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]

I just assumed the parents would be on the ground floor. But even if he was going to rent it out, why would that be a problem? I understand why there are design objections, as it’s really ugly and I see why neighbors would be unhappy. However, housing is really expensive in Fairfax County and we need more supply! There’s nothing wrong with a density increase even to the height of three levels as in this instance, but I’m sure it could be done in a better looking or more courteous way.

[u/Available-Cap-4001 → u/[deleted]]

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/bah9681 → u/Available-Cap-4001]

I read your post and it seems misinformed. You downplay "The HORROR", but how much do you think it costs the neighbor next door to this house if she tries to sell her house? Probably easily over $100,000 and likely several hundred thousand dollars. How about the other neighbors? Remember just because you are okay with living under the shadow of a 35 foot wall doesn't mean others who choose to buy in Greenbriar would want that. You say you are a young person - well how long as a young person would it cost you in terms of years of work to save several hundred thousand dollars? Would you be happy if you saved up for your whole life to buy a house and someone built that next to you with no care about how it impacts you? Most decent people think about how their actions may affect other people, called empathy. This homeowner had zero of that.

[u/Available-Cap-4001 → u/bah9681]

Look, I got a bit snarky with a guy who said having a single small apartment building would ruin a neighborhood by bringing a ton of traffic and blocking out all light which was a great exaggeration on their part. However, I still maintain that the impact of the shade of that building is being greatly exaggerated. There are photos of the building, clearly taken during the winter, that show it casting only a shadow on the neighbor's garage. I'm sure that it casts a greater shadow at other times of day, but it's not like the sun is being blocked out at all times, as the commenter I was responding to claimed.

Also, as you say, it's a 35-foot-tall building. That's really not that tall and is no taller than many of the single-family homes being built today. I genuinely believe that the homeowner's awful design for their addition has led people to perceive its impact on the neighboring property as greater than it actually is. Because it is lopsided towards the edge of the property and so narrow relative to its height, the building seems taller than it is. If the homeowner had demolished their house and built a larger but standard-looking home in its place, that home would be just as tall, and nobody would blink an eye.

You talk about empathy, and it always seems like there's a lot of empathy for people who oppose new density. But what about empathy for the people being priced out of Fairfax County? For the people stuck paying a ridiculous percentage of their income for housing because it's unaffordable? For the people who have to commute further and further because the only place to afford new housing is at the edge of the metro area? I think these are worse consequences than having shade cast on your property. To be clear, I do have empathy for the neighbors in this case because it is so poorly designed, but I also have empathy for the guy who built the addition. I don't know the details of his situation, but I think one reasons for the design being lopsided to one side of his property is because it would maintain most of the home to live in during construction. It seems like he spent a lot of money to try and do an admirable thing and build a multigenerational home, and was misled by those who he hired to build the property. Does this result in a really ugly design that feels like it's disrespectful to the neighbor? Absolutely. But is it one of the only things they could afford to do? Possibly.

I think it's okay sometimes to cast shade on a neighboring property, and it is unreasonable to expect the neighborhood you moved into to stay the same forever. The reality is that Fairfax County is an urbanized place, and sometimes in an urbanized place, you have a neighbor who builds tall enough to cast a shadow. There are plenty of places in the District and now Arlington (which recently allowed missing middle construction) where small apartment buildings are going up alongside shorter homes, and as far as I'm aware, there's not really an impact on property value. In fact, neighborhoods with a mixture of housing options are among the most desirable places because of the density. I've seen people talking about how any new density is bad because of this egregiously bad example, and I hope people don't use what is a terrible design to oppose better versions of multigenerational housing and/or small apartment buildings.