Residents fighting plans to designate small private road as only access point to new housing development
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| Brooks Place |
The Virginia Department of Transportation accepted Brooks Place into the state road system on March 11.
That’s significant, because it would legitimize Brooks Place as the only way to access a by-right housing development under construction on Sleepy Hollow Road called Hudson Quarter.
Public officials indicate this is a done deal. Residents of Lake Barcoft and the Malbrook community claim there is no legal basis for this decision and are continuing to challenge it. They say it’s an administrative decision that can be easily reversed.
The Gulick Group is building 18 single-family houses on what had been a wooded property owned by George Glavis. To access the new development, the Gulick Group would extend Brooks Place beyond the cul-de-sac where eight single-family houses were built in 2017-18.
Nearby residents are fighting the developer’s plan to make Brooks Place the only access point to those houses.
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| The new houses are being constructed on the Glavis property between Sleepy Hollow Road, Malbrook Drive, Glavis Road, and Sleepy Hollow United Methodist Church. |
The residents argue that having Brooks Place as the only access point would result in over 170 daily vehicle trips on Crosswoods Drive, Dearborn Drive, and surrounding streets. Most of those streets don’t have sidewalks, so the increased traffic would create serious safety issues for pedestrians.
Related story: Lake Barcroft, Malbrook residents oppose access plan for new houses on Sleepy Hollow Road
According to Lake Barcroft resident Larry Golfer, “even by-right development plans still have to follow the law and codes regarding subdivisions.” That includes the requirement that subdivisions have “access to existing state-maintained streets,” and a section of Brooks Place was not a state road when the subdivision plans were originally approved.
A Jan. 27 letter from the Lake Barcroft Association to state Sens. Dick Saslaw and Dave Marsden, Del. Kaye Kory, and Mason Supervisor Penny Gross called for a new entrance on Sleepy Hollow Road to provide access to Hudson Quarter.
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| The future Hudson Quarter development. |
A March 18 email from VDOT official Houda Ali says a connection to Sleepy Hollow Road “would create a conflict with the intersection spacing requirement in the VDOT Road Design Manual.” The steep grade for an access road would also be a challenge, Ali states, and “may require the construction of retaining walls and may impact the number of lots that would be feasible.”
A Feb. 12 response from Gross says it’s basically up to VDOT, not the county, to make a decision on this issue.
“Decisions about ingress and egress for subdivision roads fall under the authority of VDOT because the road eventually will be accepted into the state system for maintenance,” Gross stated. “The role of the Fairfax County Department of Transportation (FCDOT) for by-right developments is very limited.”
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| The cul-de-sac on Brooks Place, where the road would be extended to the new development. |
The residents believe they have an advantage in this issue because, according to a 1947 covenant for the Malbrook neighborhood, Malbrook controls Brooks Place.
The letter from Gross states “the covenant still exists but a 1947 subdivision plat confirms that what is now known as Brooks Place was dedicated for public street purposes.”
In 2016, nearby residents filed suit to stop the extension of Brooks Place to facilitate the development of the eight houses, citing the 1947 covenants, but lost in court.
The court found the covenants inapplicable, Gross states “and did not interfere with constructing a public street there.”
In November 2020, “the county released the subdivision bond for Brooks Place, and I officially offered the newly constructed section of the roadway to VDOT for inclusion in the state secondary system,” the letter from Gross continues.
Related story: Housing development planned for Sleepy Hollow Road
An article in the Lake Barcroft newsletter, LakeLink, by Golfer, says he and Malbrook resident Darren Gruendel “waded deep into the applicable laws, codes, and history of this issue and have yet to see definitive evidence that Fairfax County and VDOT followed all state and local laws/codes to approve [Hudson Quarter] and its use of Brooks Place as the access point into and out of it.”
Golfer and Gruendel maintain that the approval of Brooks Place into the state system “did not, in fact, follow the law and codes of the county and state, and this is illegal.”
