Fire guts vacant house in Seven Corners
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| This house was unoccupied when it burned down. [Photo by Lisa Kirk] |
A house on the Route 50 service road near Olin Drive in Seven
Corners was totally gutted by fire last week. The house had been vacant and was in bad
shape. The Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Departmenthas not yet determined the cause. A guy on the cleanup crew told a bystander the fire was started by a homeless person squatting in the house who was trying to warm up.
The fire department didn’t put out a news release on the fire because “the structure had little or no value,” said Capt. I. Randal Bittinger
of the fire department. News releases are only published if the property loss exceeds $50,000, he said.
Several years ago, the owner of that house
and another one next to it wanted to tear them both down and put up a
four-story commercial building with medical offices. The Lee Boulevard Heights Citizens
Association opposed that plan, which was never implemented. The house was later purchased by a couple of orthodontists who wanted to open up a practice there.That never happened, either.
4 responses to “Fire guts vacant house in Seven Corners”
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More urban blight, sounds like DC 30 years ago.
Guess the new rules didn't come in time for this derelict property.
I think this must be a new model home for Mason District.
Well, the Lee Boulevard Heights Citizens Association opposed a four-story commercial building with medical offices (reasons for the opposition not noted) so instead the Association has at least one vacant (now burnt out) property in its neighborhood.
As many commenters on this site have debated in other contexts, while a neighborhood's citizens have every right to oppose projects developers are interested in building because the project is not an appropriate fit for the neighborhood, if the project doesn't get built the land remains barren (or unused/underused) in the meantime.