Cookie cutter Grove
This was sent in by a reader:
Do you know where you are? Can you distinguish unique neighborhoods by landmarks and specific styles of architecture and streets?
All of the townhouses pictured below are within a twenty block radius of each other. All have Chicago brick pavers, a fence, an automatic gate and most have a garage.
Question: Where are all of these homes located?
Westchester
Hialeah
Coconut Grove
Answer: Coconut Grove
Coconut Grove is often described by our City of Miami politicians, tourism boards and media as being special, distinctive, eclectic, eccentric, artsy, charming, tree covered, scenic, unique, desirable, bohemian, entertaining, fun and so fourth.
But they better have some good lawyers on retainer, since someone may disagree and sue them for “false advertising.”
Regrettably the City of Miami and its Zoning Board has continued to permit boring, repetitive, cookie-cutter homes to be built. The unfortunate result is that our beloved Coconut Grove is quickly becoming the opposite of what made it so wonderful, why people visit us and why we moved here in the first place.
Aspiring to mediocrity is not much of a goal to be proud of.
All of the pictures below were take by Harry E. Gottlieb on 12/14/2006 in Coconut Grove (Center Grove & Village West).
Harry sent me over a dozen photos, but you get the idea by looking at just these few. Hell, you ge the idea by just walking through the Grove.
We apologize if any of these are photos of your house.
Do you know where you are? Can you distinguish unique neighborhoods by landmarks and specific styles of architecture and streets?
All of the townhouses pictured below are within a twenty block radius of each other. All have Chicago brick pavers, a fence, an automatic gate and most have a garage.
Question: Where are all of these homes located?
Westchester
Hialeah
Coconut Grove
Answer: Coconut Grove
Coconut Grove is often described by our City of Miami politicians, tourism boards and media as being special, distinctive, eclectic, eccentric, artsy, charming, tree covered, scenic, unique, desirable, bohemian, entertaining, fun and so fourth.
But they better have some good lawyers on retainer, since someone may disagree and sue them for “false advertising.”
Regrettably the City of Miami and its Zoning Board has continued to permit boring, repetitive, cookie-cutter homes to be built. The unfortunate result is that our beloved Coconut Grove is quickly becoming the opposite of what made it so wonderful, why people visit us and why we moved here in the first place.
Aspiring to mediocrity is not much of a goal to be proud of.
All of the pictures below were take by Harry E. Gottlieb on 12/14/2006 in Coconut Grove (Center Grove & Village West).
Harry sent me over a dozen photos, but you get the idea by looking at just these few. Hell, you ge the idea by just walking through the Grove.
We apologize if any of these are photos of your house.
posted by Tom Falco at 8:07 AM
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11 Comments:
LOL! Sad state of affairs. At least these are not mac-mansions. If you do the same thing with mac-mansions you would see that they, too, are basically the same. I agree with you 100% that these cookie-cutter homes are making the Grove just another place. However, do you know how difficult it is to get permits whenever you want to do something a bit off-beat (like designing a mediterranean house with absolutely no windows to the front)?
This is quite comical... What do you want to be built in the Grove? A circular house? One with a garage on top of it? Sometimes its like some people just need something to piss and moan about. You can only build so high in the Grove and the lots are limited space for crying out loud. Not to mention the previous poster's comment about permits. I think all of the houses shown here look fine. The only thing they really have in common is that they are all rectangular shape and they are all duplex townhouses. All of these places are also located in center grove, around the Virginia, Mary, Day, Shipping streets. I know because I live in the area. You cant build single family homes there because they are too expensive for people to purchase. Just look at the "different" house that was just built on Tigertail. Its on the market for $1.5M last time I checked and its been empty for a long, long time.
We are asking for a bit of character. These are ugly pieces of crap. They all look alike and have no character whatsoever. The houses that were knocked down to make way for these ugly things had character.
If you can't see the problem, you have no taste, Blind Mind. You really are "blind".
If blind man is referring to the stunningly beautiful white house near aviation avenue on the north side of tigertail, well... that's exactly the kind of house that would improve any neighborhood.
That kind of sharp mediterranean is not only stunning, it is timeless. I live in the gables and that's precisely what I would build if I could.
The $1.5 million is steep not so much for the house (it is 3,000 ft) but because the lot is so small. But, we are not talking about price, but rather, the aesthetics of it. The four little townhomes here and many of the mac-mansions you see all over the place, do lack character and they do like cookie cutter architecture, which was the essence of the original post.
If I had the money today, I would definitely go to the owner of that house and negotiate it down to $1.1 or so.
Some people have no taste. For the same price, those ugly cookie cutter houses in Center Grove can have some character.
The developers are finding the easy way out. They build crap and people purchase the crap.
These houses go for $700,000 or so, I think they could do a little better at that price.
Sad.
That white house was actually only $1.3 million when it was "by owner" before Joanne Forster took the listing.
Reminds me of all those little townhouses (or zero-lot-line-houses) being built by Grand and 32nd. They all have this repulsive brick accent on them.
Yes anonymous, that is the house I was referring to you and I agree wholeheartedly that it is absolutely gorgeous and probably worth every penny. The point Im trying to make is that center grove doesnt have (but maybe a few) single family homes. They are all townhomes, condos, etc. To build a residence like the one on Tigertail in center grove would probably unleash more complaints about how it doesnt fit the character of the area. With the size of the lots in center grove, you really cant build more than a duplex townhome, hence the multitude of similar buildings being built. Plus, a single family home would be really hard to sell with the way the market is right now, so developers build duplexes with sizable square footage to attract the widest range of buyers. You really cant fault them for it. Now, I also find that while many of these residences pictured look similar, they all bring something different to the table in terms of looks.
Maybe Dylan Ace could make these homes disappear?
The R-2 Zoning of the Center Grove has been the single-most avoidable mistake that has contributed to the loss of character in the Grove. The duplex zoning has been and will remain a recipe for disaster.
The problem is that most of those townhouses are really ugly. How could a developer build them? How could someone design something so tasteless?
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