Sizing Up New Homes in Arlington
Proposed Standards Would Keep Neighborhood Houses Consistent

By Ann O'Hanlon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 12, 2001; Page VA03

Drive down Arlington's Sycamore Street, and all the houses look the same: cute, small, one-story, mainly brick. Then, kapow, comes a monster piece of construction on the corner of 27th Street.

Three stories tall and much longer and wider than its neighbors, the new house looks as if it could eat the older houses for lunch and is the talk of the neighborhood.

"It definitely looks out of place," said William Griffith, who lives next door to "the big brick," as he and others call it. "It's too big for the lot."

The house is also the talk of county planners and other officials, because it is precisely the type of infill development that they are working to prevent.

In response to numerous complaints from county residents, Arlington's Zoning Ordinance Review Committee, known as ZORC, is in the middle of a four-chapter review of zoning guidelines that could help to keep new construction in character with the rest of a neighborhood. The County Board soon will take up the third of the four zoning issues, perhaps as early as its meeting July 28.

"It is fueled by some of the examples of bad infill, whether it's the monster house -- the McMansion -- or an egregious pipestem that gets put behind somebody else's house," said County Board Chairman Jay Fisette (D).

The issue at hand is whether to restrict further the lot coverage, or amount of a residential lot that could be taken up by all structures -- a driveway, garage, house, shed, etc. -- in new construction. The current limit is 56 percent for all residential zones, but a plan under consideration by ZORC and the County Board would create a sliding scale of limits, ranging from 25 percent to 50 percent, depending on lot size.

In addition, ZORC and county staff are proposing a cap, or maximum amount of square footage allowed, based on a property's zoning category.

For example, homeowners in the R6 zoning category, of which there are nearly 19,000 in Arlington, could not cover more than 2,700 square feet or 45 percent of their lot -- whichever was smaller -- with structure or pavement.

Some people in the community, including developers, are upset about the proposed guidelines, but county staff members said the changes would not be profound.

Terry Showman, owner of Harrison Street Corp. in Arlington, said the last 10 houses he has built in the county would exceed the proposed standards, which he called fanatical.

"I could probably get the house in, could probably get the driveway in, but no decks or anything in the back yard," he said. "No basketball court for your kid."

The new standards would apply only to new construction, but Showman raised the prospect of a grandfathered home that was destroyed by fire or storm damage and could not be rebuilt to its former size.

"To me, it's a downzoning of every property," he said.

But Bob Brosnan, county planning director, said few houses in the county would exceed the new standards.

"In all honesty, we've really been looking at modest changes," Brosnan said. "Our calculations showed that this wouldn't have too much effect on many people."

That argument leads people on the other side of the issue to suggest that the county is not going far enough with the new proposals.

"I would do what Falls Church did, and that's 25 percent maximum lot coverage for all zones, said Ted Weihe, a member of ZORC and a longtime activist on infill issues.

Weihe said the regulations are important not just for aesthetic purposes but also to allow air, light and runoff control.

"Arlington was built in an oak forest, you know, and we're losing that oak forest," he said. "If you talk about global warming and those things, it's important."

The board already has slightly modified the county's zoning guidelines on height limits for houses and minimum width of residential lots. After considering lot-coverage guidelines, the board will take up the fourth issue, which is how to regulate pipestem houses, those built behind existing ones with a skinny driveway down the side.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company

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