By Miranda S. Spivack
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 8, 2006; B02
Marianne and Marc Duffy say their dream home renovation in Chevy Chase has turned into a suburban nightmare. Their neighbors say the Duffys intentionally flouted building rules when they expanded their $725,000 house on Thornapple Street and have no one to blame but themselves.
Yesterday, a Montgomery County appeals board reaffirmed an earlier ruling that the Duffys had rebuilt their house too close to the street and to neighbors. The Duffys say the decision leaves them two choices: Move the house a few feet at a cost of $100,000 or continue an expensive battle in court.
"My husband and I did nothing wrong, and literally, our property was taken," Marianne Duffy said.
Jane Mayer, who lives next door to the unfinished house, sees it differently: "What they told [the county] they were going to do is not what they did."
The dispute has shed new light on the inner workings of the county's Department of Permitting Services, which reversed course at least five times in the case, the Duffys said. The agency issued renovation permits to the couple last year but later pulled them back and ordered work stopped after neighbors complained that the Duffys had actually demolished and rebuilt the house. The couple are renting a house nearby.
The case has pitted the Duffys, both securities lawyers, against a group of prominent opponents, including two journalists -- Mayer, a writer for the New Yorker magazine, and her husband, William Hamilton, a Washington Post editor -- as well as lawyer Michael Eig and his historic preservationist wife Emily Hotaling Eig, former ABC News reporter Jackie Judd and real estate agent Kristin Gerlach. Both sides had lawyers but recently decided to represent themselves.
Neither side has signaled a willingness to give up the fight, while acknowledging the strain the protracted battle, including six days of hearings, has put on their lives.
The dispute has roiled the neighborhood, sparked contentious discussions at Town Council meetings, generated letters to local newspapers and debates on talk radio, and fueled discussions about liberal conspiracies. Marianne Duffy says someone recently left a bag of dog poop in her mailbox. The neighbors say they are sympathetic and had nothing to do with it.
Neighbors say the Duffys, who acted as their own general contractors, created the problems by rebuilding the house section by section while labeling it a renovation. The difference is more than semantic. Building regulations enacted long after the house was built in 1923 require houses to be farther from the street and from neighbors. A renovation means the house can stay where it is; a new home would have to be sited differently on the lot.
"They illegally demolished a house and then constructed a new one," said Emily Hotaling Eig, whose husband argued the neighbors' case at yesterday's hearing.
The Duffys insist that they did the work one section at a time, all of it with county approval. They said previously undiscovered building rot caused them to take down the front of the house after putting an addition on the back.
That combination of changes provoked the neighbors' complaint a year ago that the Duffys had demolished the entire house without a permit.
In March, the county's Board of Appeals, a part-time citizens panel that reviews zoning and building disputes, ruled against the Duffys, saying their house is seven feet too close to the street and two feet too close to the Mayer-Hamilton property line. The board found no factors that would allow it to issue the Duffys a variance to keep the house where it is.
Mayer said she was relieved after that ruling. "I thought this was over," she said. But Marianne Duffy launched a public relations effort to win a reversal of the board's ruling.
Duffy gave interviews to media outlets, saying the house is in the same place as before -- just taller in front and with an addition on the back. She recently planted a sign on the front lawn with a photo of the couple's two young daughters, urging neighbors to support their effort to complete the work and move in. She has spoken with county officials, members of the County Council and neighbors. She has begun a petition drive and collected 60 signatures from people who say the Duffys should be able to finish their house. She pleaded yesterday with the Board of Appeals to consider the effect on her family. "No one should have to endure what our family has suffered this past year," she said.
While upholding its earlier decision, the board yesterday accepted new data from the Duffys showing that the front of the house is 1.7 feet -- not seven feet -- too close to the street. The ruling did not address the Department of Permitting Services' actions in issuing and then revoking the Duffys' permits. The board will consider that issue in a separate proceeding this fall.
Neighbors say the issue could be resolved if the Duffys would make architectural changes by moving walls and pouring a new foundation. The neighbors said they felt compelled to pursue the case even though they feel sorry for the Duffys. Their fear is that other homeowners would follow a precedent set by the Duffy house.
"This is the slipperiest of slopes I have ever seen," Eig said.
The Duffys say their neighbors' prominence has influenced the case. They also say they have been treated differently from big builders. Marianne Duffy said that at Clarksburg Town Center, where homes were deemed too tall and too close the street, the developer and builders have been allowed to go to mediation. In Silver Spring, builder Ryan Homes paid fines to the Planning Board because some houses were too tall. In neither case were builders required to move a house.
"We are literally being made homeless," she said. "It's not in the public policy interest of Montgomery County to have this situation occurring with my family."
A statement issued in March by the Department of Permitting Services came from the office of County Executive Douglas M. Duncan, noting the ruling against the Duffys but saying the county would work with them. County Attorney Charles Thompson has met with both sides to try to get them to settle their differences out of public view. So far, no takers.