By Lisa Rein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 2, 2006

Annandale, like many older neighborhoods in Fairfax County, has some crooked and narrow lots. Tracey and Dan Stegner have been yearning to tear down their 1944 Cape Cod on Virginia Avenue and build a 3,000-square-foot home with a garage up front.

Their half-acre lot is 80 feet wide. County rules allow the Stegners' home to be 40 feet wide, but they want an extra 10 feet. To do that, they need permission from the county government in the form of a variance. But they can't get one.

For more than two years, thousands of homeowners such as the Stegners, who have saved money to build bigger kitchens, bathrooms, second floors over carports or new houses, have had their plans frozen by Fairfax officials. The county virtually stopped granting what are called variances in 2004 after the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that zoning officials were handing them out too leniently.

"The law now says we can build a 40-foot-wide house," said Tracey Stegner. "We're not looking for a mansion. But we want to use the space on our property in the best way we can."

Variances have for years been common solutions to the space crunch in Northern Virginia's land-starved older communities, where homes were built much smaller than today's 3,000-square-foot dream Colonials. Variances are case-by-case exceptions to rules that limit how wide or tall a person's house can be.

The situation could change this month when the Board of Supervisors takes up a proposal to satisfy both the court and homeowners seeking permission for additions. Planning and zoning officials are recommending that limited approvals of variances resume, a prospect that's cheering some homeowners and infuriating others.

"We've got to provide a relief valve for people who want to make changes" to their homes, said James R. Hart, a member of Fairfax's Board of Zoning Appeals.

Supervisor Linda Q. Smyth (D-Providence), whose district includes many older enclaves, said she's heard from many frustrated homeowners over the past two years.

"I've had people who just wanted to pop up their house, but they couldn't because they would need a variance," Smyth said. "A couple buys a house, it's small, the next thing they have a baby and they really need some room."

The new system, devised after 18 months of community meetings, would allow homeowners to seek a special permit or special exception for their project instead of a variance. A home's size could grow up to 150 percent if the expansion can't be completed within the neighborhood's rules for setbacks and lot lines. But the renovation couldn't knock down more than half of the existing home. Depending on the neighborhood and its zoning, owners could stray over the minimum number of feet required between homes, bringing them closer to their neighbors.

Other planning and zoning boards have continued to grant limited variances; in counties with more recent growth, such as Loudoun and Prince William, the court ruling did not change much because many neighborhoods have newer zoning laws. Arlington County and Alexandria also are trying to find a middle ground.

The changes are scheduled to go before the Fairfax County board July 10. Other recommendations to be considered in future meetings are to allow fences taller than four feet -- now the county's legal limit -- and to allow pipestem lots with very little street frontage, Hart said. The board also plans to tackle the emotional issue of teardowns and the residences that can replace them -- the issue at the heart of the state Supreme Court case.

The changes drew about 20 speakers to a Planning Commission hearing last month, including the Stegners, many of them in legal limbo. Others predict that the county is reopening the door to the kind of land use that put the issue before the Supreme Court in the first place: a case asking whether a McLean homeowner and his neighbors were within their rights to block a variance that let a homeowner build a large new house on the street.

"It's fair to say there's a lot of concern about teardowns and the impact of McMansions," Hart said.

The 2004 ruling said zoning appeals boards can grant variances only in cases of "unnecessary hardship" where the homeowner would otherwise lose all beneficial use of his property. Since then, Fairfax has issued four variances to allow houses to be torn down, including one to a couple whose fixer-upper in the Alexandria area sat seven inches below the height required for houses in a flood plain.

Few would dispute that that house deserved a variance. But the challenge for the county will be deciding who should be allowed to tear down and who should not.

"You should first have to show that relief is warranted," said Dale Murad, a leader of the McLean Citizens Association. "These permits can't be something that you just apply for and get automatically."

Wally Sansone, a McLean homeowner, said many Fairfax neighborhood associations are worried that the county will start to interpret the court's definition of hardship too broadly. "It can't be just an aesthetic hardship," he said. "The biggest concern is that you're creating a Wild West situation here."

The Stegners of Annandale said the opposite would be true in their case: A variance would allow them to build what they describe as a pleasantly proportioned house instead of a funny-looking, awkward one resembling a townhouse in a neighborhood of single-family homes.

Tracey Stegner said of the delay: "It's not saving our neighbors from having a terrible house next door."