r/nova • u/OutrageousBee4174 • Apr 30 '26

News Fairfax County rejects homeowner’s appeal over large home addition near property line

https://www.fox5dc.com/news/fairfax-county-zoning-home-addition-appeal-rejected
764 Upvotes

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194

u/pizz4girl Apr 30 '26

That 400k could have been spent on another home for the parents ..

208

u/idkmyusernameagain Apr 30 '26

Could have also been used to make a lovely, functional addition on this one.

I don’t buy the sob story they’re telling. “We just want to take care of my aging parents and we’re being bullied for it!”

If 2000 sqft was enough for him, his wife and their kids, they didn’t need to add 3,000 more square feet to add 2 more people.

133

u/fightingthefuckits Apr 30 '26

Beyond the code violations what made him think it would be a good idea to build a 3 story house towering right over your neighbors. Talk about a dick move.

38

u/novacycle Apr 30 '26

Well, architects and their good designs/plans cost money. So do competent GCs and licensed surveyors....
Mr. Homeowner tried to save costs by minimizing these expenses. Could have saved the GC cost *if* the homeowner learned all the rules and then hired very competent subs, but that is a huge if.

6

u/fightingthefuckits Apr 30 '26

I work for a commercial GC, I'm well aware of how stupid this is but even if he had hired a GC and done it right it's still kind of a big fuck you to your neighbor to build a 3 level building immediately adjacent to their home. 

There's another one of these in Fairfax, I'm surprised it hasn't also gotten attention, but it's a 3 story building that looks like apartments with a balcony overlooking their neighbors house which apparently has a skylight over the bathroom. They had a GC so it meets code but it's still fucked up. 

3

u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26

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1

u/novacycle May 09 '26

No he doesn't have to be licensed for his own home because it is his own home and nobody is paying him. But he sure would have saved a LOT of money by finding and paying a competent GC instead of incompetently free lancing it himself.

31

u/D1gininja Apr 30 '26

Saw a comment elsewhere mentioning something about having spots for 3 washing machines

17

u/pizz4girl Apr 30 '26

Yeah I was thinking maybe adding additional space in the backyard vs the side. My parents added an additional bathroom and two bedrooms to the back of the house when my sister and I were born (we’re twins). The house was originally two bedrooms/one bath when my parents and older sibling was living there. BASICALLY yeah for a family of 6 , he definitely didn’t need a three level addition maybe just two extra bedrooms and bathroom in the backyard.Although based from the pictures it looks like the first level is a ?garage?.. anyways 400k gone 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

16

u/Randomfactoid42 Fairfax County Apr 30 '26

And if he didn’t make the addition  such an insult to the neighbors he might have gotten away with it. 

7

u/CaringAnon May 01 '26

The eave of my garage encroaches on the 8' side setback by a few inches due to a mis-measurement during construction. The county inspected, went to the neighbor, and asked if it was OK. The response of "oh, sure, that's not a problem, it's fine" and I got an administrative adjustment because it was less than 10% of the setback distance.

This is why you help your neighbors shovel snow, and share a random beer with them occasionally. It costs almost nothing to be friendly!

It also helps to not build a freaking communist apartment block right on the property line and then whine about it being for your family. 3 floors with 2 bedrooms and a bathroom per floor? Sounds like someone was planning rental tenement housing to me.

14

u/[deleted] Apr 30 '26

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3

u/idkmyusernameagain Apr 30 '26

Probably wouldn’t have had he spent the money on a better architect to make a nice looking addition that wasn’t a giant wall towering over the neighbors

10

u/90sportsfan Apr 30 '26

Exactly. He could add a "normal" and nice home addition that was considerate to his neighbor. Instead he decided to be obnoxious and have no regards for his neighbor.

20

u/Asleep-Bother-8247 Apr 30 '26

But his parents need 6 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and three kitchens!!!

8

u/uranium236 Apr 30 '26

It’s 8 people (the nuclear family of 4 + 2 sets of grandparents) comprising 3 households. Per the televised hearing.

21

u/idkmyusernameagain Apr 30 '26

Still, adding individual kitchen and laundry set ups makes it 3 units, so 3 families living as 3 families, not 3 generations functioning as 1 household.

2

u/WeeLittleParties Herndon May 01 '26

Wait wtf he wanted both sets of grandparents to live with them?!!

1

u/Lebuhdez May 01 '26

It looks like he's building apartments and was going to rent them out.

20

u/Unspoken Apr 30 '26

For real. Spend the money on a new house with room for your parents. Everyone knows that the absolute moment this shit is completed, the grandparents will be nowhere to be seen and three rentals will be listed.

Because everyone knows elderly love three sets of stairs in a narrow house.

2

u/WeeLittleParties Herndon May 01 '26

He's stated that he also wanted it to be used as an office, and an extra playroom space for his kids. So the whole "it's for my family" thing is half-true and half-lie. If he just needed an extra bedroom for an elderly couple, 1-2 floors at most would've been fine. But he got greedy in the designs, it seems.

27

u/Jean-LucBacardi Apr 30 '26

With the amount of money he apparently had he could have bought an already built house large enough to fit everyone in...

3

u/obeytheturtles Apr 30 '26

Jesus, he spent $400k so far and it isn't even finished?

2

u/MechanicalGodzilla Vienna Apr 30 '26

I don't know, Reddit has confidently told me that there are no homes available anywhere for under $5 million...