Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP go protest in front of this house and save it:

https://www.redfin.com/MD/Bethesda/7714-Radnor-Rd-20817/home/10646496

That house above is not in real Bethesda, and is on a large plot. The houses on places like Chase and Pearl streets with tiny and narrow plots the McMansions encroach on neighbors. Also no room for trucks, deliveries to pull into property, dumpsters, work trucks, workers meeting every morning on sidewalks parked illegal, smoking, drinking coffee at crack of dawn not fun as some houses this goes on for 1-2 years.

? I live 2 blocks from Chase on a street that intersects Pearl. There have been 6 new houses built on my street in the past 2 years, including one that's going up right across the street from my house right now. I've never seen workers meeting on the sidewalks (no sidewalks on my street, ha), nor illegal parking. There was never any room for trucks to go down the street easily anyway. Yes, there are dumpsters but they are on the property of the house being built.

The one major annoyance -- apart from the noise -- is that ours is a one-way street and the builders of two of the six houses didn't respect that. The workers would drive the wrong way down the street, fast, and curse out anyone who objected. But, you know, my asshole neighbor who lives next to me does that too, minus the cursing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP is obviously one of the oldsters who bought his/her tiny Bethesda house 20 years ago for next to nothing and, despite benefiting greatly from appreciation over the years due to all of the nice new houses in the neighborhood, cannot afford one himself/herself, and is now bitching that the nice, big Craftsman-style house next door is creating shade on his/her shitty little tomato garden.

lol

x10000

TRUTH.

Ha, yeah, probably true. I live in one of those tiny houses (though bought 9 years ago) and used to have the little tomato garden until I had kids. We're in downtown Bethesda near Pearl St.

I won't lie -- I used to think the McMansions were awful, and I still don't love them, but after having 2 kids I would certainly live in one if I could afford it. Yeah, they're ugly, but there is so much space, and everything is new. The closet doors presumably close properly. No wondering when the 70-year-old original pipes will blow. Potential for laundry upstairs. A nice new kitchen. A driveway. A garage. A powder room on the first floor. Hell, a dishwasher -- we don't have one and don't have room for one unless we completely redo the kitchen. Do you know how much of a pain it is to wash baby bottles and pumping gear by hand?!

So, I don't really judge the McMansions much anymore, except the modernist ones which really are so hideous that I can't get past the outside. For the rest, if someone dropped $2 million in my lap, I'd buy one.

And the downside: all the new tenants are overwhelming the already overcrowded schools and traffic is getting worse and worse. The county keeps building, but has not addressed the infrastructure problems.