Bigger But Not Better
By • November 22, 2017 0 348
By Alison Schafer
Many of us who live in Georgetown live in small houses. I do. And last winter, D.C. regulated house sizes to protect people like me from being swamped by those neighbors who, once the y move to a charming house in a historic neighborhood, feel a desire to “improve” things by building large additions.
So now, in theory, my neighbor can’t add a two-story, 20-foot addition to the back of his house, because it would be triple the length of my house. He can’t block my air and sunlight, imperil my trees and ruin the open tree scape in the middle of our block.
Well, he can.
Despite the new regulation, the Board of Zoning Adjustment can grant a “special exception” and allow the construction to go ahead, even when there’s nothing “special” or “exceptional” about the request — it’s just another project to build a family room and a bigger master – bedroom suite.
Which begs the question: What is the point of the new regulation, which is precisely designe d to protect people in small houses, if the BZA routinely grants “special exceptions”?
I’m not the only person menaced by my neighbors’ desire for his ’ n ’ hers bathroom sinks. As I’ve fought to preserve the integrity of my house and garden, countless other neighbors have spoken to me about the need for trees and green space over brick and concrete.
This is not going to stop with my block. The “special exception” is governed by BZA members’ whims, but also, it stands to reason, by the size of the house next door. So as one house gets bigger, the next one can, and the next one …
In my case, the neighbors want ing to build big are emboldened by one of the three vacant lots in Georgetown. My house is small, theirs is (currently) small. But once they add their gigantic addition, the vacant-lot owners can also ask to go big. And they will. My neighbor on the other side supports the addition because he wants to “pop out” his house, too.
Five years from now, granting “special exceptions” so people can build their massive dream house on a tiny urban lot will seem short sighted. The BZA is operating under old ideas about keeping people in the District (apparently, they haven’t noticed that it is not the 1970s anymore).
In Georgetown, aside from my current neighbors’ edifice complex, the mood has already shifted. People want less construction, fewer walls and more open spaces. In passing the new regulations on proportionality and building size, the D.C. government recognized that. Now it just has to act on it.
