The monster-home battles started last year in the Yalecrest neighborhood, which is just north of Wasatch Hollow. Yalecrest's community council crafted an ordinance that included restrictions on roof heights, garage placement and yard setbacks. After the City Council approved Yalecrest's ordinance, council members asked city planners to create something similar for the rest of the city.

Last December, the City Council adopted restrictions citywide that limited the height of renovations and new homes to 28 feet tall, kept those home revisions to no more than 40 percent of the total lot size and limited garage size and placement. But the council gave the Avenues, Capitol Hill and Wasatch Hollow a six-month grace period under tighter restrictions to come up with their own versions of the ordinance.

Avenues and Capitol Hill community councils passed their restrictions in early June, limiting roof heights to 23 feet and imposing several other conditions. Wasatch Hollow did not make the six-month deadline, although community-council members have been working on the ordinance since January.

Part of the process was the May 25 vote that Daley referenced. That meeting drew more people than Love or Daley can remember at a community-council meeting: more than 300, compared with the few dozen who usually show up.

The community council has been drafting a report on the May vote, which it will then forward to the planning department, planning commission and eventually the City Council. Both the planning commission and City Council will hold at least one public hearing each on the issue before voting.

Jim Bringhurst, a Realtor who lives in Wasatch Hollow and specializes in selling houses in Sugar House, thinks the fight over how to define and restrict monster homes has done more good for neighborhood relations than harm.

"I've seen people trying to put themselves in the shoes of the other party and trying to come to some type of compromise," Bringhurst said. "I've been able to talk to and meet neighbors that I probably should have been talking to before. I don't think it's divided as much as I think it's made us stronger."

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