Updated November 3, 2004

• The purpose of the residential coverage study is to determine reasonable coverage limits that would protect neighborhoods from very large houses in the future while still allowing reasonable sized houses for today's market.
  
• The current proposal to revise the lot coverage requirements was developed by a citizens committee, the Zoning Ordinance Review Committee (ZORC). As of this date, the ZORC proposal has not been endorsed by the County Manager and has not been submitted to the County Board for action.

  •  The most controversial issue of the ZORC proposal is how it could impact existing homeowners. There would be no impact as long as the size (footprint) of a house does not exceed the proposed new maximum coverage limit. However, some homeowners could be limited in expanding their homes. This would be the case for those lots that are currently at the proposed new maximum, in which case additions that result in an increased footprint would not be allowed, except for the addition of a front porch or a detached garage in the rear yard. Finally, residences that are currently over the proposed new maximum could not be expanded and would become nonconforming with respect to the new regulations; however, the proposal includes a provision that would allow rebuilding the houses to the current size if the houses are damaged or destroyed by fire or other calamity.

• During the past few months, at meetings of Civic Associations and the Neighborhood Conservation Advisory Committee, concerns have been raised by owners of existing homes about the effect of the coverage recommendation on their potential to expand existing dwellings.  Consequently, County staff has begun looking at alternative options that would affect fewer existing properties and is evaluating provisions to limit the application of the new proposed coverage restrictions only to new construction and teardowns of existing homes that are replaced with larger new houses.
  
• Staff is meeting with various groups to gain additional input and then will develop a final recommendation. It is possible that the County Manager will recommend advertising the ZORC proposal and also offer the County Board some less restrictive options, such as applying the coverage restrictions only to new houses or teardowns.
  
• It is anticipated that the advertisement of public hearings on Zoning Ordinance amendments will be requested at the County Board meeting in January 2005 for public hearings in March 2005.

Background

• The County Board directed the Zoning Ordinance Review Committee (ZORC), and staff to analyze reasonable options for limiting the impacts of residential development on existing neighborhoods, in response to the many concerns and complaints heard about infill residential development.
  
• As a part of the study, ZORC asked for citizen input, including the Civic Federation, the Neighborhood Conservation Advisory Committee and several civic associations. In addition, two years ago ZORC asked citizens to submit addresses of houses that are too large and incongruous within the context of their neighborhood. Staff provided status reports on the study several times to the Northern Virginia Building Industry Association. The proposal has not received any endorsement or opposition because it has not been finalized yet.

  Many citizens perceive that the new houses are too large and not in keeping with the character of the existing neighborhoods. The complaints include a loss of open space, bulky and incongruous buildings that are incompatible with neighborhood character, loss of separation between houses, visual intrusions, loss of trees, and more area devoted to parking and driveways.

  The zoning components that most directly impact the size and character of houses are height, setbacks from property lines and the street, the shape of lots and how much of a lot can be covered by structures and driveways (coverage). The County Board has already adopted changes on how building height is measured, how lot lines are determined so that residential lots are more uniform in size and shape, changes to the setback requirements to allow houses to align along with the other houses on the same street block more regularly, and changes that discourage pipe-stem lots.

  The last area being considered is coverage. Coverage determines how much of a lot can be covered by structure footprints and driveways. Therefore, controlling coverage has a direct impact on the size of houses, garages and driveways, but not on building elevations.

  ZORC Proposal

  •  The current Zoning Ordinance permits a maximum of 56% coverage for all residential lots in the “R-5,” “R-6,” “R-8,” “R-10,” and “R-20” Districts regardless of the minimum required size of the lot. Staff analyzed data using a Geographic Information System for all single family lots in the County. Based on this data, few houses in the County were found to approach 56 % coverage.

• One of the issues with the current maximum coverage requirement is that it is the same 56% for all five zoning districts regardless of the minimum required size of the lots. The current ZORC proposal would establish a sliding scale requirement that would reduce the overall coverage but would allow larger coverage on smaller lots.
  
• The recommendations developed by ZORC would reduce coverage in the single family districts from 56% to the following: 45% for “R-5” zoned properties (minimum lot size 5000 square feet); 40% for “R-6” zoned properties (minimum lot size 6,000 square feet; 35% for “R-8” zoned properties (minimum lot size 8,000 square feet); 32% for “R-10” zoned properties (minimum lot size 10,000 square feet; 20% for “R-20” zoned properties (minimum lot size 20,000 square feet.
  
• The ZORC recommendation would also allow 5% additional coverage for detached garages located in rear yards and 3% additional coverage for front porches, and institute footprint size caps so that overly large houses could not be built on lots that were significantly larger than the typical lot in any zoning district.

  It would also distinguish between properties with detached rear garages and front porches. One of the ongoing concerns was that by reducing coverage, porches and other design elements that are desired might be discouraged because they would increase the building footprint and thus coverage. Front porches promote an inviting streetscape and are commonly found in older neighborhoods in the County.

  Another concern was about detached garages placed in rear yards. Detached rear garages significantly reduce the bulk of main buildings. However, since detached rear garages require longer driveways which are included in the coverage calculation, reducing the allowable coverage percentage without some relief for detached rear garages would make it difficult to build them. Thus the ZORC proposal recommends providing “bonus” coverage for rear detached garages to avoid discouraging porches and separate garages in rear yards.

  Based on the data, approximately 91 % of the lots in “R-5”, 95 % of the lots in “R-6”, 94% of the lots in “R-8”, 90% of the lots in “R-10” and 73% of the lots in “R-20” would not be impacted by the proposed changes if the ZORC recommendation were to be adopted.