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][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I can assure you that C didn't have knowledge of this thread until very recently. I highly doubt she is sitting around responding to anything here.

As a resident of this community, I can tell you that your allegations about C "riling people up" are completely false. I have gone over and over the posts on our Facebook group and I see nothing of the sort. She reached out asking a simple question, and other residents have been nothing but helpful and supportive of each other. That is very much the way our neighborhood is. No one was trying in any way to turn neighbor against neighbor. Quite a few of us, including the well known realtors in our neighborhood, are very concerned about this project. If C hadn't contacted the county, someone would have. But it is NOT mob mentality or follow the leader in any way. I know I have personally shot down comments on FB posts regarding the news stories that took an anti-immigrant approach to this. That is NOT who we are - our neighborhood is incredibly diverse and we love it. At this point, the ire is mostly directed at the county approving this and not doing due diligence. They put EVERYONE, including the homeowners building the addition, in a crappy spot. The people I have talked to and posts I have seen all seem to hope for an outcome here that doesn't punish or hurt anyone in any significant way.

I personally think the homeowner isn't being truthful, but I don't know the guy personally. This is just based on the docs I have seen from this post and elsewhere, as well as his interview. Something in my gut is telling me this isn't on the up and up. I can't prove anything at this point, and I am hoping this comes to a quick resolution for everyone.

But please stop with your ridiculous allegations about our neighborhood being "riled up". [/quote]

Thank you. It's so easy to make this fight into something it's not, on both sides of the issue.

Personally I hope that the new structure gets torn down, even if just on an apparently "minor" issue (missing 6 inches of setback), because the poor neighbor doesn't deserve such a tall building blocking out her light, and the county should have had rules on the books to avoid this in the first place. I blame the owner who initiated construction for not following the Golden Rule, more than I blame the county. Surely unspoken social etiquette and adherence to a tacit communal code matter regardless of where you originally come from. I'm an Asian foreigner, yet I would never even think of building something so intrusive to my neighbors! Perhaps this owner is a little autistic, and not sensible to unspoken rules, but I'm not going to speculate. We do need explicit rules, for people like him.

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The golden rule? What's that? Maximize your neighbor's resale value at your own family's expense? That's not a rule.[/quote]

Or, how about not lower the value of every house on the block, including your own, and your family continues in their nice comfortable house which already has more than enough room for six people? How about being a good neighbor and not do things that detract from the safety of the neighborhood you live in also?

It wouldn’t hurt to think about how you would like your neighbors to treat you and then treat all around you the same way. Getting a plan approved and then proceeding to build differently from what the plan allows is certainly not the way one acts as a good neighbor. 
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I agree regarding substantively sticking to a legally approved plan. But it not reasonable to expect others to put maximizing your home value over their own family's needs. A big reason people look for neighborhoods without HOAs is to avoid requirements that put form over function. The primary purpose of a house is to serve as a home, not an investment tool.

There are legitimate problems with this addition, but the general design is not one of them. The design itself is both legal and highly practical for the situation.[/quote]

Be that as it may, it is very likely to have the practical effect of lowering the value of every house on the block- including the house with the addition. No one here is talking about a house as an investment tool. This is simply a situation of losing money.

Yes, a house is to serve as shelter, but nobody buys a house intending to lose money. Traditionally in the US, a house is thought of as a home and at the same time, a sort of “forced savings” plan. People who aren’t rich but scrimped and saved to buy a house think of those funds they put into their homes over the years as a “back up” savings. It is not a common situation to lose money for people to lose money on their home. And yet, here are the people on this block, all staring at the possibility of losing money on their homes because of the actions of one family on the block. 
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Home ownership is not a very good investment. You always bear the risk of the properties around you changing (among many other risks not found in, say, investing in an index fund). I'm sorry for people whose property values decrease. That sucks for them, and I'd certainly be disappointed (actually, I am disappointed because my property value has decreased since purchase thanks to the economy, another risk). But there's not god-given right to increased property values. And behaving as if there is shows poor judgment. You should make sure to live in an HOA if you want rules that preserve property values at the expense of freedom do what you want with your property. [/quote]

The question here is not whether or not homeownership is a good investment. Property values can go down due to the economy, and no one can control that.[b] In this case, someone on the street is purposely taking an action that will reduce the value of all of the houses on the block, including their own.[/b] It’s pretty obvious that good neighbors don’t take actions that hurt their neighbors.

Good neighbors behave in the ways that they would want their neighbors to behave towards them. Good neighbors take care of their yards, maintain the outside of their homes, they pick up trash on the street. When they have parties, they keep the noise to a reasonable level. They teach their children not to run all over a neighbor’s flowers. Pretty basic good neighbor stuff. And they don’t purposely bring down the value of their neighbors’ properties. 
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I see no evidence the homeowner wants other people’s property values to decrease. That’s just the possible effect of his cheap home addition. But regardless, his intent is not relevant here. I could paint my house orange, line the entire perimeter with gnomes, and put up a chain link fence. That would reduce my neighbors’ property values, most likely.
It’s also legal and not something that could be legally challenged. If taking those actions makes someone a bad neighbor so be it. You don’t have a right to good neighbors. You can be frustrated you have bad neighbors, but there no other recourse.[/quote]

So you are the kind of person who sees no value in being a good neighbor and living in a community of others who try to be good neighbors to each other?

Got it. 
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I wouldn’t personally behave the way the homeowner here did ([b]or the neighbor[/b]). But I also feel ZERO entitlement to have my design and aesthetic preferences considered as to anyone else’s property. [/quote]

So if you’re neighbor took actions on their property that have the potential effect of putting your home and family in danger of fire or wind risk, you wouldn’t ask any questions? 
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You know that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about building an ugly box and the effect of that on property values.
Not safety. No one even knew there were any potential safety issues until there were complaints to the county about height and setback. [/quote]

What? People have been talking about safety in many posts on this thread. If you look up and see a three story wooden tower being built very close to your house, you are going to worry about the safety of your home and family if that thing has fire.

A big reason for setbacks is fire safety, so that fire is less likely to jump from one house to another. Setbacks are not made up just for fun, they have very real safety reasons. 
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There’s nothing inherently unsafe about a three story home 16 feet from another home. As has been discussed many times, the neighbor’s objections would be identical if the addition were six inches narrower. [/quote]

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