to
have the right to use their properties as they wish, but in a way that also
balances and respects the rights of individual property owners and their
neighbors. And I’m sure we can do that.”
The moratorium on demolitions, which began in February, will
end on August 15 unless it is extended. A public hearing on a new demolition
law is scheduled for July 12.
This article appears in May 10-16, 2006.
