The overall sentiment in Old Town is that people like it the way it is. They don't like the change that's starting to happen with incredibly large houses coming into the neighborhood. But real estate agents, developers and especially speculators (who tear down and old house, put up a new one, and then sell it to the highest bidder) want to be able to sell/build/flip the largest, fanciest, most expensive houses possible because it means more money in their pocket. So several neighbors and I have started a group called Protect Our Old Town Homes. We have our own website which includes information about houses sizes, what is and isn't allowed under the new ordinance, solar access issues and other problems that neighbors have had when small neighboring houses are torn down and replaced with oversized and out of place modern structures. But today I also made some graphics that people can share on Facebook or Google+ to get the word out to their friends and neighbors. I thought I'd share them here.

I made two versions of the first image. One just shows a smaller and larger house together with the larger house blocking out the sunshine (which is what is happening in several instances around Old Town). In the second I changed out the newer house to look more modern. I modeled after two houses on the east side of Wood Street and one house on Akin. There may be more in this style, but those are the ones that come immediately to mind.

The survey was taken among a very large audience of Old town residents who showed up to a meeting in the Lincoln Center in November 2012. The overwhelming majority of people supported the changes, so when those who want to repeal the ordinance say otherwise, I don't know where they're getting their information. I often hear them refer to the petition driven repeal two years ago, saying that it shows a majority didn't approve of the last ordinance regarding this topic. The only problem with their use of the last petition drive is that it only included 3000 people, which is a very small percentage of people in Fort Collins, and 80 - 90% of the names on the petition sheets list addresses outside of Old Town. So what the repeal folks should be saying is that most people who don't live in Old Town and won't be affected by the ordinance one way or the other are willing to sign a piece of paper when asked.

Feel free to right click and save any of these images and reshare them via email, Facebook or Google+ (or wherever else you may want to reshare them). And while you're at it, be sure to like us on Facebook, Google+ and Pinterest.

During the Eastside/Westside community discussions, people occasionally asked, "What is the problem with people building a house to fit their family?" The response was often, "Nothing. But a lot of these new houses are being built and resold immediately." When pushed for examples of houses built to be resold, none of us had a house that popped readily to mind. Recently, as I walked past Dunn Elementary, a house for sale jumped out at me and I realized that it fits the pattern that people were referring to in our discussions.

506 S. Washington Avenue - Built in 2010

The neighborhood where this house was built is a little different than most of the rest of Old Town. Instead of being made up primarily of pre-war bungalows, the houses south of Mulberry, from Grant westward, were built primarily after the war. Though the houses are similar in size to the pre-war bungalows, they're built in a modernist (that plain box look) style. I can't say these are the most beautiful houses in Old Town because they're just plain not. But there's a certain ascetic to them when you walk down the street and compare the similarities as well as the small variations from house to house. That is, until you hit a house like 506 S. Washington. This house not only doesn't fit the size of the other houses in the neighborhood, but it doesn't fit the style either. It might, sorta, vaguely, possibly have a chance at being called bungalow style (if you take your glasses off, shine a bright light in your face, and squint a lot). But there's no way you could say that it matches the modernist style even remotely. The size and style difference in itself isn't bad, but it makes the house stand out like a sore thumb when it's viewed in context.

The house at 506 W. Washington was built in a lot that used to be the "back yard" of (OK, so really it was a side yard. But it was the equivalent of a back yard for) the house to the north (to the left in the photo). The lot was subdivided and sold in 2007 for $100,000. It looks like it was resold in 2009, again for $100K. The house was built and in August of 2010 it was sold for over $400,000. The current owners are listed as living in a suburb of Perth, Australia. They're selling the house for an asking price just $20,000 more than they paid for the house 2 1/2 years ago.

This house is an example of what bothers many residents in Old Town. The land was purchased and built upon by someone with the sole intention of reselling the property once it was built. The purchaser doesn't even live in the country (at least not at this point). So the house obviously wasn't built to suit a current Old Town family that found they couldn't live in a small older house. (The house in Perth is, ironically, a small bungalow.) And now it's being resold again. This is a pattern that's true of many rebuilds. This house isn't hugely oversized. It's not particularly ugly like some new builds are. But it wasn't built by folks who already lived in the neighborhood and needed a little more space. It was built by someone hoping to make a buck at the expense of the neighbors who now not only have a house on their street that sticks out like a sore thumb, but who also are dealing with a rotation of neighbors.

