Tree Falls Into MAK District Home
Decatur Metro | April 13, 2009 | 4:06 pmOMG…
SpiketheCat posted this jaw-dropping pic from the MAK District on Twitter.
My best to the owners. I just hope no one was home and everyone is OK.
Wow. I’m really impressed the tree didn’t fall completely thru the house.
I can’t wait to see what happens to this house….
Front porch my a-s….the house is destroyed.
Stay tuned.
You sound pretty excited firestorm. Can’t wait a couple days before anticipating the political battle eh?
Pic #25 in this WSB slideshow shows the house from a slightly different angle. Looks like MAYBE it might just be the porch.
No way…I drove by and know a neighbor there. Apparently, a HUGE branch fell on the back part of the house.
The front damage is nothing.
Dude. That looks BAD. I hope no one was hurt!
My heart goes out to everyone affected…I feel so lucky that our giant, old water oak that’s about 20 ft from our house is still standing.
By the grace of god, nobody was hurt. But the house is very likely now a complete rebuild. The owners are not cash-rich yuppie speculators. The worst-case scenario is that this becomes a great example of one of the big insurance companies denying an obviously valid claim on some technicality. The best case is that the neighborhood comes together to let this family stay in their house. You guys argue politics all you want, I will do what I can to make the latter happen.
What a postive outlook JT. Let’s hope they were responsible enough to have insurance and that the company holds up their end of the deal. As for me, I feel that having insurance is part of the “can I really afford a house” formula, and not just being able to make that payment. But that is anouther topic and not for this thread.
But I do hope the best for these homeowners, regardless.
BTW, what political battle is being referred to here anyway?
@SAACKJack -
“what political battle is being referred to here anyway?”
Clearly Republicans made that tree fall!
LOL! I forgot about the Hysteric District. That WILL be interesting to watch.
I suspect what will happen (assuming they have insurance) is that the insurer will grudgingly agree to pay for the most rudimentary of rebuilds. You’re not going to have a nice bungalow there anymore, that’s for certain.
Presumably, the owners knew that they were part of a historic district when they bought the house. Therefore, while I certaintly feel sorry for the predicament they are in, they should have known that rebuilding the house to local historic district design review standards would be required should the house be destroyed by a storm or act of god.
It will be interesting to see how the Historic Preservation Commission handles this one. I am unaware of any other case in Decatur where a house has been destroyed by a natural act. I, for one, will certainly be watching to see how they handle it.
The key thing in historic districts is appearance, not detailed materials and specs. For instance, insulated windows can be used as long as the glass has the appearance of the original 6-over-6 or whatever panes. I think a homeowner and qualified architect and competent builder could pretty easily come up with plans that would satisfy the criteria.
There have been other houses in MAK damaged in the past worse than this home appears to be and they were rebuilt following the historic guidelines and the insurance did cover. One home simply repaired the damage returning the home to it’s original design. Another was hit by two trees and they owners used it as an opportunity to renovate (obviously the renovation portion wasnot covered by insurance) within historic guidelines.
Of course, by living in an historic district adds an additional step to the rebuilding process. This is to insure the appearance supports the original home and neighborhood aesthetic. It is not to prevent homeowners from rebuilding.
I just drove by the house on Kings Hwy and it looks like the owners have it well under control. The tree is off and the roof is well tarped in record time. The damage is bad, but it doesn’t look nearly as bad as it did with the tree sitting on top of it.
My guess is that the HPC will be reasonable (it looks like just the roof needs to be redone) and that the repairs will be done quickly and well.
I assumed that Firestorm was anticipating a fight since the house is in a historic district. But you know what they say about assuming…
Must we draw the battle lines even before the tree is cut up?
Let’s give these poor folks the benefit of the doubt and hold off on the “shouldas” at least until we hear their plan.
Agreed. And incidentally, we moved to Ponce Court literally two weeks before it was named a historic district (which, for the record, we were happy about and supported). But it was not a decision we had control over nor even knew about until we were actually in the house, so you don’t always know the circumstances.
Our insurance covers a rebuild, but I know for a fact that our insurer would balk at rebuilding to the specs they were using in 1925, the year our home was built. For instance, they’d insist on using 2×4′s in many places where back then they would have used 4×4′s. To insure the house to be rebuilt at those specs would be ridiculously and prohibitively expensive, for any budget. That said, assuming the worst did occur, we’d do everything we could out of pocket on top of the insurance payout to meet or exceed the historical guidelines.
I agree that we should wait to see exacty what the situation here is before drawing any conclusions. However, the homeowner should beware of the situation they now find themselves given that they live in the MAK district.
Doubt that? Take a look at one of the more recent HPC meetings posted on the Decatur City website where HPC commissioners discussed how the homeowner must enlarge the size of his front portch depsite the increased financial burden it would impose because it was important that “the front porch allows transition from public to private space” and that even though the homeowner and his wife preferred double doors, that a proposed single door with side lights was more fitting for the property.
Good luck!
http://www.decaturga.com/cgs_citygov_resboards_historicagendas.aspx (See Nov 11, 2008 minutes)
If only these intown forested neighborhoods would have followed the previous administration’s healthy forest initiative, that tree and others of that ilk would have been sold off to the timber industry and tragedies like this would have been avoided.