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June 2, 2009

Flatbush Rezoning Can't Come Soon Enough

248 Stratford RoadThe 60-day ULURP period for the Flatbush Rezoning plan concludes this week with a hearing at City Planning on Wednesday night. Unfortunately the downzoning, which affects approximately 180 blocks and has particular impact on the historic areas of Victorian Flatbush did not come soon enough to save this place at 248 Stratford Road in Ditmas Park, notes the Ditmas Park Blog. We shudder to think what its replacement will look like. McMansion anyone?




Posted by Brownstoner at 10:44 AM | Comments (3)
Categories: Flatbush, Victorian Flatbush, Zoning

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What is "McMansion" other than a disparaging term for a large, detached single-family home. In other words, the only type of building that will be permitted under the new Flatbush rezoning. This particular house was a nothing special house, on a nothing special block backing onto Coney Island Avenue. There is a (good in my opinion) argument in favor of the rezoning, but it's not because it would prevent McMansions.

Posted by: Sparafucile at June 2, 2009 12:22 PM

Not to mention... re-zoning does NOTHING to prevent the demolition of this house or the building of a new house in whatever style the owner pleases.

It could be a glass cube, as long as it fulfills the zoning requirements, which is about size and setback and so on.

If re-zoning happened 3 months ago, why, exactly, wouldn't this house be demolished?

Posted by: tybur6 at June 2, 2009 12:36 PM

"McMansion" is pretty universally understood to mean "bloated monstrosity symptomatic of affluenza." The rezoning, as I understand it, would indeed not forbid a McMansion if it were to occupy a similar space, height etc., but would prevent construction of a 7-story condo block.

As someone who lives in one of the less-distinguished of these Victorian piles, I sometimes think that, in their sprawling, they were the McMansions of their day, complete with haute-bourgeois references to earlier architectural styles. (The ones in Prospect Park South were inarguably status symbols marketed to the wealthy.) And then I look at real McMansions, Sopranos-style, and think...nah. Maybe a McMansion is in the eye of the beholder, or maybe (as the judge said of porn) you just know it when you see it, or maybe (as those annoying French say), you can't argue taste. (But of course we do, we do!)

Posted by: Brenda from Flatbush at June 2, 2009 2:17 PM

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