Neighbors complain that this home is out of scale with the rest of the neighborhood.
Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
By Tim Pallesen
Coastal residents are pointing to one particular oceanfront home as the example of what should be prevented in future construction.
A three-story home under construction at 344 N. Ocean Blvd. is too massive compared to neighboring homes, the Beach Property Owners Association says.
“I would have never bought my home if I knew that was going to be built there,” neighbor Kelly Barrette said at a Jan. 14 meeting to review changes to design guidelines for single-family coastal homes.
“Now we’re seeing these huge houses that are out of scale,” Barrette said. “Our rules can be a little tighter. We don’t have to be like Gulf Stream.”
The controversial 18,612-square-foot house was allowed to be larger only after the property owner paid $5.2 million to buy three adjoining lots.
“It seems that you don’t have an issue with smaller houses,” City Commission Shelly Petrolia observed at the meeting.
Petrolia suggested that future requests for larger houses on combined lots go to the city’s Site Plan Review and Appearance Board for approval. SPRAB now only reviews requests to build multifamily residential buildings.
The proposed tighter restrictions will go to the City Commission later this winter.
After the house at 344 N. Ocean was allowed five garage doors facing the street, the BPOA also wants a limit of three visible garage doors. Coastal residents were unsure on Jan. 14 whether they want restrictions on house colors.
The new restrictions will update the design guidelines approved by the city in 2005.
“Some of the things that people have done since were not envisioned in the original guidelines,” said Andy Katz, BPOA vice president.
Current guidelines prohibit Quonset huts and geodesic domes. Modern architecture is discouraged, but not prohibited, in favor of a more Bermuda-style architecture with windows and upper-floor setbacks.
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