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On a sunny Sunday in Melrose, a family walks into the open house of a mansion on North Vista Avenue. Gawking at the home’s high-end light fixtures, spa-like bathrooms, and full movie theater, they chat about what it would be like to live in the sprawling 5,134-square-foot residence, joking that they would “never leave.” Turning to the real estate agent posted up inside the house, one curious family member asks what was on the lot before the newly constructed home. “It was one of those teeny houses,” answers the agent. “Eight hundred square feet.”

Large and luxurious homes that tower over smaller early 20th century bungalows have proliferated around Melrose and Fairfax for years. These “McMansions” have been the subject of controversy among residents, who say they are driving up housing costs and ruining neighborhood character.

In 2008, the city enacted rules designed to crack down on the size of new residences in areas zoned for single-family housing. After the original ordinance was criticized for being too lenient, it was strengthened in 2017, limiting the square footage of homes to 45 percent of a lot’s size.

But residents in Melrose, which has been a flashpoint in the debate, say McMansion construction hasn’t stopped. They want to know why.

Alexandre Girard, who has rented a 1,300-square-foot home in the neighborhood for about two years, says it’s disturbing to see the landscape change so rapidly, especially as Los Angeles experiences a worsening affordability crisis.

“It doesn’t make any sense that the city is talking about improving homelessness, and then at the same time, giving away construction permits to put multi-million dollar houses here,” he says. “And single-family houses on top of that.”

Padded with amenities like massage parlors, floor-to-ceiling wine racks, and rooftop decks, McMansions have taken over almost entire blocks in some neighborhoods. In the areas around Melrose and Fairfax, they list for about $3 to 4 million, which is nearly double the estimated Zillow value of many of the older homes that sit next to them. Several mansions are also listed on short term rental sites like Airbnb, where nightly rates can exceed $1,000.

The issue has come to the attention of Los Angeles Councilmember David Ryu, who represents the district and supported previous amendments to the baseline mansionization ordinance in 2017.

Ryu says his planning team has been looking into the issue. In some cases, he says, developers have been constructing single-family houses on lots zoned for multifamily housing. In these zones, which were not covered by the original anti-mansionization legislation, developers are allowed to build multiple units—but are not required to build up to the maximum density.

“So now you have instead of a fourplex, you have a single-family home that’s as big as a fourplex,” says Ryu.

In other words, developers are building housing for one family instead of several.

In Melrose, this has been prevalent on R2 lots, which are zoned for single-family homes and duplexes. According to the city’s building and safety department, 85 permits were issued for the construction of single-family dwellings on R2 zoned lots in the Hollywood Community Plan Area, which includes the Melrose area, between 2010 and 2019. The highest number of these were approved last year, with 19 permits issued. Since the houses comply with zoning codes, they’re considered “by-right” developments, and don’t require a public hearing.

Ryu says he plans to introduce legislation in the coming weeks that would expand the baseline mansionization ordinance to multifamily lots, in an attempt to close the loophole.

“It’s completely changing the character of the neighborhood,” he says. “But more importantly, we are in need of more housing, especially affordable and moderate income housing. We’re not in a shortage of McMansions.”

Los Angeles has led California cities in housing production lately, but most of the new units are unaffordable for moderate and low income Angelenos. Some housing advocates have suggested that increasing density in the city by adding more duplexes, triplexes, and apartments could be one “path forward” to a more affordable LA, but there’s debate over if—and how—to do this.

Attempts to “upzone” single-family neighborhoods at the state level—such as the controversial housing bill Senate Bill 50—have repeatedly failed amid backlash by both development-wary residents and by tenants’ rights advocates, who say simply increasing housing stock isn’t enough to guarantee affordability.

Regardless, Mehmet Berker, chair of the planning and land use committee for the Mid-City West Community Council, says local officials should be doing more to preserve and increase multifamily housing at the city level. He says developers should be required to build multifamily housing in areas that are zoned for it.

“It seems to me like this city isn’t in the business of expanding our multi-family areas, like our political leaders are too scared or whatever,” says Berker. “But why can’t we make it so that if something new is built and it’s an R2, it has to have at least X many units?”

Not all of the Melrose megahouses are in R2 zones, suggesting there may be other factors at play.

Arvin Haddad, a real estate agent who costars on the TV series Listing Impossible, is selling a freshly built mansion in an R1 area of Melrose that takes up nearly 65 percent of its lot. He says permits for the house predate the 2017 anti-mansionization updates, and suspects that much of the newer construction locals are seeing is the result of a real estate boom that happened in the neighborhood several years ago.

“We saw a big rush for entry level developers jumping into the real estate market before the zoning change, when we could build above 45 percent,” Haddad says. “Quite frankly at the time, tear-downs were really cheap… and construction prices were lower too.”

Haddad says he isn’t opposed to stricter regulations in R2 zones, but he points out that these multifamily lots are far less common there than R1 zones. Plus, the market might solve the mansionization problem. With high construction costs and home prices, he suspects there might be a slow down soon.

As for Girard, says he wants construction to stop before his neighborhood, which is “already not cheap,” gets any more expensive.

“We’ve got people that have decent jobs that live here that are going to be priced out,” he says. “They’re going to go into another neighborhood where there are lower wages, and then they’re going to price them out. And people are eventually going to end up in the street.”