Proposed Zoning Changes in Residential Arlington
The County Board is considering changes to the
County’s zoning ordinances to address the problem of “development
projects that are significantly out of scale and character with a neighborhood,”
according to Board Chairman Jay Fisette.
In early 2002, the Board will
consider changes regarding pipestem lots – those lots where a house or houses
are built behind another house and all share one driveway leading to the street.
The Board also will address proposals to reduce maximum lot
coverage – the square footage of the footprint of your house, compared with
the square footage of your lot. Note
that the footprint does not include the total square footage of your
home, but only the area of your lot occupied by all structures, including
driveways, parking pads, pools and some decks.
Last summer, the County staff
developed proposals on maximum lot coverage, which would change coverage from a
current maximum throughout the County of 56% (footprint of house can be no more
than 56% of total property) as follows:
R-5
District: 45-50%; cap of
2,250 square ft.
R-6
District: 45%;
cap of 2,700 square ft.
R-8
District: 40%;
cap of 3,200 square ft.
R-10
District: 35%;
cap of 3,500 square ft.
R-20
District: 25%;
cap of 5,000 square ft.
The County Manager asked the staff to do additional
research to determine the lot coverage of existing homes in the County, before
any proposals are sent to the County Board.
It is not clear at this time if the staff proposals will change as a
result of its research.
During the summer and fall, a group
of developers took out a series of advertisements in local papers about this
issue. These ads were designed to
convince citizens that they should oppose the County’s efforts to reduce
maximum lot coverage, but they did not provide facts for individuals to decide
how the proposals might affect their property.
To determine if these proposals
would affect you: 1) find what zoning district you are in (call the Zoning
Office at 228-3883 or log on to the County’s website at www.co.arlington.va.us
and click on “Maps,” then “Properties/Boundary Maps,” then select
“Zoning” and click on the area of the map where you live); 2) see above for
the proposal for your zoning district; 3) divide the square footage of the
footprint of your house by the total square footage of your lot to determine the
percentage of your lot that your home occupies.
Once proposals are sent to the
County Board on these zoning issues, the Board will hold hearings to learn what
Arlington’s citizens want done. If
you are interested in these matters, be sure that you are on our Bellevue Forest
e-mail list so that we can keep you updated.
If you do not have access to e-mail, call Abby Raphael at 908-0387
and she will keep you informed of developments.
In the meantime, you can contact
our County Board members and offer your views on these subjects:
Jay Fisette, Chairman; Chris Zimmerman, Vice Chairman; and members
Barbara Favola, Paul Ferguson and Charles Monroe at #1 Courthouse Plaza, 2100
Clarendon Blvd., Suite 300, Arlington, Va. 22201.
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