It's not easy for Dennis Hoelscher to give up part of the spectacular vista he's enjoyed from his home in Fauntlee Hills, but he has little choice.

A new three-story house is under construction just downhill and it will obscure about a quarter of Hoelscher's picture-window view. They used to be able to see the Fauntleroy Ferry Terminal, Fauntleroy Church and the Hall at Fauntleroy. Not anymore.

"My grandparents bought the property for the view of the (Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth) ferry," Hoelscher said. His grandfather was a brick mason who built the house as well as the stonewalls around the yard. He later sold the house to his son, who sold it to his son Dennis in 1995.

Hoelscher said his grandfather purposely built the house no higher than one story so it wouldn't spoil the views of neighbors.

Today three homes near the Hoelscher's also are losing parts of their views to the big new house just downhill.

"This has dashed the dreams of four families," Hoelscher said.

The height and width of the large new house are within the limits for areas zoned for single-family residential use, said Alan Justad, spokesman for the Seattle Department of Planning and Development. The new house has passed all of its inspections so far and gotten all of the proper city permits.

Justad acknowledged the house is in an "environmentally critical area" due to a slope behind it. But the slope is not steep enough to trigger an official environmental review of the project.

There are a lot of living rooms in West Seattle with sensational views of mountains, Puget Sound, and the wildly studded texture of Seattlescape. There's also a lot of home construction going on in West Seattle right now. Many people are watching as pieces of their spectacular vistas are taken by the homes of new residents.

Even though it's legal to commandeer another person's view, is it ethical?

"A three-story house is absurd," said Dr. Sharon Sutton, a professor at the University of Washington School of Architecture and Urban Planning, regarding the comparatively large new house under construction in Fauntlee Hills.

"That kind of private interest doesn't build community," Sutton said.

To her, losing the view is a trivial issue compared to the impact on global warming that construction has.

House building uses a lot of energy and big houses take up a lot of land, all so people can display their possessions and wealth, Sutton said.

"It's an environmental sustainability issue," she said.

American homes are getting bigger, but there are fewer people living in them.

In 1949, Sutton said, the average American house was one story tall with two bedrooms, one bath, no garage or air conditioning, and a coal furnace. Houses were an average 983 square feet and occupied by 3.4 people.

In 1999, the average American house was two stories high with three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a two-car garage, central air conditioning and a natural gas furnace. It covered about 2,000 square feet but was lived in by an average of 2.6 people.

The loss of vistas to newer, bigger houses is fallout from the clash of two current trends, according to Sutton. There is a pressing need to find places to build more housing in a growing city versus people's desire to live in large houses she said.

People continue to move to Seattle. Its population growth is unstoppable, and all of those people are going to need housing. The city is going to expand and evolve.

"Seattle has to grow up and get used to losing its views," Sutton said. "Views should be lost, not for 'McMansions' but for housing people."

Instead of tearing down existing homes and building a house that's much bigger than nearby houses, Sutton recommends increasing density by constructing more houses built to about the same dimensions as the established neighborhood. Not only would that preserve architectural scale, adding more people would bring new social benefits, she said.

With increased density also come new concepts of what a "view" is, Sutton said.

"A view isn't just mountains and ocean," she said. "Activity is a view. Viewing people is a view."

It's wise to be in good standing with your neighbors, so obstructing their vistas with your new home isn't the best way to break into a new neighborhood.

"There are ways to be a good neighbor but this is not what one should do," said Andrew Light, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Washington teaching environmental ethics. He also lectures at the university's Evans School of Public Administration. "It would not be in your long-term self-interest."

New arrivals should respect the artistic standards of the neighborhood into which they are moving, Light said.

"A neighborhood is a mosaic that is all in relation to each other," he said.

"(By building a big house,) they might gain a better view, but it comes by degrading the established aesthetic of the neighborhood that built up over decades," Light said.

Part of the established aesthetic of a neighborhood is the architectural scale of its existing buildings. Constructing new houses that are much larger than the houses already standing in the neighborhood can have a destabilizing effect, Light said.

There are many examples of a "minimansion" being built in a neighborhood of one-story houses. Soon there are two, then three big houses in the neighborhood. Before long it's a trend and, eventually, the neighborhood hits the "tipping point," Light said. Suddenly there's a complete shift to building big houses exclusively. Then it's only a matter of time before the rest of the existing, more affordable homes are all replaced by bigger, more expensive ones.

"When big houses come in, it radically changes the neighborhood," Light said. "Then it's slash and burn to build big houses. It's every man for himself."

"You can destroy what made it a pleasant place to live in the first place," Light said.

"West Seattle neighborhoods have a distinctive feeling about them," he said.

Demolition can be justified if there is some neighborhood improvement to be gained. But if the neighborhood already is walkable, safe and attractive, how does building a big house there improve anything, Light asked. Are the owners of the new house the only ones to benefit?

"We give people a lot of rights when they own property," Light said.

He acknowledged that Seattle's history and culture include strong streaks of free enterprise and individual freedom. After all, Seattle was the launching pad for the Yukon gold rush.

"This city is incredibly progressive in some ways," Light said. "Otherwise the tendency is to go to private interest."

Single-family neighborhoods should organize and discuss what kind of future land use they want to see in the city's vast tracts of single-family homes, Sutton said. Homeowners ought to write down their vision of the future the same way people in the city's neighborhood business districts ("urban villages") did to create the Seattle Comprehensive Plan, she urged.

"Citizens have to come up with a density view," Sutton said. "Single-family home owners need to get together. We can't have it all but we have to develop a forward-looking vision."

Last month, Seattle City Councilman Richard Conlin introduced what he calls the Sustainable Single-Family Housing Ordinance. It proposes reducing the height limit in single-family residential zones from 30 to 25 feet. There would still be a 5-foot exemption for pitched roofs though.

The proposal would allow houses to cover no more than 35 percent of the lot.

Conlin's legislation also would discontinue demolition permits for adjoining lots and houses if fewer houses were planned there.

Conlin plans to present his proposal to the City Council this fall.

Tim St. Clair can be contacted at timstc@robinsonnews.com or 932-0300.