A couple of other houses that were built to be immediately resold include 529 W. Mountain (which was bought in January 2012 for $257,900, mostly scraped, and rebuilt at a much larger size and different style and is now being sold for around $749,000 (the asking price)) and 317 Wood Street (which was bought in June 2009 for $250K, scraped, rebuilt and resold in August 2011 for $740,000 to a couple that currently live in Anchorage, Alaska and rent the house out).

When houses that fit in with the look and feel of the neighborhood are removed and replaced with houses that don't fit and they're bought by people who don't even live here, and they're housing people who come and go, then the look and feel of the neighborhood can change dramatically. It's a change the folks who have lived in Old Town for awhile don't want. We love welcoming new neighbors into our community. But there's an expectation that they'll join us, not destroy what we love.

The following is a list of houses on the west side of Old Town, Fort Collins that were built within the last 10 years or so. I took information on each house from the county property database and entered it into each table. I then calculated how these houses fit into the current FAR (Floor Area Ratio) rules and how they would fit into the new FAR rules if they are passed by City Council. There has been a lot of debate about whether the proposed FAR restrictions would be too restrictive to new building. I only have one house here that passed both with the current FAR and the proposed FAR. I suspect most new builds would pass under both, but my goal in this study was to find the outliers - the extraordinarily large houses that have been put up recently in Old Town.

To read more about the FAR and what it all means, check out my previous post on the topic - The Sadler House and the Proposed New FAR Rules.

I'm not entirely sure I did the calculations correctly on these houses. The consultants put out a list of houses that did and didn't pass under the proposed FAR regulations. You can see their document via Google Drive.

(This post is subject to change as I add houses, correct data, or better explain what it's all about. :-} Please bear with the changing nature of this post. I don't usually modify things once they're posted, but this is one of those posts that I wanted to get out there even before it was really finished. Feel free to comment on things that don't seem to be accurate. I'd rather have the data correct than have a glaring mistake.)

	730 W. Mountain
	Lot:	5878 ft2
	House:	2960 ft2
	Basement:	1414 ft2
	Garage:	576 ft2
	N-C-L	Allowed	Actual
	Current Method	40% or 2351 ft2	60% or 3536 ft2 *Fail*
	Proposed Method	20% + 1250 ft2 or 2426 ft2 total	2960 ft2 *Fail*
Notes:Detached Garage. Basement may be more than 3 feet above ground level. The above figures do not include basement square footage. If the basement is indeed 3 feet or more above ground, then the 1414 of square footage in the basement would also need to be counted under the proposed FAR.
	<-- The house is on a corner lot, which is why it looks like it is jammed to the right and back of the lot. The house has three stories and an additional full basement that extends out under the porch.

	309 S. Sherwood
	Lot:	9500 ft2
	House:	3653 ft2
	Basement:	0 ft2
	Garage:	575 ft2
	N-C-M	Allowed	Actual
	Current Method	50% or 4750 ft2	45% or 4228 ft2 *Pass*
	Proposed Method	25% + 1000 ft2 or 3375 ft2 total	4228 ft2 *Fail*
Notes:Detached Garage. Basement may be more than 3 feet above ground level. The above figures do not include basement square footage. If the basement is indeed 3 feet or more above ground, then the 1414 of square footage in the basement would also need to be counted under the proposed FAR.
		In this photo you can see how the back of the house looms higher than the neighboring house on the right hand side.

	425 Wood Street
	Lot:	8602 ft2
	House:	1 ft2
	Basement:	0 ft2
	Garage:	0 ft2
	N-C-M	Allowed	Actual
	Current Method	50% or 4301 ft2
	Proposed Method	25% + 1000 ft2 or 3151 ft2 total
Notes:Clearly the square footage for the house, as listed on the county database, is wrong. I've emailed asking for the actual data.
	In the photo with the basketball hoop, The northernmost house on the block is the white with blue trim house on the left. The next house over is the maroon with green trim that can be seen behind the basketball hoop. 425 Wood is the third house down the block and is substantially larger than the houses to either side of it, as can be seen in the second photo, which shows the the houses to either side are significantly shorter than the first story of the 425 Wood house.  The photo to the left shows the south side of the house with a couple of patios as it looms over the house next to it (which is in the lower right corner in shadow in this photo).

