Neighbors Grapple With Construction Projects That Lack an Endgame
By Sandra Fleishman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Chevy Chase homeowner Sally Kelly tries to ignore the half-built 12,000-square-foot mansion next door. After almost two years of inactivity, she says it's "ugly and an eyesore . . . but I try not to look at it or worry about it."
Kelly says she never dreamed that construction could just come to a stop one day on the multimillion-dollar project that towers over her yard. She knew the new house would be big, because it was to sit on the largest lot in the town, a 1.3-acre piece three times the size of her own property. But she didn't object to it as she has to big houses on smaller lots around her community. She did assume, though, that it would be finished one day.
After all, there was a permit. A notice still flutters from the construction fence, with its faded, hand-written date of March 15, 2002. But as the seasons have come and gone without anything happening, the notice, like the piles of building materials down the hill near the street and the hulking structure on the hilltop, never changes.
The situation in Chevy Chase is extreme, but not unique. At a time when entire housing developments seem to spring up overnight, sometimes something different happens: Work on a house drags on and on, aggravating neighbors and confounding communities. And as Kelly and others have found, a permit by itself does not compel completion.
A permit is generally good for six months or a year, depending on the jurisdiction. But it can usually be extended as long as work continues and the property is offered for required inspections along the way. And if no work is done during the specified six months or a year and the permit lapses, homeowners can get new permits if they pay the full fees again.
There is no single answer to what neighbors can do if work simply stops. In most cases, their best option is just to persist in complaining to the local housing code enforcement office, if they think the unfinished site is becoming a public health or safety hazard, or the permitting office, if they believe construction has started up again illegally.
In most jurisdictions around Washington, citations, penalties or fines occur only if a homeowner tries to build without a permit. "We can't compel somebody to finish a house, but we can compel somebody to neaten up the lot, to make sure that there are no holes open, and that there's no flooding being caused," said Gail Lucas, manager of Montgomery County's building construction section.
"I am empathetic [to these situations] and I would be furious if I were the neighbor next to it," said Paul Lynch, Fairfax County director of residential inspections. "But the law doesn't provide for an end date" on building permits.
Because the goal of permitting is to get projects built safely and within a reasonable amount of time, Lynch said the idea of setting an end time for a permit might backfire, causing people to abandon worthwhile projects because they ran into some financial or personal hardship during the building time.
Most builders and homeowners, he said, would never consider foot-dragging on a project because construction costs are so high and because construction loan costs mount daily.
However, Lynch said, "there are a lot of considerations that can cause a project to stall -- a money crisis, personal issues, family problems. And suspending or taking away the permit doesn't fix the problem. . . . It might make the problem even worse, if the house sits there and the [building] code changes."
Lynch recalls at least two instances where homeowners seemed to be taking forever and the county had to resort to enforcement actions. In one situation, "a fairly eccentric gentleman in Springfield was building an addition to his nice corner lot, a lot that everyone had to drive by. It was literally a concrete bunker, that he was building one brick at a time for over 10 or 15 years."
Because the owner continued to do something each year, the "permit was continually valid" because the county at that time defined "progress" on a project less strictly than it does now, Lynch said. To prompt action, the county took the homeowner to court for violating zoning law by maintaining an illegal storage site of construction material, Lynch said. He does not know if the project has ever been finished.
In the second case, a very large home in the Tysons Corner area "took forever and ever, and also resulted in an inordinate amount of construction material on the site," Lynch said. Zoning officials again cited the owner for having an illegal storage site.
Shawn Kelley, head of the Arlington County inspection services division, said projects that stop amount to "less than a handful a year." Generally, unfinished projects occur because homeowners "have run out of money or a contractor has absconded with their money and they have to fight to get it back in court while trying to hire a new contractor."
In other cases, Kelley says homeowners who are doing the work themselves just fall behind because they have underestimated the time involved.
Another type of problem arises when homeowners fall so far behind that they let permits lapse and then start work without applying again. The county can not only fine those building without permits but also require that walls be torn open so that inspectors can check for any unpermitted interior work. And, in the worst-case scenario, inspectors can require that whole buildings be torn down if they suspect they don't meet required codes and standards.
Kelley estimated that Arlington opens a dozen cases a year on projects being built without permits, but he said there are no hard numbers. The county doesn't have a specific team of inspectors hunting for such houses, he said, although "we've retooled and educated our code enforcement staff to step forward and create cases when they see these houses."
Kelley said neighbors can often be counted on to do the detective work. "It's funny. Neighbors will tell on neighbors. There's quite a bit of word-of-mouth referral going on," he said.
