The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors last week gave the go-ahead for a new, luxury-townhouse community to be built in the Fairfax Center area.
The neighborhood will be called Fair Oaks, and the homes are expected to sell in the $600,000 price range. They'll be built by Stanley Martin on the south side of Post Forest Drive, east of its intersection with West Ox Road.
THE SITE is on land owned by Bethlehem Baptist Church and zoned for institutional use. The builder needed the county's approval to have it rezoned to R-8 (residential, eight homes per acre) and, last Monday, Nov. 15, the supervisors agreed.
The 73 units will feature attractive architecture in a neo-traditional design. Those along Post Forest Drive will front on it and will be either brick or stone, with landscaping and sidewalk.
A dense stand of mature trees — mixed hardwoods — will be in the central, tree-save area. And the neighborhood will have inter-parcel access to a nearby community being built by Centex Homes.
Fair Oaks will provide 4.24 parking spaces per unit — nearly double the number required by the county. There'll be parallel parking on the streets, plus two spaces per unit and two-car garages for all but nine of the townhouses. These nine — affordable dwelling units (ADUs) — will be scattered throughout the neighborhood and will have one space each and single-car garages.
The three-story townhouses are similar to those already built by Stanley Martin in Woodbridge, Fairfax and Herndon, with the garages under the living areas. That way, people driving down the street won't see the rears of the buildings.
THERE'LL ALSO be a gazebo, an existing trail that goes through the tree-save area, benches and a small "pocket park" at one end of the property. And the applicant has proffered a bus stop along Post Forest Drive, plus $1,000/unit to the Fairfax Center Area Road Fund. And along with Centex, Stanley Martin will pay its pro-rata share for a traffic light at the Legato Road and Post Forest intersection.
Stanley Martin anticipates it will take two years to complete the community. If all goes well, the builder would like to break ground next fall and start construction in 2006. As for the projected price of the units, similar Stanley Martin townhouses in Herndon and near Fairfax's Pan Am Shopping Center have been selling for $600,000.
Attorney Bob Lawrence, representing the applicant, said the roads will be private, "but we'll provide seed money for the homeowners association for snow removal and for repair of the streets. And buyers will know they're expected to participate in the maintenance of these streets."
At an earlier land-use meeting, the question arose whether residents of this new community could write their homeowners association documents so that, for a price, they could be absorbed into a larger community's homeowners association. That way, they'd be able to use that community's amenities, such as a pool, and a Stanley Martin official said they could do that.