Big house controversy returns to City Council

By Rachana Dixit

Published: August 17, 2008

After remaining ambivalent on a house proposed for Second Street Northeast in downtown Charlottesville, city councilors will take another stab at the contentious issue tonight.

“This is kind of an unusual agenda item,” said Councilor David Brown.

Some neighbors have expressed fierce opposition to the proposed house and accessory apartment at 509 Second St. NE, saying its size will dwarf surrounding homes — which are on average about 2,000 square feet — and it does not fit with the pedestrian-friendly feel of the neighborhood.

In May councilors chose to defer their decision on the project — which originally measured 8,500 square feet, according to a staff report prepared by Mary Joy Scala, the city’s preservation and design planner — by asking the Board of Architectural Review to have another crack at the project.

The BAR had already approved the project, located in a historic district, in March.

“It’s highly unusual, if not unprecedented,” said Cheri Lewis, who is representing a group of neighbors appealing the BAR’s decision.

“It is not a welcoming house,” added Lewis, who is also a member of the city’s Planning Com-mission.

Brown was the only one to vote against sending the request back to the BAR in May.

“If the BAR and Planning Commission vote strongly one way or the other on an issue, we need to really be careful about overturning that,” Brown said. If the project is ultimately voted down, Brown said it should not be for design reasons.

“It should be for a bigger issue, a city issue,” he said.

Mark and Barbara Fried, prominent developers who live in Crozet, are looking to build the two-story house with an accessory apartment and a side garage on their property. Project architect Allison Ewing said the project has been scaled back significantly, cutting off about 2,500 square feet from the original size. The empty lot is about 9,800 square feet and includes some parking spaces.

“This is going to be a big improvement over what’s there,” Ewing said. If councilors approve the project, Ewing said construction would begin within six months, but likely sooner.

“Change is hard, and I understand that,” said David J. Toscano, who represents the Frieds and serves in the House of Delegates. “But when people really look at the design, they will come to understand how it fits very well into the site.”

Kristen Suokko, who sits on the Charlottesville Community Design Center’s board, is the project’s main opponent.

“If a project of this size can be built in a historic district, we want people to really think about what’s going to happen outside the historic districts,” said Suokko, who lives across the street from the site. Though a larger building resides next door, Suokko said there is a big difference because it holds four townhomes instead of a house meant for one family.

“A basis for comparison is not one building. It’s all of the buildings in the area,” Suokko said.

Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris said the City Council will occasionally wait to make decisions — especially with a proposal as controversial as this among residents — but it is exceedingly rare for neighbors to appeal a decision made by the architectural board. Instead, usually it’s the projects’ applicant.

In May, Norris said some councilors were concerned about the house’s relationship to the street.

“It’s a very pedestrian-oriented street,” Norris said in an interview last week. “The original proposal was very closed off to the street.”

Councilor Julian Taliaferro said he was also concerned about the house’s size, which was why he wanted the BAR to further review the project.

“The size of it seemed to be really large and out of character with that neighborhood,” Taliaferro said.

To allay neighbors’ concerns, Ewing said, the garage was moved to the side of the house from the front and reduced to a two-car space, and a first-floor porch was added, among other things. Ewing added that several sustainable measures have been incorporated into the project to reduce its carbon footprint, including a green roof, solar panels and geothermal heating pumps.

“We’ve done a whole new task of trying to give more human scale details to the house,” she said. “These are all ways in which the life of the house can engage with the life of the street.”

Suokko said, “I do give them credit for trying.” But she said she still thinks the house remains “inwardly focused,” citing the first-floor porch as an example.

“It doesn’t really reach out to the street,” she said. “It’s more of a black hole.”

The architectural board reviewed the revised building designs at its June 17 meeting, but meeting notes show that many found the design had “slipped backward” and needed to be improved. The majority thought the house’s size was acceptable.

But Suokko said this raises serious implications about growth prospects.

“We’re concerned about more than just our street,” she said. “We’re concerned about the future of downtown development.”

The proposed house is only one of several big-ticket items councilors will address at their meeting. Others include the approval of a construction easement for the 2-mile Meadowcreek Parkway, and approving the design of the interchange at the intersection of McIntire Road and the U.S. 250 Bypass, the parkway’s endpoint.