By Brian Trompeter
Fairfax County supervisors voted 10-0 May 21 to uphold county zoning staff’s ruling that a series of improvements built more than a decade ago at an Oakton residence violated the Chesapeake Bay Protection Ordinance and now must obtain official authorization or be removed.
Fairfax County began investigating the property following a complaint in February 2023. Land Development Services officials, following a site inspection, on April 4 last year issued a notice of violation to Christopher and Jaime Harrison, who own the property at 3141 Trenholm Drive, saying there had been land disturbance in a resource-protection area (RPA) within the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area without an approved water-quality impact assessment.
The unauthorized work covered about 2,744 square feet of the site and included construction of unpermitted outdoor-seating areas, paver patios, a cooking area, water fountain/bar, storage building and carport, officials said.
The encroachment of an accessory structure or use in the RPA also lacked exception approval from the county’s Exception Review Committee or the Board of Supervisors in conjunction with a special-exception or rezoning approval, the county’s letter read.
County officials gave the Harrisons 60 days to immediately cease and desist land-disturbing activities in the RPA and obtain an approved water-quality impact assessment to show how uses within the RPA comply with the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Ordinance.
Alternately, they could obtain a land-disturbance permit and approved water-quality impact assessment to remove the offending encroachments and restore the RPA.
If they fail to comply, they would be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor, with a separate violation occurring each day afterward, and face civil fines of up to $5,000 per day, officials wrote.
The Harrisons bought the property for $1.85 million in December 2022 from Thomas Tellez. The site’s two-story, 5,347-square-foot house was built in 1979 and is located on a 21,387-square-foot lot, or nearly half an acre.
The site’s RPA was established in 2003 and covers about 53 percent of the property, mostly in the rear yard.
The property’s previous owner obtained Fairfax County permission for several improvements, including:
• In December 2010, a sunroom renovation and open deck built on the existing concrete pad.
• In March 2011, the addition of a 176-square-foot covered front porch.
• In April 2011, an addition to the open deck with no increase in impervious-surface area.
But the improvements cited in the violation notice were constructed between 2011 and 2013 without county approval, officials said.
In an April 14, 2023, letter to Bill Hicks, director of Fairfax County Land Development Services, the Harrisons’ attorney, Shane Murphy, conveyed the couple’s request that the county reconsider and rescind the notice of violation.
The Harrisons were “completely unaware of any alleged violations” when they purchased the property, despite their due diligence, Murphy wrote. The couple were in the process of researching permits issued to the property’s previous owner and engaging a civil engineer to advise them on proper corrective actions, his letter read.
“Because the Harrisons have not performed any land-disturbing activities during their ownership of the property and have no plans to perform any land-disturbing activities until and unless the proper permits are issued, we assert the [notice of violation] is both unnecessary and legally deficient,” Murphy wrote.
The Harrisons, who also received a separate notice alleging violation of the county’s Erosion and Sediment Control Ordinance, on April 19 last year appealed the notice of violation from Land Development Services.
County staff in background materials for the Board of Supervisors’ May 21 meeting said the Harrisons’ appeal had questioned the accuracy of the RPA’s delineation, but the county had not received from the couple an updated RPA-boundary study performed by an engineer.
While the county gave the Harrisons copies of RPA waivers and associated permits concerning other improvements made at the site, there was no evidence of previous county permits approving the RPA encroachments cited in the violation notice, they wrote.
The Harrisons’ written appeal “sets forth no reason why the notice of violation was improper,” said Stephen Strackbein, a compliance administrator with Land Development Services, told supervisors May 21. Since filing their appeal, the only subsequent contact with the appellants has occurred via the county attorney’s office, he said.
The Board of Supervisors approved a motion by Supervisor Kathy Smith (D-Sully) to deny the couple’s appeal.
“The appellants had not presented evidence that those improvements were approved by the county or were otherwise permitted under the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Ordinance,” Smith said.
“This is the first time we’ve seen an issue exactly like this come to the board before,” noted Chairman Jeff McKay (D).
