The Alexandria City Council unanimously approved our design of a new house in the North Ridge neighborhood.  This was the second of a two-part approval process; the Planning Commission had previously approved the design 5-1. 

 

This maintains my perfect record for receiving approvals from every approval board I’ve appeared before over the past twenty-four years: Historic Review Boards, Zoning Boards, Design Review Boards in DC, Arlington, Fairfax, and now Alexandria.  

 

It is not uncommon– in fact it is to be expected– for nieghbors to stand up in opposition, but passions ran particularly hot on this one.  This is a close-knit neighborhood where new construction is a rarity: lots of additions and total renovations, to be sure, but the existing house was impossible to work with, forcing us to propose a teardown and thereby kicking us into the Special Use Permit review process.  (Ironically, if we had endeavored to maintain some of the existing house, we could have built a larger, taller house clad in say, neon pink aluminum, by right, with no review).

 

In the end, the Planning Commission, the City Council, the Mayor, and most of the neighbors appreciated our efforts to design a 21st-century house that sits comfortably in a 1930s neighborhood.