Saying No! to McMansions in Edison

I don't know whether it will help with the teardowns or whether it will even hold up in court, but our nextdoor neighbor, Edison, NJ, has passed an ordinance limiting the size of new homes based on the lot size, reports the HNT. The problem is that floor area ratios often result in MORE suburban-looking developments, not less. Real cities like Hoboken and New Brunswick have homes that take up a significant portion of the lot without looking like a Vinyl Village. This will encourage evenly spaced houses with lots of extra lawn around them. The article includes some explanatory language that makes it clear what they were trying to do. They even limited height as part of the ordinance.

The ordinance also keeps tabs on the height of a house, restricting it to 35 feet from the original lot grade to the highest point of the structure.

"It's going to ensure we don't have any towering homes in a neighborhood of modest houses anymore," Tomaro said.

Edison is terribly close to New York's city limits, so maybe its time to consider a denser City-style model that lives up to the locale. But I applaud the effort to try a different approach than they were trying. The problem they are addressing is real, the solution just might not fit.

UPDATE: The Home News followed up with an editorial supporting the zoning change.