Rich neighborhoods from the hills of Hollywood to the plains of Beverly Grove have been getting all frothing mad for years now over mansionization—when new neighbors tear down smaller, usually older houses to build significantly larger, often taller houses. There are already lots of restrictions in place to prevent extreme mansionization, but these angry residents have successfully lobbied to close more loopholes and tighten restrictions further. The problem is that will take a whole year and a half. So, in the meantime, everyone has totally lost it and decided to start being jerks to each other. The LA Times reports that residents hanging bags of dog poop on fencing around construction projects and passive-aggressive signs are just the start.
· "I am not the type that likes to feel powerless," says a Beverlywood woman who lost her coveted view of Century City after a huge house sprouted on the lot next to hers. Her powerful response: she put signs up on the windows of her home that face her neighbors', proclaiming "Your house destroyed our privacy" and "Your house blocks our sunlight."
· Her neighbors (who were trying to sell the house, which was vacant) tried to get a temporary restraining order against her for "deliberately seeking to annoy them."
· In Beverly Grove, hotbed of anti-mansionization activity, some neighbors of monster houses take a more aggressive-passive-aggressive approach, spraypainting mean things on construction fencing. Some have even been "festooned with bags of dog poop."
· One unnamed group of "irritated Angelenos" is passing out fact sheets, detailing how to drop a dime on building violations "at the bigger, often boxier houses that irritate them in the La Brea Hancock area"; that same group is also organizing protests at open houses of Beverly-Grove-area McMansions.
· It's gotten so that anyone doing anything to their house is under scrutiny. A woman whose foundation has shifted decided that she was going to attend to that, while also expanding her home to 3,600 square feet. Neighbors responded by posting hate mail letters on the fence around the property site, saying "You're going to destroy the neighborhood. You and your developer friends need to get out of here."
· Neighborhood frustration grows as mansionization continues in L.A. [LAT]
· Beverly Grove Fighting Over Proposed Anti-McMansion Rules [Curbed LA]
· Mansionization [Curbed LA]
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