The Monster House: Why a Change in Neighborhood Scale Isn’t a Bad Thing
If there was neighborhood drama when I was a kid in the '90s, I wasn’t aware of it — with one exception. The “monster house,” people called it. It was a new build that replaced a smaller house, and it was...well, pretty big compared to all its neighbors. I remember it being the talk of the neighborhood for a good while, with the various adults in my world tsk-ing and griping about it endlessly.
Looking back, I was too young to form my own opinion about it, but I clearly recall parroting what I heard the grown-ups saying. “What a shame…. This will just destroy the surrounding homes’ property values.” My friend’s grandparents lived across the back lane from the new building, and there was endless fretting about how the shadows would affect their beautiful and extensive backyard gardens.
I remember fervently agreeing with the general sentiment about this property. Who did these people think they were, building something so outlandish and out of place in this neighborhood? It wasn’t ornate or grand. It didn’t look particularly nice. It was boxy and plain. Mostly it was just big. And for a long time, it stood out like a sore thumb to me, just because there had been so much negative talk about it.
In preparing this column, I did a little newspaper research and discovered that my memory of this neighborhood drama was not overstated. At one point, a group of concerned citizens took out a newspaper ad in their quest to have the “neighborhood nightmare” demolished.
The newspaper ad calling for the demolition of the “monster house.”
In the end, those concerned citizens were not successful, and the house remained. Honestly, now that the trees on the block are bigger, the house doesn’t stick out anymore. In fact, I’d say it blends in pretty naturally.
My perspective on the “monster house" began shifting after college, when I moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, and lived in neighborhoods like Kitsilano and Commercial Drive. Big houses were what gave people like me, who were just starting out in life, the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of living in a big, beautiful city. I (and most of my friends) lived in various rented suites within bigger houses, almost always with roommates and often with the homeowner occupying one of the suites. Big houses were an essential part of the housing inventory, creating tons of relatively affordable housing options in a place where lots of people wanted to live.
So over the years, the big house in my childhood neighborhood stopped seeming like a big deal at all. I now think about the folks who built it and feel really bad for what they must have gone through. Maybe it was a financial decision to build a home with a secondary suite to rent out. Maybe they wanted space and so they built the maximum that was allowed. Maybe they were a multigenerational family that wanted to live together in this particular neighborhood. Who knows? Whatever the reason, one thing I am sure of now is that they didn’t deserve such vitriol.
Memories of this big house drama popped into my mind the other day as I was reading a fascinating article on the growing local demand for multigenerational homes in my city (Winnipeg, Manitoba), particularly in newer parts of the city and its bedroom communities. It’s dubbed “a new housing trend with centuries-old roots, taking hold in suburbs across Winnipeg.” Some new houses are built as one united space, while others have more distinct and separate spaces or even multiple self-contained units.
Residents and property developers who were interviewed for the article cited the many benefits of multigenerational living, from practical and financial reasons (such as child and elder caregiving or going in on the purchase together) to less concrete but no less valuable ones (like reducing stress, sharing household management and building stronger family relationships). I was reminded of Shina Shayesteh’s description of this in her poignant piece on multigenerational living: “It’s not just about the cost of rent: When you live communally, everyone can contribute to the household bills, groceries, chores, and can lend a hand in emergency situations.”
One quote, from a man who had built a home for his wife’s parents to share with them, really stood out to me. “Living multigenerationally, it ebbs and flows of who helps who … We (as a Canadian culture) don’t know how to rely on each other without calling it dependence, which it’s not — it’s an interdependence. It’s working together to solve the problems.”
The reality of this very deep truth — that our needs ebb and flow over the course of our lives — is not well accommodated in our contemporary North American housing system. But it’s encouraging to see this begin to change, driven in part by those who are choosing multigenerational living. Those households are increasing quite significantly. In Canada, multigenerational households have increased in number by 50% since 2001. In the United States, the share of the U.S. population in multigenerational homes has more than doubled, from 7% in 1971 to 18% in 2021.
It’s wonderful to see a broader conversation starting about multigenerational living. My peers and I are approaching a time when it may be an option for our parents, and to see this topic covered positively but candidly is informative and encouraging.
But it also reminds me that we have a lot more to do to make it easy for people to find the right housing for them at any stage of life. When trying to ensure people can find the right housing, I think there’s a bit of a double standard at play in the distinction between “multigenerational” and “multifamily” — especially since the first is really just an example of the second.
Multigenerational homes aren’t necessarily “multifamily homes” in the technical sense, as they're not usually zoned for more than one family. In many cases, folks can choose to live with relatives from outside their immediate family in a single home with no special permission or zoning required, while others who want to share housing in a more classic “multifamily” sense have to apply for a variance to create a secondary suite — if secondary suites are allowed at all. It’s a strange and arbitrary distinction that often comes down to an internal wall or two, something not even visible from the outside of the home.
Add to that the multigenerational housing tax incentives that are becoming more common (which is a great thing!), and it becomes even more apparent that we’re incentivizing some types of housing while making other, very similar types of housing much more expensive, if not impossible, to build.
We also need to ensure that multigenerational housing isn’t limited to those with the means to build new houses in new neighborhoods. Do rules related to additions and home modifications make multigenerational living attractive and possible in older neighborhoods, too? This is critical if we want folks to have the option of aging within their communities.
I’m very encouraged that Winnipeg has recently voted to begin upzoning neighborhoods; these are the first steps toward the eventual end goal of allowing up to four units per residential lot throughout the entire city, by right. It also adopted zoning changes that allow detached secondary suites (aka granny flats or in-law suites, also known as accessory dwelling units) by right, rather than a conditional use. These are great steps forward in making more housing available within older neighborhoods.
As we see more neighborhoods and cities take positive steps in upzoning (allowing the next increment of housing by right), we need to make sure this upzoning isn’t just occurring in neighborhoods where there is already demand or where it’s politically easy to implement. It should be allowed everywhere.
Neighborhoods must be permitted to evolve and change. The first changes will always be a little scary and off-putting; the unknown often is. But the more we get used to change becoming the norm, the easier it gets. We may find that, one day, we even embrace change and find it kind of exciting. Because someday our own circumstances will almost certainly change, and everyone deserves housing options that work within life’s many ebbs and flows.
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Emma Durand-Wood likes walkable cities, front porches, street trees, bumping into neighbors, riding her bike, downtowns, and any excuse to check out a new coffee shop, bakery, or shop. A Winnipegger by choice, she lives in Elmwood with her husband and three children. You can connect with her on Twitter @emmaewood.