|
|||||||||||||
Printer-Friendly
Email this Story
Post a Comment (0)
Building error heads to BZA
Last Friday, Hermilio Machicao did exactly what Lee District Supervisor Jeff McKay (D) didn't want him to do.Machicao filed an appeal with the Fairfax County Board of Zoning Appeals to overturn the “stop work” order on his home in Springfield.
Area residents may have seen the home since construction began early this year. It's the mansion 14 feet from the sidewalk in central Springfield bordered by three roadways – Backlick Road, Amherst Avenue and Highland Street.
Over the last few years, Springfield and other localities in the county have become inundated by infill housing. Many older single-family homes have been torn down and replaced by much larger homes, often using all allowable space on small lots.
For months, McKay's office repeatedly asked county staff whether the setback requirements for Machicao's house, which received a county building permit in January, were accurate and if staff could look at the house again. According to McKay, his office talked with staff at least a half-dozen times, each time receiving the answer that, yes, the house was legal because of its location. Because it sits on three streets, it is a very unusual case.
Staff had determined that since the home was bordered by three streets, it didn't require a full backyard setback. After reviewing the nearly completed home yet again last month, staff determined that the property does not meet setback requirements and ordered construction to halt.
McKay publicly called the performance of staff “sloppy” and said such mistakes threatened “to unravel all our progress,” the county has made in the year since the establishment of the county's Code Enforcement Strike Team, which combats overcrowding in area homes.
Jimmie Jenkins, Director of the County's Department of Public Works and Environmental Services, agreed with McKay's conclusions, saying that staff “needs to change our procedures to try and reflect existing conditions, taking a harder look at plan review, spending more time doing inspections in the field and also trying to revive our procedures to account for the more difficult environment we are working in.”
That existing environment, Jenkins said, is a county that is becoming more crowded, and with less land to work with, infill development is becoming more prevalent.
“It's more difficult to build on those lots. And neighbors have expressed their frustration with public works and the building aspect too,” Jenkins said.
After McKay's statements at a Fairfax County Board of Supervisors meeting last month, the board ordered the county executive to look at the county's procedures on determining setback requirements, and to provide a lessons learned presentation to the board later this summer.
As for Machicao's house, McKay would like to see it torn down; “a powerful response to keep others from building this sort of house again,” McKay said.
The Board of Zoning Appeals will determine whether the house can stay, granting a waiver for an error in building location, or if the mistake needs to be corrected. Whatever decision the BZA makes can be appealed in court.
The building is 90 percent complete and should be allowed to be finished since the county previously approved its construction, said Machicao's lawyer Barnes Lawson.
“When the county makes a mistake, when a homeowner relies on it, the county can't say, 'Oops, sorry! We're going to tear the house down,'” Lawson said. “Our client didn't know he was violating a setback. ... If somebody doesn't like what you're constructing, and can raise enough Cain to get it torn down, how can society function?”
You must be logged in to post a comment.