Reply to Massive home addition causes confusion in Fairfax County neighborhood

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Is there a financial point at which it makes sense to just take down what’s been built so far and return the lot to the condition it was before construction began?

It just seems that this poor guy didn’t know what he was doing and it’s just costing more and more money. At some point, it would seem that good money is being thrown after bad and it would be a wiser use of limited funds to just stop the loss.

Is there a way for someone to calculate whether it is less expensive to just stop? Possibly an online calculator for a situation like this?
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You seem to be making an assumption that the county won't adjust the setback. There's a good chance they will. The garage area probably could be swapped back if absolutely necessary. The foundation should already be strong enough. Even if they were start over with a narrower rebuild, the neighbor might fight them anyway, so they can't assume no legal battles either way.[/quote]

What makes you so confident the county is going to adjust the setback?

I don’t think the county will approve this one, too much opposition to the project. With a variance or special permit allowing community feedback in the process, they will use that to deny an exception. Other projects requesting a variance do not receive so much public opposition. Fairfax county doesn’t want to be in the national news again and they’re quickly rewriting building regulations to prevent this from occurring in the future.

The homeowner’s best shot is to resolve the setback issue and build exactly to the rest of the approved plans. Every time he’s trying to change something it, it leads to new issues (eg off street parking). He’s focused on layout changes first as I guess that will help resolve 2 issues in the stop work list: 1) header not installed at first floor opening and 2) opening layout has changed from approved plans.

PS- the permit expires if work is suspended for six months. We’re past month 2 with a stop work order and nothing on the setback issue appears to be filed yet.[/quote]

I wouldn't say I'm confident, but I think there's a good chance. They can't deny a modification based on unpopularity. The public comments could try to claim an impact, but we all know the concern is based on the height, not the 6 inches. The height isn't the relevant issue.

He can't build to the approved plans without a setback modification. There isn't enough space. Any change at this point is going to require a redesign, new or modified permits, demolition, and significant materials and labor costs. The neighbors would also likely attempt legal action to block a rebuild, perhaps hoping that they could delay things long enough to change zoning ordinances.

He's already in a terrible spot, but by far his best chance at avoiding catastrophic financial loss and lengthy delays is to push for a setback modification. Worst case, he loses and that puts him in the same place you him to go now. He'd be out his legal-related expenses, but despite them being substantial, they are still in the weeds compared to the costs involved in starting over.

Besides the garage and setback, all of the other issues were either related to incomplete work or fairly easily repairable construction errors.[/quote]

He didn't build the approved plans. The approved plans show a 8.5' setback from the property line.[/quote]

Well, we'll to agree to disagree on that. I would say they followed the plan, but the plan had an error.

Regardless, I'd really love to see you try to set footers for a deck or addition just taking measurements from the property line, rather than the house.[/quote]

Different Poster than the person whom you are replying to, but with regards to your last statement, if you are approaching the limits of setback, you absolutely should be taking a measurement from the property line to the area of construction (in your case a footer). This is exactly what is done in a proper pre-construction stakeout. You also reconfirm once you do the initial work to make sure it conforms so you are not fixing later in the process after more time and money has been spent. It is even more important for the owner of the addition to have done so, seeing they are acting as GC and are thus financially liable. These situations are why you hire a bonded and licensed GC. The owners would have recourse against a GC had they chose to do it themselves.

I know when there was permitted exterior hardscaping work done at my house that came to approaching setback limits, there was measurement from the property line to the edge of construction, as well as measurements from the house. The surveying costs were not insignificant, and multiple surveys done between initial, stakeouts, confirmatory, but were an important part of the process. It is incumbent to verify everything, you can't simple rely on some plans that had a significant error in it such as this.

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You sound like one of those measure twice cut once guys that is always too expensive. /s[/quote]

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