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Saturday, June 19, 2010

Chesapeake Bay Resource Protection Areas

The average home owner may never think about easements on their land but they exist whether they are caused by a road, utility, or just a protected area. After TheFEMAIntern tipped us off to 7301 Pimmit Ct. being in a 100 year flood plain we went into the county to pull the Stormwater Management Maps. To do this use the Fairfax County Digital Map Viewer. As you can see the full map doesn't look like anything special until you zoom in.

When you zoom in you can see that almost the entire property, along with most houses on the South East side of Pimmit Dr. and Pimmit Ct. are in the what Fairfax County classifies as a paved ditch overflow area (floodplain). There is also a grass ditch that is down the street that homeowners looking in Pimmit Hills should keep in mind.


As luck would have it I decided to play with some of the other maps available and came across the Chesapeake Bay Map. Now normally you wouldn't think anything relates to the Chesapeake Bay in Pimmit Hills, but you would be wrong. Apparently it is chocked FULL of easements for Chesapeake Bay Preservation Areas. The point of these easements are to regulate the kinds of development that can occur in sensitive areas along streams that drain into the Potomac River and eventually the bay in Fairfax County. Some of these easements came into effect in 1993 or as late as 2005, so I don't know how much attention these areas got in the real estate boom years.

Now I am not going to go into all the detail of what Resource Protection Area easements mean but needless to say, if you thought possible flooding was bad you only have half the story!

A Chesapeake Bay Resource Protection Area (RPA) limits what can be built on the property including additions, sheds, and in some cases decks. If you where looking at 7301 Pimmit Ct. for buildable land think again. To do an addition larger than 177 sq. ft. requires a public hearing by the Exceptions Review Committee, public notice in the local newspaper written notice to adjacent property owners, notice to the local civic association, and approval by the Department of Public Works and Environmental Services. With a civic association that was quoted in the Washington Post in 2005 of "including the possibility of filing lawsuits" to keep McMansions out of the area this type of barrier is a high hurdle for anyone considering adding onto the current structure.

One of the most worrisome aspects is as the current addition was not permitted and there is the possibility that should the county prosecute they could assess civil penalties of up to $5,000 for each day of violation.

As 7301 Pimmit Ct. just went under contract I will aim to do an Under Contract Review by next week. Information on this little house has just been jumping lately! After that I promise to provide an update on the 19th St. Property Arlington land only property.

UPDATE: As Matt brought up a lot on the Chesapeake Bay Resource Protection Area could have building that avoids the flooding and Cheasapeake Bay RPA zones by building forward of that line but in the case of this property if you use the maps and the GIS tools provided by Fairfax County you find that the existing footprint and setback requirements take up more area than the house currently sits on so there is no place to build forward. Because the RPA came into existance well after the house was built it was grandfathered in. Now in most areas where the RPA would take effect Fairfax County has parkland. Potentially, and I would have to check the rules again the only option that might exist is to keep the existing original footprint of 884 Sq Ft and build up but (and don't quote me on this part) I think you would have to keep the existing structure and not tear down and rebuild in the existing footprint.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Flood and Flood Insurance

Special thanks to TheFEMAIntern for leaving the comment about one possible reason why the South Eastern side of Pimmit Drive may be listed as Buildable-Poor Lots. It was previously mentioned that the properties this street, including 7301 Pimmit Ct. and 2045 Pimmit Dr., are in front of a drainage culvert that is at the edge of Lemon Road Park, well apparently those flood! And the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) knows that and provides maps and insurance for the areas that may flood.

These houses are in a "Special Flood Hazard Area" also known as a 100-year flood zone. I put in a couple calls to insurance companies, and without going into too much detail the additional cost for policies in this are are between $400 and $2,000 per year and the maximum insurable structure cannot excede $250,000. It also means that any addition would need to be less than $150,000 as any change that is over 50% of market value causes the entire structure to have to be brought into compliance with the current floodplain requirments.

That effectivly kills the idea of building a mini mansion on these lots as the value of 884 sq. ft. structures in this area is already around $130,000 and the total assessed value is around $300,000 according to the 2010 tax assessments.