Karanik predicts: "Change is inevitable. In 10 or 15 years, the entire neighborhood is going to be changed." And additions on old Cape Cods and bungalows aren't going to cut it, he said. "The ones I've seen there are complete eyesores. The newer houses are much more attractive."
Arlington County officials are trying to protect structures with historic value, said Christopher Zimmerman, vice chairman of the Arlington County Board. "We only have so many of these houses left, and that's why so many jealously guard what we do have."
In North Arlington, the house at left was moved from its multiple lot and, in its place, other houses are under construction. A 2002 study shows that more than 200 communities in 20 states are struggling with the issue of "teardowns."
(Tracy A. Woodward -- The Washington Post)
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Arlington has "been working on infill issues for a number of years, and has an ordinance" to limit mansionization, Zimmerman said, "but it's a very thorny issue. If you do anything, people say you're taking away our property rights."
Beardsley said Karanik's prediction of unrelenting change is exactly what has propelled him to fight teardowns. "Clearly there is a feeding frenzy going on," he said.
Roger Lindsey, an agent with Re/Max Preferred Properties in Fairfax County who specializes in "assemblages" of land for redevelopment, said: "The bigger builders look for big properties to redevelop, but the market has picked up so much that builders are looking for anything they can get. Anything, especially anything inside the [Capital] Beltway, such as in North Arlington or Fairfax, is gobbled up pretty quickly."
Phyllis Patterson, an agent at Coldwell Banker Residential's Old Town office, said she was working with five builders from Old Town to Mount Vernon on "any kind of teardown -- of a house on an existing lot, or where we can subdivide a lot and build next to a house, or where we can get multiple lots."
No one knows how many teardowns have occurred where the house straddles lots, said Wayne M. Goldstein, head of Montgomery Preservation Inc., a nonprofit advocacy group in Montgomery County. "The whole mansionization problem, either from those doing infill development or from those doing teardowns, has been going on since the mid-'90s. But the rate of demolition permits has really picked up in the past couple of years," he said.
Goldstein's group has been involved in two cases recently where they have tried to work with a builder to protect houses sitting on multiple lots.
Goldstein, whose group will hold a conference on mansionization April 9, said the larger concern is "unplanned-for change and how it affects a community."
When a big land parcel is subdivided, he said, the local government must look at the overall impact on tree protection, roads, storm water facilities and the like and the developer must present information at public hearings. "But if you have 10, 15 or 25 teardowns in a neighborhood, which has happened, I would suggest you have the equivalent of a subdivision being created one house at a time but with no oversight from our nationally recognized planning agency and from the public," he said.
And he issued this warning: "I suggest it will happen in any neighborhood within a mile or two of any form of transit within the next five to 10 years. But it could come even sooner."
