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][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]

Here’s the thing: if you’re building something that is required to be a certain distance from the property line, why would you not measure the distance from the property line? It seems like a very basic, obvious thing to do and, honestly, it appears a bit foolish to have not done this very simple thing. How difficult would it have been to take a tape measure and ascertain that the foundation that was about to be poured was the correct distance from the property line? 
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They might have done that. Presumably they would have repeated the same mistake of thinking the fence was on the property line.

This was certainly a huge mistake by the homeowner. But it was a mistake made when they made the plans. It wasn't an error in where the builders placed the addition, which is what a previous poster claimed. That poster just didn't want to concede the point that the county approved the plan that contained the error.[/quote]

The plans submitted to the county asserted that the side wall would be 8.5 feet from the [u]property line,[/u] not the fence line. Had the homeowner followed the approved plans and measured from the actual property line, there would be no setback issue here.

This is the homeowner’s mistake by not getting a survey and measuring, measuring, and measuring again before allowing any concrete to be poured. 
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Putting practicalities aside, let's say they laid out the foundation using the property line as the reference point. They still wouldn't have been able to follow the plans. They wouldn't have had enough space between the house and the far end of the foundation for the addition specified in the plan.

Because, again, the problem was in the plans themselves, not in the construction.[/quote]

You really want this argument to work, but the fact is, if the homeowner had had a survey done before beginning construction he would have been able to build the addition within the correct setback. The homeowner did not do his due diligence, and that is why he is in this very expensive situation now. 
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Before construction? Does that mean you finally understand the error was in the plans?[/quote]

You clearly want someone else besides the homeowner to bear responsibility for this issue, but in the end, the fact is that the homeowner made careless mistakes and submitted plans that he didn’t even follow (plans showed a garage, but the actual construction has no garage). Adding careless mistakes to conscious choices to alter the plans after approval, the homeowner did not put himself in a terribly sympathetic position here.
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