	321 Wood Street
	Lot:	8529 ft2
	House:	2651 ft2
	Basement:	1396 ft2
	Garage:	600 ft2
	N-C-M	Allowed	Actual
	Current Method	50% or 4265 ft2	38% or 3251 ft2 *Pass*
	Proposed Method	25% + 1250 ft2 or 3382 ft2 total	3251 ft2 *Pass*
Notes:Detached Garage.

	317 Wood Street
	Lot:	8529 ft2
	House:	2856 ft2
	Basement:	1434 ft2
	Garage:	600 ft2
	N-C-M	Allowed	Actual
	Current Method	50% or 4265 ft2	38% or 3456 ft2 *Pass*
	Proposed Method	25% + 1250 ft2 or 3382 ft2 total	3456 ft2 *Fail*
Notes:Detached Garage. This house was built in 2010 and is a rental property. The owners of this house live in Alaska.

	210 Jackon Avenue
	Lot:	14125 ft2
	House:	3670 ft2
	Basement:	1239 ft2
	Garage:	480 ft2
	N-C-L	Allowed	Actual
	Current Method	40% or 5650 ft2	29% or 4150 ft2 *Pass*
	Proposed Method	20% + 1250 ft2 or 4075 ft2 total	4150 ft2 *Fail*
Notes:Detached Garage.
The last photo shows the northside of the new house as seen from the street. The house that was at the 210 Jackson address before the new building was located entirely behind the corner house. As you can see in the photo, it now stands out dramatically behind the older neighboring structure.

	400 Jackon Avenue
	Lot:	10607 ft2
	House:	3480 ft2
	Basement:	1574 ft2
	Garage:	812 ft2
	N-C-L	Allowed	Actual
	Current Method	40% or 4243 ft2	40.4% or 4292 ft2 *Marginal*
	Proposed Method	20% + 1000 ft2 or 3121 ft2 total	4292 ft2 *Fail*
Notes:Attached Garage.  This house appears to be a rental. The owners are listed as living at a different address within Fort Collins.

	227 N. Whitcomb
	Lot:	6377 ft2
	House:	1836 ft2+ 440 ft2 Loft Space
	Basement:	0 ft2
	Garage:	572 ft2
	N-C-M	Allowed	Actual
	Current Method	50% or 3189 ft2	45% or 2848 ft2 *Pass*
	Proposed Method	25% + 1250 ft2 or 2844 ft2 total	2848 ft2 *Marginal*
Notes:Detached Garage. I think this house is particularly interesting when you compare the façade of this building with the surrounding buildings, and then compare the size of this building with the surrounding buildings, particularly with the house 3 doors south of it (the long green house in the photo below). 227 N. Whitcomb stands out like a sore thumb on this block because it is so tall compared to the rest of the houses on the block. And yet it is smaller in overall living space than the building at 221 N. Whitcomb, which goes a little further back (227 also starts closer to the street by a few feet, which make 221 look even longer in comparison than it really is) and which uses the basement as a means of increasing living space. So while it's FAR remains low, It has over 3000 square feet of living space and fits in with the neighboring houses much better.

Add comments with the addresses of other houses I should look into. I'll keep adding more houses as I have time.

A friend of mine recently pointed out this page on Facebook. It was originally set up to fight against building code regulations that were enacted in 2011, hence the name, "Repeal Fort Collins Ordinance 003." However, with the Eastside and Westside Neighborhoods Character Study, one of the admins of the page has started posting there again. We (the admin and myself) recently began a conversation regarding the house shown in the title photo of the page, the historic Sadler House.

Doctor Eldon Leonard Sadler married Edna Love in 1903. (See photo to the left of Edna Love Sadler on her wedding day.) They built their house on West Mountain in 1905. It was a large house for its time, as is evidenced by the fact that it's taller (though not towering over) all of the other houses on the block. (See last photo in this post.)

Not too much longer after building this house on Mountain, the Sadlers built an additional house in their own back yard, 110 North Loomis. (According to the Larimer property database, the backyard house was built in 1910, but the permit to build the house, as found on the Fort Collins History Connection, puts the date at March 27th, 1924 (with an expected cost of $2800 to build this second house).)

