When the argument of the neighbors fighting the Karig development boils down to an objection to building on marine clay, can't we all admit that they have lost the argument, and that it is time to move on? Practically the entire City of Alexandria is built on marine clay. Should we just quit building altogether?
Why do the neighbors have the right to tell a lot owner what he can or should do with a property that is rightfully his, and which the neighbors have been reaping an aesthetic benefit from for decades, without compensation to the owner? Their complaints about nebulous issues like water runoff and marine clay are only a desperate last attempt to try to stop something that they don't have the right to stop. City guidelines regarding control and containment of water runoff for new construction are so strict, that the water issues the neighbors are currently experiencing will likely improve once these homes are built.
The opposition from the Beth El congregation is also disingenuous. Their massive non-porous asphalt parking lot is undoubtedly the largest culprit of any of the neighbors' water runoff problems. And the neighbors also forget that this project was initially approved for five homes several years ago. They are fortunate that the owner is now only requesting four. Four houses on three acres is hardly out of character, nor a burden for that neighborhood.
The fight to stop this by-right development is a waste of taxpayer money, which has funded a staff report that is now several hundred pages longer than it needed to be. And to what end? Isn't private property ownership a foundational principle of the Virginia Constitution? City Council must take a stand and allow the Karig development to move forward without further delay. It is not right that these projects take not months, but years to get through the city processes. Simple development projects should be left in the hands of the experts — city staff and the planning commission, not become a political football at the council level. That is completely unfair to the taxpaying property owner, who incurs tens of thousands of dollars in carrying costs and legal fees defending his basic American right.
Stephen Hales
Alexandria