Stop Overdevelopment in Northern Virginia (Reston: how much, townhouses, neighborhoods)

[paytonc]

Shouting “go back to where you came from” at prospective residents, or halting construction of new houses, won't stop greater Washington's population growth. Even if a wall were built to keep all new outsiders from moving in, greater Washington would still need to build hundreds of new homes every week, just to house the young people who were born and raised here.

https://ggwash.org/view/66684/one-mi...ce-not-to-fear

[xPlorer48]

This overdevelopment is happening in many desirable locations. 3,000 miles away in Western Washington, median home selling prices have climbed to $455,000. My city’s solution is to allow butt ugly boxy 5 story apartment buildings to be built on main arterial by the freeway. They have also allowed the D-ADU and A-ADU units to be built in the city limits to offer lower cost housing. The problem is that they are not monitored so many were offered as AirBnBs. Also, the council waived parking requirements.

My area is R5A but the county is allowing D-ADUs to be built. Plus, a few neighbors hav3 snuck in cabins and apartments in their shop buildings.

So, it is pervasive and not much you can do about it, sorry.

[Phil P]

Northern Virginia has over 2x the amount of data center space as the Bay Area; it's literally the center of the internet for the entire world. I don't think this area is going to calm down any time soon, government do what it may job wise.

[ParadiseKendra]

Originally Posted by nva06

So the county just wants to turn areas were they’re is good amount of traffic. Which is rare anywhere in NOVA to an area where people can build more stuff for less money ruining roads, and traffic. That’s bs. I live in Stafford County and honestly it’s a hellhole for developing. Developers can come in barely pay anything and build small communities make a couple million and move on to the next. Planned growth is what we need.


They’re are places for town centers and mixed use that benefit everybody in the county and make great gathering spaces. But those types of developments shouldn’t be allowed in single family residential areas that can’t hold the infrastructure.

I support your cause OP and will help any way in possible. And if your ever interested in expanding your cause into Stafford County I will gladly help you. Thankfully 4/7 of our BOS and School Board seats are up for grabs in November 2021. They continually try to use rural tax rates for urban services in our county and they are burdening citizens and bankrupting the county while doing. And 3/7 of those BOS are vulnerable. Southern PWC shouldn’t represent all of NOVA. I get chills when I visit it. It’s a traffic, residential, commercial, disaster. And the school system sucks there.

Absolutely! I will PM you soon and we can touch base. I used to commute to Stafford and F’Burg all the time and still have a lot of friends there!

There’s much we can do!

[dkf747]

Originally Posted by Old Guard

It legalizes the accessory dwelling units (ADUs), which they were not doing a good job of policing before. ...

I thought ADU stood for “Affordable Dwelling Units”. My apartment is considered an ADU (as in “affordable”).

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by dkf747

I thought ADU stood for “Affordable Dwelling Units”. My apartment is considered an ADU (as in “affordable”).

That's one of the problems with zoning terms, every jurisdiction has its own vocabulary.

Upthread someone mentioned R-5 zoning. That could mean five units per acre or a five acre minimum lot size. It depends on the jurisdiction's definitions in the use tables.

[xPlorer48]

Originally Posted by ParadiseKendra

Again, yes there is. First it helps to organize which no one actually has been. So take your defeatist attitude and move on. This thread is for responsible development allies.

About 15 years ago, a local developer wanted to change his R5A zoned land to URMX16 or urban mixed used 16 dwelling units per acre. That was way out of scale and at least a mile from city services. We neighbors banded together and fought it for FIVE years. Frankly, that wore me out. Meetings with city and county councils, planning commissions, endless. We won but never again. My best to your efforts.

[xPlorer48]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

That's one of the problems with zoning terms, every jurisdiction has its own vocabulary.

Upthread someone mentioned R-5 zoning. That could mean five units per acre or a five acre minimum lot size. It depends on the jurisdiction's definitions in the use tables.

If you are referring to my post, R5A is rural, one house per 5 acres.

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by xPlorer48

If you are referring to my post, R5A is rural, one house per 5 acres.

I was.

[ParadiseKendra]

Originally Posted by xPlorer48

About 15 years ago, a local developer wanted to change his R5A zoned land to URMX16 or urban mixed used 16 dwelling units per acre. That was way out of scale and at least a mile from city services. We neighbors banded together and fought it for FIVE years. Frankly, that wore me out. Meetings with city and county councils, planning commissions, endless. We won but never again. My best to your efforts.

I hear you. It’s absolutely exhausting. One thing that needs to change is the form of advocacy. So far, the main advocacy has been on a case-by-case basis at the local level. That’s an exhaustion of resources for a one time gain against a giant corporation with nothing but an endless supply of resources, money, and teams of lawyers fully armed to know exactly how to go around the laws and regulations and gobble up the land. So my mission is to change federal and state laws and give far more power and say to the existing home owners and communities and less say to the big giants who seek to tear down a family’s home that they’ve put 30 years into for their new strip mall.

Development is at this stage also a huge environmental concern as we enter hotter and hotter seasons with green house gases, the LAST thing we need is any new construction anywhere. We need to fully switch to an “Existing Housing Movement” (and if you don’t know what that is yet, look it up) for the foreseeable future. A full halt on massive new developments should be a top priority across the globe until we can get our temperature zones back under control. We need trees with mature roots that can soak up the rising sea levels and cool the air temperatures with their O2 emissions. And guess who is is responsible for destroying more mature trees han anyone else on the planet? Developers! Not timber companies who restock their product as it is their business and their livelihood, but developers. In addition, the exhaust fumes from construction, the loss of wildlife and forestry, and the erosion issues that come from high density development, these are all concerns that have gotten enough out of hand that they need to be addressed at the state and federal levels.

The biggest problem with advocacy is usually aiming for too small of a goal. And overdevelopment is a global problem so there is no reason that individual volunteers are killing themselves in individual towns at the local level on a case by case basis while developers waste at last counted: half a billion tons of construction and demolition waste a year in the US alone.

It’s a shame when greed results in the need for regulations that shouldn’t be necessary in the first place, and which will end up being nothing but headaches for generations to come, all which could’ve been avoided by having a little bloody integrity.