A three-storey addition on Marble Lane in Fairfax has divided the neighbourhood and raised new concerns about blind spots in the building code of the region’s largest county. Photo / Kyle Swenson, The Washington Post
No one on Marble Lane wanted it to get to this point, certainly not Courtney Leonard.
But each day in October, she watched as construction started on an addition to her neighbour’s home in Greenbriar in Fairfax, Virginia. One storey. Two. Then three.
For Mike Nguyen, the addition was a way to create more space for his elderly parents, who live with him and their two small children.
“We decided that if my parents stay here with us, and the kids growing up, we want to add some square footage to accommodate what we want,” he said.
Soon the hulking construction - 8m-high and 18m-long - was throwing Leonard’s home into shadows for half the day. She complained to county authorities, asking how the project was approved.
“I’ve seen lots of other people in the neighbourhood do additions, so it didn’t even cross my mind that it would be anything out of the ordinary,” said Leonard, 45, a marketing executive who has lived at the home with her husband and daughter for more than a decade.
“But not this. Would you want to live next to this?”
Leonard’s first complaint to the county kicked off a neighbourhood dispute that has ballooned into a public spectacle.
The attention fixed on Marble Lane has led to news stories and action from Fairfax leaders, who admit the situation highlights a blind spot in the building codes of one of the Washington region’s biggest counties.
That attention has also driven a split into the leafy neighbourhood of mostly one- and two-storey homes, and the bad feelings have spilled out into Facebook screeds, awkward encounters and in-person harassment.
“It’s just horrible,” Leonard said, referring to the public response. She stood in her front yard as a stranger pulled up to take a cellphone photo of the construction. “I cannot believe how it has taken off like this.”
“I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy,” Nguyen said from the footpath outside his house, the sounds of children at recess filtering in from the nearby primary school.
Nguyen, 46, was just trying to be a good son, father and neighbour, he said. Born in Vietnam, he’s owned the home next to Leonard’s for over two decades. Both residents say they had a friendly relationship for years.
Nguyen considered building the addition last year to accommodate three generations under one roof. He said that in Asian cultures, parents live with their grown children.
“I don’t want to have to send them to a nursing home,” he said.
Nguyen said he hired professionals to design the addition and submitted the proper paperwork to the county. Officials green-lit the construction.
“We did exactly what the county allowed us to do,” he said.
That was what Leonard learned when she read the county’s reply to her initial complaint in October.
In an email dated October 16 from an official at Fairfax County’s Land Development Services, Leonard was informed that the work “appears consistent with the approved plans and within regulatory requirements”.
According to those requirements, any new construction had to be 2.5m away from Leonard’s property line and remain under 10.5m in height.
The county official wrote that a recent follow-up inspection confirmed compliance just days earlier.
“I have to express my deep frustration and disappointment with this situation. The County has approved an addition that directly and negatively impacts my property,” Leonard wrote back.
“I’m expected to simply accept a decision that so clearly diminishes my property and quality of life - with the County’s apparent permission.”
Leonard was most concerned about her home value and said that a real estate agent had told her in passing that it might have depreciated by US$300,000 ($535,480). She estimated that her home’s previous value was in the US$800,000s.
Frustrated, Leonard went to the media, appearing in a Fox 5 spot a week ago. The response quickly triggered follow-up pieces and drive-time FM radio discussions about the house.
People started driving by to gawk. It also caught the attention of Fairfax Supervisor Pat Herrity, who represents the Greenbriar area.
“We see pop-ups like this all the time in our older neighbourhoods,” Herrity said, referring to construction that is tall but on a narrow plot. “People buy and then they expand. Then they expand more.”
As the code stands, there is no rule keeping the height and width of construction within a specific required ratio, Herrity said. That blind spot has led to construction that looms over a neighbour’s property.
“That’s the problem we have to address,” she said.
At last week’s board meeting, Herrity and two other supervisors introduced a motion to review the height standards for possible changes. The motion passed easily.
“That will start a process,” Herrity said. “But that could be a long process.”
The county also followed up with another inspection. This time, they determined Nguyen’s construction in fact was in violation of the code. Rather than the required 2.5m, the inspectors found the construction was 2.3m from Leonard’s property line.
Standing in Leonard’s backyard, Nguyen pointed out how the mistake was made: the fence line, not the property line, was used as the basis for the construction. There were 15.2cm between the two spots.
That has forced a pause on construction as Nguyen discusses next steps with the county. He said the addition has already cost more than US$400,000. His likely option is to go to the board of zoning appeals for a variance, which could allow building to continue despite the code violation.
Leonard said she never wanted the situation to explode in such a public way.
“My family is non-confrontational, I’m non-confrontational. I don’t love this,” she said in her driveway, pointing up at the wall now looming above. “But you can’t really put a cost on how much sunlight we’ve lost now.”
Nearby, Nguyen spoke with a man conducting a follow-up survey of the property line. His wife and 3-year-old daughter played in the front yard. He’s been unable to sleep since the situation went public and said he never wanted to incur the anger of his neighbours, much less strangers.
This week he was out the front with his daughter when a stranger pulled up to the house. The window rolled down. The driver started swearing and telling Nguyen the house was horrible.
“I froze because you can’t expect something like that,” he said.
“My wife was like, ‘You should have taken your phone out to record it.’ I told her, ‘Baby, I can’t think that fast.’ I was frozen. I’m old enough to take it, but in front of my kid?”
He looked over at his daughter.
Nguyen installed cameras on the house this week just to be safe.
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