Capitol Hill residents Charles Hudman and John Kuykendall are among those who have tried to blow the whistle on what they contend is an egregious and now half-done project. The two have been calling D.C. regulators for three years about a three-story house being built on what was once a vacant lot next to them on G Street NE.
At first the couple and some neighbors objected to the construction itself, after yards on both sides caved in when the foundation was being installed. They also objected to the scale and size of the project.
Now, Hudman, Kuykendall and other neighbors say the original building permit has long expired. They contend that no work has been done in the year since the owner responded to a stop-work order issued by the District over concerns about the structural integrity of the basement wall and basement slab.
Hudman said they think the owner now "wants to tear the house down and rebuild the whole thing," which will mean even more disturbance to the neighborhood.
The owner, Lisa Godette, said in an interview that she doesn't want to argue about the situation "in the press" and that she doesn't "have to inform the neighbors of my intentions." But she said, "The neighbors have been one of my biggest problems."
She has told D.C. officials that the project deadlines have slipped because she had to repair damages to the neighbors' yards and ensure the integrity of the building.
Godette added, "My understanding is that when you obtain the permit, you must begin construction within a year, and there's nothing else required that I know of."
Patrick J. Canavan, director of the D.C. Consumer and Regulatory Affairs Department, said that the District's goal "is to make sure that construction occurs in as safe a manner as possible" and that D.C. building permits are valid unless work doesn't start within a year of the permit being issued or if work is suspended or abandoned for a year.
The permit can be extended for six months at a time, up to three extensions, "if there is a good reason," such as the homeowner facing a financial hardship or being unable to find a good contractor, said Canavan.
If the permit lapses, he said, the homeowner has to file for a new permit and pay all the fees again.
The G Street situation is complicated, said Theresa Lewis, the Consumer and Regulatory Affairs Department's deputy director of operations, because Godette did begin work within a year after the permit was issued in November 2002 and because she wrote the D.C. government about a year ago that she had had to do "a substantial amount" of work to try to correct damage to the neighbors' yards. "We're not sure [the permit] has lapsed," Lewis said.
Lewis said Godette has said "that she is interested in tearing it down" because her engineer "has advised her" that it would be better to "raze and reconstruct."
"Our real issue is that if there is going to be construction happening that we make sure that she's not hurting anybody," Canavan said
Canavan added that the department is "hearing more and more [from residents] about permits expiring" and is "looking at ways to have contractors validate permits annually." He said he is concerned that some people are using permits "to prevent properties from being registered as vacant" and being required to make repairs.
Another concern, said Christopher Flack, a department staff member with a program meant to speed the permitting process, is unpermitted construction.
The District's illegal construction unit, which became permanent about a month and a half ago, conducted 993 inspections that resulted in fines last year during a pilot run, said Flack. "For the new fiscal year, they are operating after hours a lot of times because we find that a lot of homeowners are doing the illegal activity after our inspectors have gone home," he said.
How different local jurisdictions deal with problem properties varies.
For example, the half-done Chevy Chase mansion is now the subject of a Maryland District Court case filed by the Montgomery County housing code enforcement unit.
The county unit issued a civil citation in 2003 against owner Kwok Li, a onetime big player on the Washington technology scene, because no construction had occurred for more than a year. (The half-done house was the subject of a Washington Post report in August 2003.)
The county suit sought an abatement order listing work that Li needed to do before starting to build again, said Linda S. Bird, manager of the county enforcement unit. "When he failed to meet that," the county sought a hearing on whether he was in contempt of court, she said.
But, the judge decided not to charge Li with contempt, Bird said, "because he didn't have the money to complete the project."
Instead, in February the judge continued the case until mid-May to allow Li and the builder "to figure something out," Bird said. "The builder has been talking about taking over the property" in exchange for giving up a lien on the house for unpaid construction bills.
The May hearing has been delayed because the judge has a heavy schedule, she said.
Owner Li said in a recent interview that "it would be better to talk to the builder" about the future of the house.
He expressed sympathy for the neighbors, but indicated that it was tempered by financial considerations. "We always feel like we have an obligation to our neighbors, but you can only do what you can, you know?"
Builder George Collins of Peterson and Collins Inc. said the property has not yet changed hands, although he would love to find someone willing to pay him to complete the project.
Collins doesn't rule out the possibility that the house, with its exotic materials -- stone quarried in China, a roof made in Argentina and windows waiting to be installed that were manufactured in England -- could be torn down and the land resold. But that would not be his first choice.
"If we end up acquiring the property, our first goal would be to pursue all avenues to completing the home. We have a vested interest of 2 1/2 years of building there," Collins said. "If there is not a buyer out there, I'm not sure what will transpire at that point."