The Sadler house is a beautiful example of what we all love about Old Town Fort Collins. This house looks much like it did when it was first built, though it has been remodeled a few times (once in 1922 and again in 1925 when a porch was added). It exemplifies Fort Collins' early days for the fairly well to do. In 1995, the owners of the house requested that it be added to the list of historically designated houses in Fort Collins.

As I pointed out above, the house is unusual in two ways: it is slightly taller than the rest of the houses on the street and it has a house in its own backyard (which has since been subdivided into a separate property). Though most houses in Old Town don't have an additional house in the back yard, it is more common on corner lots, and exceptions are more easily made for corner buildings when new permitting takes place due to the "hardship" of the smaller lot size.

The folks at Friends of Old Town Fort Collins (which appears to be associated with the Facebook page shown above) list the Sadler house as an example of a house that could not be built if the new Eastside/Westside proposals are accepted by the city council. (That's why the Sadler house features prominently on the Facebook page.) The admin of the "Repeal 003" page states that this house "is in the NCM Zone and has an attached garage. Using this weeks latest formula this house is 667sf larger than would be allowed. If the basement wall is over 3' above grade, and this one looks like it is from the number of steps in the photo, this house would be 1226sf larger than allowed."

So I went over to the house today and measured how far the first floor sits above the ground. It is just over 2 feet from flower garden to brick work.

So I'm going to focus on the 667 square foot overage number rather than the 1226 square foot number because the second wouldn't apply unless the top of the basement stands 3 feet above ground, which it doesn't. 

This house sits in an NCM zone. (NCM = medium density, which means that multiple unit dwellings can be built in this area (up to 4 units per dwelling) and that individual houses can fill up more of the lot space (currently set at 50% of the lot)). The proposed change to the formula is that a house in the NCM that is on a lot between 4000 square feet and 10,000 square feet can have an above ground square footage of 25% plus an additional 1000 square feet. And if the house has an unattached garage, it can add an additional 250 square feet to that number. Here's how all that looks in the actual proposal:

The Sandler house is currently on a 5507 square foot lot. With the current FAR rules (of 50%), the house is at 47% of the lot size with 2610 square feet of floor space. (For those who aren't familiar with how the Floor/Area Ratio works in Fort Collins, basements don't count at all (right now), no matter how high the ceiling of the basement is. The first and second stories both count in terms of overall square footage.) Under the new rules, the house would be allowed to have 2376.75 square foot, or 2626.75 square feet if an unattached garage is included.

The admin of the Repeal 003 Facebook page claims that the house would be over the proposed new footage rules by 667 square feet. By my calculations, however, the house would only be over by 233.25 square feet. The admin is correct on one point. If this house were torn down today and the builder wanted to recreate exactly what is there now, they wouldn't be able to under the proposed rules. They would, however, be able to build exactly what is there if the garage were to be rebuilt as an unattached building. The new builders could also claim "hardship" due to the smaller lot size and could probably get a variance in order to build the house exactly as it is today. (The proposed new rules do not stop people from asking for variances under the same rules as are currently being used to grant variances for new building.)

I'll concede that the Repeal folks are technically correct in saying that the Sandler house couldn't be built under the proposed new rules, but it's so close to being in the OK zone, and it's so easy to get variances for situations like this (with a hardship based on lot size), that I think the Sandler house could indeed be rebuilt exactly as it is if it were to be torn down and done over. It therefore isn't a very good example to use when complaining against the proposed Eastside/Westside changes. The group does list other houses, so I'll take a look at one of those next. Before I do, however, I think I'll walk the neighborhood and get some shots of houses that I've regularly heard neighbors complain about. I'll compare where they stand in terms of the current FAR rules and then calculate where they'd fall under the proposed new rules. If you have a house that you'd particularly like me to include, just send me a note.

Sources

Eldon Leonard Sadler was listed as Dr. E. L. Sadler in both the Fort Collins Courier and in the Fort Collins History Connection. It wasn't until I found this genealogical listing of him that I knew his full name. Eldon and Edna's wedding date is listed there, but it is also listed with Edna's photo in the Fort Collins History Connection. The listing for the permit taken out to build the backyard house can also be found through the Fort Collins History Connection.

I used the county database to get figures for the lot size and house size for the Sandler house.