Fairfax County supervisors on June 25 unanimously approved a two-house subdivision north of Vienna over some neighbors’ objections, but agreed to pursue traffic-safety improvements along nearby Lawyers Road.
Supervisors approved a rezoning request by Samir and Muna Amer to subdivide their 1.91-acre site at 2201 Laurel Ridge Road to permit construction of a second single-family detached house there.
The applicants agreed to mitigate stormwater runoff onto an adjacent property to the rear by building a 2-foot-tall concrete wall along the backs of both lots of the subdivided property.
A drainage swale or pipe will convey water runoff to Lawyers Road and be protected by a storm-drain easement. The subdivision also will install a new sewer connection via a public easement between two bordering properties.
The applicants also will upgrade the existing 4-foot-wide asphalt trail into a 10-foot-wide shared-use path along the property’s edge on Lawyers Road, and dedicate 15 feet of right-of-way along the roadway for future road improvements.
Tanglewood Community Association member Samuel Logan pressed for greater county oversight of the applicants’ compliance with home-business rules, saying the current permit has not been enforced for the past five years.
The association’s president, Lucinda Crist, testified via telephone that the application’s new sewer connection to Abbotsford Drive would affect 74 homes owned by the association’s members.
“Our members living on Abbotsford Drive, Rhapsody Drive and Concert Court have only one way to get in and out of Tanglewood onto Lawyers Road, and they are already bracing for the huge Tysons sewer project to run down Abbotsford and Rhapsody through our Tanglewood Park,” she said.
A critical county sewer repair this spring at Tanglewood Park lasted a month and resulted in unannounced park closures, Crist added.
“We’re surrounded by sewer issues related to development,” she said.
Crist echoed Logan’s concerns about the property’s existing home business, and said she hoped the second house would not be granted a similar permit.
“That little street is too small to support it,” she said.
Samir Amer said the county had granted a permit to his wife, a certified public accountant, for running a business from the house.
The site has plenty of parking and none of the firm’s clients park on the street, Amer said. Most of the customers telephone or submit information online, so “we hardly see anybody,” he said.
The applicants will need to obtain a special-permit amendment to reflect the acreage change, county planning staff said. They also will need to sign a perpetual-maintenance agreement for the stormwater improvements, which will undergo compliance examinations by county personnel every five years, they said.
Because some neighboring residents have expressed concerns about traffic safety along Lawyers Road, the board also approved Supervisor Walter Alcorn’s (D-Hunter Mill) follow-on motion directing county transportation staff to work with the Virginia Department of Transportation to identify and implement safety improvements along Lawyers Road between the Vienna town line and Hunter Mill Road.
Supervisor Kathy Smith (D-Sully) did not support that motion, saying it was not germane to the application involving the addition of just one house.