For the county to approve a subdivision plan without access to a state-maintained road, there would have to be documentation showing that requirement was waived. But there is no evidence in documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act that such a waiver or exception was approved.
The logical access for the new Hudson Quarter development “would appear to be from the property’s extensive frontage on Sleepy Hollow Road,” the article states. The developers are already using a temporary road from Sleepy Hollow for their construction vehicles. “So, the question is: Why wouldn’t the finished development use the same or similar access on Sleepy Hollow Road into and out of the new development?”
Thank you, Ellie, for your very clear and straightforward description of this situation. We in Lake Barcroft and in the Malbrook neighborhood will continue to advocate for a reversal of the approval of tiny Brooks Place as the sole access for this development, which not only includes 170 added vehicle trips per day (private cars, delivery trucks, contractor and vendor vehicles) but the approximately 75 vehicle trips generated by the existing eight homes cul-de-sac on the edge of the new development, totally 245 vehicle trips per day in and out of Brooks Place.
In the interests of the safety and welfare of our neighborhood residents who walk, run, bike and push baby strollers in our streets where there are no sidewalks, both in Lake Barcroft and in the Malbrook neighborhood, we hope to persuade our elected State and local officials and VDOT to reconsider its decision and have the developer design a cul-de-sac for access directly out of the new development onto Sleepy Hollow Road, with no connections directly into Lake Barcroft and Malbrook.
We keep missing the main point here, folks.
We know it was illegal because VDOT said so. VDOT is the organization that rejected the plan because it violated the codes (in their 6/1/2018 notice to the County), they further said that the plan "should not be resubmitted until that issue has been addressed." (direct quote).
Then, Supervisor Gross intervened, beyond the scope of her role, on behalf the developer (whose wife is also a County Supervisor) and called a meeting to discuss this situation. It is important to note that the County at this very same time communicated to the Malbrook residents that the plan had been disapproved.
The developer then buys out his sister for $3.6MM, presumably due to the disapproved plan. Then, after ultimately getting whatever conditional approvals Penny and her staff asked for and apparently received, he sells it to the current developer for $7.2MM! It's all in the land records, folks – go look for yourself.
Again, it is important to note that there are no provisions in the code for conditional or temporary approvals and the most important item: VDOT will not explain why they backed down to the County's inappropriate demands and approved a plan that by their own admission did not meet the code.
Approving the road now sure seems like the best way to try and make this all go away.
The approvals are by no means a done deal – they are administrative in nature and can be revoked as such as well. It's time to demand transparency and for them to get it right. No more favors!
Penny intervened…I've heard that before. The developer's friend. Gotta wonder what was involved
When was the last time Penny Gross did anything to improve the quality of life in the Mason District? She seems like nothing more than a major-league excuse machine.
Penny, wake up and help your residents. You fought to keep your job, even as Mason District perpetually lags on your watch. Fine. Please, work FOR us, not against. This effects 100's of people's quality of life, vs a developer trying to squeeze one more home into the development.
They are right –
Peasants should not be allowed to use roads crossing the wealthy and luxurious estates of Lake Barkroft.
We dont want to create any traffic, blocking the local residents on their demonstration to sympathize with black people who've been displaced (i DO LOVE this term) to build their houses.
WTF?!?
That house looks like a bunch of houses caught up in a crash pile up on a super highway of bad architecture. No scale, every arts and crafts detail employed. Really folks this is what you plowed down trees for, give me a break.
The crap that is being built now is definitely an issue with me. They look cheap and are. You are right that no tree should have been sacrificed for this type of development.
I never have voted for her — why in the name of all that is good haven't some of you guys voted her out. You certainly can advocate for your space. Why didn't you use that same energy to get her out. I have no sympathy. She is all for development — and not for the good of her constituents. This is her legacy and yet she has been supported. Disgusting.
I agree 100% with the previous comment. Why do you all keep voting for any Democrat supervisor? This is what FxCo residents get all of the time. You get what you vote for.