Town Council To Adopt Home Building Height , Handicapped Ramp Amendments

The Vienna Town Council will vote to adopt new regulations for home building height and residential handicapped ramps at its April 4 meeting.

The home building height amendment come after a more than three-year review of home heights in Vienna, Director of Planning and Zoning Greg Hembree told the council at its meeting Monday night.  The issue first arose in 2007, when expressed concern about a large house being built near his own home.

The amendment that Council moved for adoption Monday night would allow town officials to measure height from the finished lot grade at the front wall of the principal building situated closest to the front setback line, to the highest point of the roof.

, Council considered measuring building height from the finished lot grade--the “vertical mid-point between the highest and lowest elevation along the front set-back line"--to the top of the roof.

The most recent amendment better addresses upsloping lots, Hembree said.

 Currently, building height is currently measured from the average elevation of the finished lot grade at the front of the building to the highest point on the roof.

The proposed changes do not alter the town’s current height limit – 35 feet, or two and a half stories – or basement requirements, which say that a basement must be less than 6 feet above the average grade. Proposed changes also add a definition for pre-existing lot grade--the height of the lot before any demolition or grading is done to the property--and allow detached, single family homes to deviate from that grade by three feet.

Town Council will also vote on an amendement that will make it easier for homeowners to apply for handicapped ramps.

The proposed changes would allow residents to request ramp permits directly from Hembree, instead of through the Zoning Board of Appeals, which often takes far too long for people that need the ramp right away, Hembree said.

After a demonstration of need, Hembree will be able to grant homeowners permission to build handicap ramps and keep them on their property for a period of up to five years, so long as they meet Americans with Disability Act requirements and stand 10 feet from the front and back setbacks, and five feet from side property lines. The permits  would be renewable as long as there was continued proof of need -- they would not transfer automatically with the sale of the home, Hembree said.

There are at least five homeowners who are currently waiting for approval on a handicapped ramp, Hembree said.