Dive Brief:

• Burbank, Calif., is worried about the return of giant houses on not-so-giant lots.
• The city is conducting a survey of its residents to find out how they feel about large, new houses, a.k.a. McMansions, being built among and towering over older, smaller houses.
• The city tried to scale back houses in 2005 when it shrank lot coverage from a maximum of 60% to 40%.

Dive Insight:

It's always going to be treacherous ground when a city tries to express an aesthetic feeling in rules governing construction, and Burbank appears to be up against McMansionitis again now that the housing market is recovering. The hard question is whether large houses put on conventional lots are just garish—or if they bring genuine architectural style to the neighborhood.