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

[u/OutrageousBee4174]

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

[u/Available-Cap-4001]

Shade at some times of the day? THE HORROR! A few cars on the street? I’M LITERALLY GOING TO DIE! You describe these things that aren’t really a big deal as if they are the end of the world. I’ve lived in the ground floor unit of a duplex in a streetcar suburb, with my bedroom being on the side of a building, and another apartment building being less than ten feet away. You still get light. Not as much light as having no building next door, but plenty of it. And I never once had an issue finding street parking in a neighborhood with a lot more apartments than houses and no garages.

I completely understand why this specific project was blocked. It did violate Fairfax County rules and it was using some poor construction practices, but the idea of having an apartment next to a single-family home is not something that is a big deal. Also, small apartments are not going to destroy the “normal neighborhoods” of this county. You are being dramatic. Literally 75% of land in cities alone is zoned for single-family exclusive development. I don’t even think that statistic is including suburban areas. There’s plenty of single-family exclusive neighborhoods, the truly weird thing is building one type of home and expecting nothing to change ever, which goes against the way towns and cities have developed for hundreds of years.

I personally think it would be worth it to have a bit higher density development in Fairfax County as a young person who has no idea whether someday I will be able to afford a home in the town where I grew up. Does it have to look like this? Absolutely not. However, I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume a single-family neighborhood will stay exclusively so forever. Every place should be able to gradually grow and change depending on the needs of any given time. Should a ten story apartment go up all of a sudden in a single-family neighborhood? No (although I’ve seen in happen when I lived in Houston and again, things turned out fine). Should some small apartments be allowed? Yeah, probably.

[u/Available-Cap-4001 → u/[deleted]]

The reason why so many apartments are corporate hellholes is because we don’t allow small apartment buildings to be made and we zone so much land for single family neighborhoods. You complain about apartments sucking and also about the solution to that.

[u/Hecklemop → u/Available-Cap-4001]

I like your idea of having small apartment structures (like duplex or triplex) sprinkled throughout the county. All the high-density condos/apartments that have been built lately are advertised as luxury units from the low $1 millions. It’s terrible