In Defense of 'Mansionization'

In a town just north of Boston recently, the planning office was abuzz. Developers had the audacity to buy a property on a quiet street near a desirable elementary school, and were giving the house a major overhaul – tripling its size, and hoping to sell it for $1 million. They needed only a building permit; the rest of the project required no approvals for zoning or anything else.

This wasn’t the dirtiest word in established metro-area communities – the teardown – but it was essentially the same thing. The term in vogue now is "mansionization." The planners were worried about the historical value of existing housing stock, new homes being "out of character" and out of scale with the surrounding neighborhoods, and the lack of entry-level or affordable housing.