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Who: The Walton County Planning Commission has been challenged to address the increasing development of “Monster Houses” in South Walton County.
What: Monster Houses are huge houses that contain huge square footage and usually tower over normal-sized homes in a subdivision or neighborhood. These structures are incompatible with the intended planning of neighborhoods and the vision for Walton County.
When: The Board of County Commissioners has tasked the Planning Commission with developing a strategy for neighborhood stabilization and compatibility standards.
Anyone living in Santa Rosa Beach knows that Walton County is also the home to enormous (some would say – ginormous) homes. Builders constructed homes in recent years to fit the bill for the legions of investors who want to marry ownership of a place to vacation for their family with their retirement portfolio.
But those who oppose the construction for their tendancy to bring in large numbers of tourists, associated traffic and other ills for South Walton have dispensed with calling them the more polite “Mansion” and started to call them something that highlights their venom toward the projects: “Monster Houses.”
The commission considered and decided to move a proposal forward that would limit the places where homes over 5,500 square feet could go in South Walton to restrict the construction of the rental facilities.
Commission Member Kyla Jacobson opened the most recent planning and zoning meeting with her assessment of the situation in Walton County: “We know that monster houses are a problem, and that is why we are here.” She added that we [the Planning Commission] are aware of the many problems and issues resulting from monster houses and continue looking for solutions to the ills at the county’s southern end. Chief among their weapons – the code enforcement book and a series of potential restrictions on building to end the further creation of the mini-hotels.
Jacobson walks a fine line in Walton County. Short-Term Vacation Rentals (STVR) are an essential part of the vacation economy that has exploded in Walton County in the last quarter century. But, in her opinion, the mutation in the economy that incentivizes the creation of 30-bed homes of the traditional single-family home variant that gets rented out to a family from Atlanta for the week deserves drastic action.
Fred Tricker, another member of the Planning Commission, believes the zoning issues for single-family residences in South Walton County come down to the fact that they are exploited to create these large houses and escape the restrictions placed on commerially-zoned properties in South Walton County. “It has become clear to me that the issue is ‘compatibility.’ It is all about compatibility. The other issues are kinda [sic] side issues. So, if we can resolve the compatibility issue, I think we can go a long way to develop regulations that would work,” Tricker said.
Deputy Director of Planning and Development Services, Stephen Schoen, came to the meeting with proposed options for the Planning Commission members to consider. In his report, Schoen explained that a means for dealing with the construction of monster houses would require all new home, as well as new subdivisions (regardless of zoning) to be compatible with existing and abutting development. The terminology used sets the thresholds for ‘compatibility, moderate compatibility, and non-compatibility.’ Compatible development is allowed; moderately compatible development requires additional measures to mitigate against the incompatible characteristics of the development, and the incompatible [non-compatible] development is to be prohibited altogether.
Residents from the community were invited to speak to the issues of monster houses that currently are experiencing a ‘free for all opportunity’ for construction because there are currently no code restrictions that limit what seems to be many ‘small hotels’ being built in a number of county neighborhoods.
The Planning Commission spent a great deal of time in this workshop discussing what is fair and reasonable when it comes to determining what is “compatible.” It appears that the members desire a very simplistic definition of compatibility so that the final approval submitted to the Board of County Commissioners (BCC) will be easier to understand and guidelines being clear and concise – removing confusion or ambiguity. What is proposed and under consideration will be reviewed by the Planning Commission over the next two weeks. The major items for the proposal to the BCC may include the following thresholds for compatibility:
Plans for the development of a home would not exceed 5,500 square feet (‘gross space‘ including all garages and porches). Architectural renderings under this size would be considered compatible. And the second threshold of compatibility would be a maximum of two stories for houses under development. In Schoen’s documentation on Compatibility Measures, he indicated “that when a development [proposed architectural plan] is considered compatible with the surrounding development, no additional compatibility measures shall be required.”
The Planning Committee will hold a follow-up meeting to further discuss and determine the best means for addressing the monster house issue and then make their recommendation to the BCC. The BCC has requested recommendations from the Planning Commission.
