Are there too many Town Homes in Northern VA? (Alexandria: sales, apartments)

[on-to-dc]

I am moving here from out of State and have driven through so many neighborhoods and communities in Fairfax County in my pursuit of a place to live- I could be a taxi driver! I have one main observation about Fairfax County: THERE ARE TOO MANY TOWN HOMES!

Yes, I understand that everyone can't afford a fancy single family home and don't want to live in an apartment so a town house is an alternative in the middle. I also understand that not everyone wants to maintain a yard so the townhouse has an advantage. And I understand that many people would live in a single family detached home if they could afford it. Townhouses serve a purpose and should be allowed in some cases. But I still think that there is too much land zoned for townhouses in Fairfax County.

When my wife and I drive around we wonder what happened to all the trees that use to be in Fairfax. They must have cut a zillion trees down since townhouses became fashionable in the 1990s to build those townhouse communities. It seems like once a townhouse community is approved, the whole site becomes a moon scape, not a tree is left standing, everything is clearcut. Vs single family homes, if done right, have tree save areas and buffers between homes and yards and planted trees.

To me, townhouses are fine in a city urban setting. Yes, they are fine in Old Town Alexandria or right next to downtown Reason, but in Northern VA the townhouses are being built in areas that should be large lot zoning with significant trees save basically right in the middle of no where. These Town Houses are not in town, they are in the country.

I suspect there are so many townhouses because the developers make more money in high dentisty development so they push local officials to rezone areas that should be single family detached homes to high density town houses.

Northern VA has too many townhouses!

[ChristineVA]

I agree that there are too many and it often puts a aesthetic "blight" on an area. When I was looking to move to Fairfax County, the only place I could really afford was Centreville but I couldn't believe all the townhouses. I hated the look of it.

But I don't fault any of the places for building them. Especially in high cost areas, sometimes it's the only type of house that is affordable for many people.

[kww]

Originally Posted by ChristineVA

I agree that there are too many and it often puts a aesthetic "blight" on an area. When I was looking to move to Fairfax County, the only place I could really afford was Centreville but I couldn't believe all the townhouses. I hated the look of it.

But I don't fault any of the places for building them. Especially in high cost areas, sometimes it's the only type of house that is affordable for many people.

ding ding ding..

it's quite simple, detached homes that aren't 50 years old in Fairfax County are often times at a price point buyers cannot obtain.. Leaves a buyer to either commute much further or transition into a townhome.

[jillabean]

There are a lot of them, but I never considered it to be too many. There are just a lot of houses in general. One good thing about the town homes, if they were all single family homes instead (and spaced apart accordingly), imagine how far out the sprawl would go.

To be fair, I live in one.

I just know that the ones I live in have a ton of trees (trust me, when it comes time to clean leaves I have bags of the things and the yard the size of a postage stamp! lol). But they are old town homes where the trees planted have had time to grow (and I live right near parkland too). But then again, any new development levels everything and some of the newer townhouses are "McMansion townhomes" (where there is no room for trees).

A little off subject, but are there really less trees? And if so, less trees than when? 50 years ago, 100 years ago? 300 years ago? I tried googling, but didn't have any luck. The reason I ask is because I thought Fairfax used to be farmland (which is also devoid of trees since it's hard to plant crops in a forest). And Civil War era pictures I've seen of the county make it look as treeless and the Great Plains. But before that farmland, it was primeval forest (and definitely a lot of trees).

[Nancy in Nokomis]

Even though there are tons of townhomes - on google earth Fairfax County looks pretty green. I do agree that home prices are out of reach for most people. I live in a small home whereas I could buy a mini-mansion elsewhere.

[scottfs]

It's just as much the builder not being able to afford to build anything different as it is buyer's budgets.

That is, you could probably probably fit 5 THs on the land my early 60s SFH sits on. Why would you build even a $800,000 house on that land when you could build 5, $500k THs. The relationship of construction and other costs to the cost of the land is totally different than many other parts of the country.

The days of smaller SFHs in this area are over and its simply because the cost to acquire the land for a developer is so high that it only makes sense to fit as much sales revenue into it as possible.

[FC Merrifield]

I wouldn't say that there are too many - if this were true, you would see them sitting around unsold and unoccupied. I'm also not sure why they look worse than single family homes or apartments.

As for trees, many visitors remark how many trees on are in this area. I think that compared to most metropolitan areas, this area has a good amount of trees (and the allergies to go with it).

[pcity]

I find the "not enough trees" argument to be silly. For every townhouse that goes up instead of a single-family home, many trees are saved, because the townhouse takes up so much less room than the single-family home.

I'd rather live in a spot with few trees and then go visit a gorgeous park (which NoVA has plenty of) when I want to see some nature.

[slduvall]

This is the most wooded metro area I have every seen. And many areas - Kingstowne for instance, has left as much woods as possible. In my TH, both sides of the street backed up to woods. In my current SFH, I face other houses and back up to a street.

Of course there are some true concrete jungle town house developments out there as well. Cameron Station comes to mind and well as the ones near the Wegmans in Woodbridge -name escapes me, but they are usually built that way for a reason - and the number one reason in this area...ease of commute!

[jillybean720]

It's not all just a matter of money, either - that simple fact is there are so many people living in Fairfax and only so much land. You simply CANNOT fit all the residents in SFHs unless they're super close together, in which case, they may as well be...townhouses.

Supply and demand - townhouses are more profit for builders/developers, more affordable for residents, and NEEDED due to the sheer number of people around here. Expect to see more, not less, as the area continues to grow and develop.

I lived in a townhouse that backed to woods. No shortage of trees, IMO (to be fair, that was in PWC, not Fairfax). My current SFH has trees that are more bothersome than nice (our one tree out front has roots that are killing our driveway, one tree out back leans very far over our roof, a large pine tree out back appears to be half dead...). We're on a mission to get RID of more of our trees, though we do plan to add some smaller, less obtrusive ones.