What do y'all think of people tearing down homes in Tarrytown and building new modern style homes?? (Austin: house, temperature)

[ScoPro]

Originally Posted by Austin97

I think it is great. Many of those old houses are just old and dont even fit our climate. We dont have snow so the steep roofs are are pointless.

Character of the neighborhood is just opinion.

Seems that a "steep" roof is energy beneficial to let the hot attic air rise higher and let the vents exhaust it outside more efficiently.
At least for the old homes that were built before modern insulation was invented - and still isn't a bad idea for new houses.
Flat roofs leak and are ugly, IMO, unless one wants to live in a crackerbox.

[eirenecat]

Tarrytown was never an "affordable" neighborhood, either--maybe in the 1950s or 1960s, but when my parents moved here in the 1980s it was already WELL out of their lower-middle class budget. My father, who was doing carpentry and custom cabinetry work then, worked in several houses in Tarrytown and I remember him talking about one of them that had separate servants' entrances.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by eirenecat

Tarrytown was never an "affordable" neighborhood, either--maybe in the 1950s or 1960s, but when my parents moved here in the 1980s it was already WELL out of their lower-middle class budget. My father, who was doing carpentry and custom cabinetry work then, worked in several houses in Tarrytown and I remember him talking about one of them that had separate servants' entrances.

Not sure what affordable has to do with tearing down houses and building houses in a style that is incongruent with the neighborhood as a whole.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by ScoPro

Seems that a "steep" roof is energy beneficial to let the hot attic air rise higher and let the vents exhaust it outside more efficiently.
At least for the old homes that were built before modern insulation was invented - and still isn't a bad idea for new houses.
Flat roofs leak and are ugly, IMO, unless one wants to live in a crackerbox.

This. Our house was built in Hyde Park sometime in the early part of the last century and was moved out to the ranch by a prior owner in 1970. Set up right on the land, because of its design which includes a steep roof and appropriate vents, it helps keep the house cool long past the time that most folks have turned on their AC in the spring. The 10' tall ceilings help, too.

[iamwayne]

Once you reach a point in wealth to move to those neighborhoods, would you want to live in someone else's house or your own house? I believe most people will tear it down and build your own house if they can afford it. People decorate a house to make it "their home/style/comfort", what's the difference with building your home with "you own style/comfort..."

[ScoPro]

Originally Posted by eirenecat

Tarrytown was never an "affordable" neighborhood, either--maybe in the 1950s or 1960s, but when my parents moved here in the 1980s it was already WELL out of their lower-middle class budget. My father, who was doing carpentry and custom cabinetry work then, worked in several houses in Tarrytown and I remember him talking about one of them that had separate servants' entrances.

When my parents were house-hunting after Dad's retirement from the Army in early 1959, they looked at a couple of decent recent build 1,800-2,000 sq/ft mid century ranch style houses in the heart of Tarry Town. They were in the $30,000 range.

Our budget was $20,000, so they settled on a new 1,600 sq/ft ranch style on Elmhurst Drive - just east of I-35 & north of Woodland - for $19,500. Dad liked it because it was convenient to the shopping & Officer's Club at Bergstrom AFB. Plus, they didn't like far north Austin (Allandale & Shoal Creek areas) because it was too windy up there & too far from downtown.
They couldn't afford the upscale Balcones Drive/Mount Barker area either, and West Lake Hills was too far out in the sticks, as was Rollingwood.

[verybadgnome]

Given that the average new home size is around 2,500 ft2 (which I admit is a little gluttonous) how many people do you think would want to spend that much money to live in a 800 ft2 bungalow/shack?

The "character" argument is very dubious and is often misused. The character of the neighborhood was even more drastically changed when it was converted from wild areas or farmland. This notion that older is better and has more intrinsic aesthetic/community value is often overstated by residents who don't see neighborhoods as capable of evolving along with the city as a whole. Sometimes newer is better, case in point being any other style than the brutalist architecture that was popular in the 1960s and which is now eligible for historic designation and tax exemptions. I guess Ford Pintos should also be deemed timeless designs worth preserving by car collectors of the world and taxpayers should subsidize their restorations

As far as character impacting housing values that would be very difficult or even impossible to improve given how many subjective factors go into this. On the flip side is the "original home" on the left (an example from my neighborhood) preserving property values or negatively impacting them? I can't see how anyone could argue the former.

And one point concerning the motives of developers and that it is missing the mark. Developers are not making homes for themselves to live in, but are rather appealing to what the market wants. If they build craftsmen style homes and no one wants them they have to eat it, not the other residents in the neighborhood. Maybe the real beef is with the tastes of millennials who now make up the highest share by generation at 34% (boomers are 30%). Maybe have a talk with them about good architectural design, but please let's not institute aesthetic standards into our zoning as we already have enough rules that hamper construction and increase costs.

[pop251808]

Originally Posted by verybadgnome

Given that the average new home size is around 2,500 ft2 (which I admit is a little gluttonous) how many people do you think would want to spend that much money to live in a 800 ft2 bungalow/shack?

The "character" argument is very dubious and is often misused. The character of the neighborhood was even more drastically changed when it was converted from wild areas or farmland. This notion that older is better and has more intrinsic aesthetic/community value is often overstated by residents who don't see neighborhoods as capable of evolving along with the city as a whole. Sometimes newer is better, case in point being any other style than the brutalist architecture that was popular in the 1960s and which is now eligible for historic designation and tax exemptions. I guess Ford Pintos should also be deemed timeless designs worth preserving by car collectors of the world and taxpayers should subsidize their restorations

As far as character impacting housing values that would be very difficult or even impossible to improve given how many subjective factors go into this. On the flip side is the "original home" on the left (an example from my neighborhood) preserving property values or negatively impacting them? I can't see how anyone could argue the former.

And one point concerning the motives of developers and that it is missing the mark. Developers are not making homes for themselves to live in, but are rather appealing to what the market wants. If they build craftsmen style homes and no one wants them they have to eat it, not the other residents in the neighborhood. Maybe the real beef is with the tastes of millennials who now make up the highest share by generation at 34% (boomers are 30%). Maybe have a talk with them about good architectural design, but please let's not institute aesthetic standards into our zoning as we already have enough rules that hamper construction and increase costs.

Well said.

[bufo]

Originally Posted by ScoPro

Seems that a "steep" roof is energy beneficial to let the hot attic air rise higher and let the vents exhaust it outside more efficiently.
At least for the old homes that were built before modern insulation was invented - and still isn't a bad idea for new houses.
Flat roofs leak and are ugly, IMO, unless one wants to live in a crackerbox.

I think that's the opposite of energy efficient. Attic temperatures are much higher than the temperatures outside. There's no reason to trap all that extra heat right above your conditioned space. I think modern energy efficient homes wouldn't have an attic.

Flat roof houses can be beautiful too. We should be open to different style and tastes. That's the kind of character I want to have in a neighborhood.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by bufo

I think that's the opposite of energy efficient. Attic temperatures are much higher than the temperatures outside. There's no reason to trap all that extra heat right above your conditioned space. I think modern energy efficient homes wouldn't have an attic.

Flat roof houses can be beautiful too. We should be open to different style and tastes. That's the kind of character I want to have in a neighborhood.

Our 1959 house in the middle of Austin (Barton Hills) has a peaked roof AND on a slightly later addition a flat roof. I can speak to the fact that the post you respond to is correct - the peaked roof with attic, while the attic gets hot, allows the heat to be vented out MUCH better than the flat roof.