An excerpt from another article:
Don't block their window on Dallas
As more high-rises go up, more condo owners fight to save views
08:02 AM CST on Friday, November 11, 2005
by Steve Brown
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...1.e1ba394.html
How's the view out your window?
About all I can see out the front of my house is a 30-foot holly bush that keeps the summer sun at bay. It also blocks the sight of the McMansion across the street – not a bad thing – and gives me a lot of privacy.
Of course, if I'm paying $300 or $400 a foot to buy in one of those fancy Uptown high-rises, I probably don't want to stare at a holly bush. The residential towers going up on Dallas' near north side brag about their views of the skyline.
But what happens when there are so many high-rises that the million-dollar view is looking at the building next door?
It's already a worry for folks who want to live the high life along Turtle Creek and McKinney Avenue.
Each time a new tower is announced, the neighbors get antsy about losing their view.
This fight has been going on for decades in Manhattan and Southern California. With the high-rise condo craze that's swept the nation, the battle has spread to places as disparate as Minneapolis and Las Vegas.
So are you surprised that plans for a McKinney Avenue high-rise have stirred up the view police in Uptown?
Houston developer Hanover Co. plans to erect a spiffy apartment tower on the vacant lot at McKinney and St. Paul Street. That's riled some of the owners of nearby buildings who worry that their vantage of downtown will be obscured. They are opposing the developer at City Hall in hopes of quashing the deal. Good luck.
A few years ago, we couldn't beg, borrow or pay people to come back to the downtown area. Now residents are fighting to preserve their view of the town.
I guess that's progress. And the Uptown building boom ensures that such dust-ups will become more common in the years ahead.
Court rulings have been pretty consistent in allowing landowners to build even if it blocks their neighbors' view. Don't believe it when your project's developer "promises" nothing will ever be built next door – ever is a long time, so you'd better get it in writing.
And unlike my holly bush, you can't lop the top off the tower across the street just because it's in the way.