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In Naples you'll find imported cars, imported wines and imported people.

The city really isn't known for exports.

But one heretofore Naples product is finding its way into the county, to the consternation of building regulators.

Megahouses, multistory homes built to the absolute limits of their lots, are showing up in the Naples Park, Pine Ridge and Vanderbilt Beach neighborhoods of unincorporated Collier County.

Megahouses have been a nettlesome issue in Naples' older neighborhoods, as they replace earlier structures and blot out any sense of proportion.

Everybody's against megahouses, until it's time to build one of their own — or sell their lot to someone who will. In the late 1990s Naples City Council appointed a committee to look into regulating such homes. When the group came up with a plan, property owners turned out in force to shout it down.

The opportunity to sell to someone willing to pay top dollar for a house in order to tear it down and build something larger is simply too valuable for a property owner to cede to government regulation.

Once confined to Old Naples, the megahouse phenomenon is making its way north. And the same problems that megahouses fostered in the city are going with it, along with some new ones.

Megahouses will still look out of scale compared to existing homes. Plus, while Naples has at least a rudimentary citywide drainage system and a central sewer, areas newly subject to the invasion of the megahouses sometimes don't.

For example, Naples Park's drainage system is piecemeal, points out Joe Schmitt, director of Collier County's development services division. When a megahouse is built, the lot level is raised to meet flood guidelines. Then the house is shoehorned as near to the property lines as possible, causing water to drain onto neighboring lots.

The Dover-Kohl community redevelopment plan drawn up for Naples Park would have put in place a more comprehensive drainage system. But the neighborhood rejected it as too costly.

Right now, the only limit to the size of a house is the setback, or minimum distance that must be maintained between the structure and the lot line. Setting a maximum square footage or limiting the size of upper stories in proportion to lower stories are tools to prevent megahouses from dwarfing their neighbors.

Schmitt says he expects neighborhood groups to lobby for restrictions against megahouses in the unincorporated area. "There's a lot of pressure in the communities to try and prevent these homes from being built," Schmitt said.

He also expects to meet resistance if and when restrictions are crafted. "If someone pays over $1 million for a lot, they want to put a 3,500- or 4,000-square-foot house on there."

With several megahouses either already built or permitted in the coastal neighborhoods, a precedent may have been set. Regulating away the right to build a megahouse is essentially taking value away from the property owner, Schmitt said. "It's hard to put the genie back in the bottle."

Like Naples, North Naples may find itself living uneasily with the spread of the megahouse. "It's the dynamic of a changing community," Schmitt said.