9216 Cherokee Lane

9216.... used to hold a ranch house and two huge oak trees. The house went up for sale, a builder bought it, and then the house was demolished. Along with the house, two old beautiful trees were pushed over, chopped up and hauled away.

Word went around that a 6,000 square foot house was going to be built. When I heard that I thought there is no way I'm going to have that in my backyard. So I created a petition and gathered signatures from surrounding homeowners. The petition was for people who believed that the new proposed house was not keeping within the look or scale of surrounding houses.

Meetings were held that included homeowners, the builder, the architect, and members of the Leawood Homes Association. Clarification was made that the house was NOT going to be 6,000 square feet. The photo below is the original proposed drawing.


And the photo here is the result of neighbors sticking together and speaking up for what they want the future of this neighborhood to be. Still not keeping within the character of the neighborhood, but a few changes were made and the overall height did come down by 3 feet.

Because this proposed house met all of the architectural guidelines it was given the approval to build.

Neighbors are still not happy with the size and look of the house. There is still a petition for this property. Thank goodness this house is not the 6,000 square feet that we all thought. But even at 3800 square feet it is extremely larger than the surrounding 2000 square foot (average) ranch houses. With it's protruding garage (also known as a snout nose) and unwelcoming tunnel to the front door it just doesn't fit the streetscape of the surrounding houses. I suppose the plus to this house will come to the new homeowner. The lack of backyard, since the house takes up most of it, will be less to mow.

Just because Old Leawood has large lots, do we really have to fill them with huge houses? Some say that all of this tearing down and rebuilding is good for the neighborhood and that it's smart growth. Tearing down a smaller house to build a bigger house only adds square footage. Not to mention all the material that was sent to the landfill. This doesn't sound like smart growth to me.

So now our goal is to get existing guidelines changed so that the house being built at 9216 doesn't become the norm of this neighborhood. It won't happen overnight, it will take some time. It's a community effort and everyone has to do their part.

What do you think of 9216? Leave your comments here on this post.

Or you can contact the Builder, John Gray, at http://www.johngrayhomes.com/contactus.php or contact Rick Jones, the Architect, at info@nspjarch.com and let them know what you think.