Fairfax City Council is moving closer to restricting the construction of over-sized buildings in established neighborhoods that would visually overwhelm existing houses. According to The Fairfax County Times, options include:
- Restraining the size of a house’s footprint compared to the overall lot size.
- Limiting large sections of flat wall surfaces on house exteriors
- Providing pattern books of house plans and recommending architectural features for every neighborhood in the city
- Limiting the overall height of a house using a mechanism called “angle of bulk plane,” which would require successively higher floors to be set farther and farther back from the street.
This strikes me as a legitimate form of zoning. Erecting McMansions that overshadow neighboring houses disrupts the neighborhood fabric and hurts property values for all. Property owners should be allowed to build bigger houses in locationally desirable neighborhoods, but the changes should be incremental, not disruptive.
