Most new houses in Vienna must provide certain public improvements – including sidewalk, curb and gutter – but that will not be the case for a home that’s planned to be built in the Windover Heights Historic District.
The Vienna Town Council on March 18 voted 6-0 (member Charles Anderson was absent) not to require those usually requisite upgrades at 288 Windover Ave., N.W. The Council’s decision followed recommendations of the Windover Heights Board of Review.
“It’s a condition of competing town values: infrastructure, pedestrian safety and flood control versus preserving the character of the Windover Heights Historic District,” said Vienna Planning and Zoning Director David Levy.
The 1.1-acre property in question, which now has a single-family home built in the 1980s, is unusual because it is bordered by Short Street, N.W., Lovers Lane, N.W., Pleasant Street, N.W., and Windover Avenue, N.W.
Applicants Michael and Mary Parks plan to raze the existing house and construct a new one.
People building new homes in Vienna usually must dedicate right-of-way width; design curb, gutter, sidewalk and storm drainage; and construct sidewalks at the site.
The town government also builds sidewalks on its rights-of-way in parts of town where officials deem they’re needed for connectivity and pedestrian-safety reasons.
Vienna officials have been quite busy on that front since 2019, when a multi-million bequest from the late Town Council member Maud Robinson financed a bevy of sidewalk projects – more than a few of which were opposed by some residents living on those streets.
But conditions are different in the town’s only historic district, where no new public improvements are permitted that were not in place when the ordinance was adopted decades ago.
Dozens of residents sent e-mails to town officials opposing construction of sidewalks, and necessitating some tree removals, at the 288 Windover Ave., N.W., site. The Town Council, possibly to avoid having to stay until midnight listening to all that testimony in person, voted to put those messages into the item’s record.
That still didn’t stop several residents from weighing in on the matter at the Council meeting.
“The charm and beauty of that area is just overwhelming,” said town resident John Palmer, who opposed requiring sidewalks at the property.
Carol Layer, who lives nearby on Windover Avenue, N.W., urged the Town Council to amend the town code regarding public improvements in the Windover Heights Historic District so these issues did not have to be revisited with other developments.
The Council voted to require the Parks to dedicate 6 feet of right-of-way along Windover Avenue, N.W. The couple also must provide and plant, in consultation with the town’s arborist, a species of cedar tree along the Windover Avenue frontage and other sides of the property, where appropriate.
The Parks, in collaboration with the Vienna Department of Public Works, also will need to build a swale/ditch along Lovers Lane, N.W., and Pleasant, N.W., to prevent water along the south of the property from crossing Lovers Lane, N.W., toward other private properties.
Using a design approved by the Department of Public Works, the applicants will need to improve water quality and reduce stormwater-runoff quantity by 20 percent on site, which is twice the reduction required by the Vienna government for single-lot developments and exceeds the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality standard.
