Clients: Villages of Scarsdale, Larchmont, and Roslyn, NY

Overview

A number of suburban communities in the New York metropolitan area are grappling with the development of houses that are out of scale and/or out of character with the established neighborhoods in which they are located. Several municipalities have retained Phillips Preiss to craft zoning controls to prevent the proliferation of these so-called “bulky houses." The firm concluded that the size (i.e., floor area and height) of the house is not always the problem, but that the design is equally important in determining how a bulky house appears. Phillips Preiss developed an innovative approach that imposed a baseline cap on building size, with a floor area bonus for architectural design that successfully avoids an oversized appearance.