Supervisors OK Split Of Child Care Center Property

HERNDON, VA — The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved a special exception amendment Tuesday, allowing the owner of a piece of property along Centreville Road south of the Town of Herndon to adjust the lot lines of his property.

The 2.61 acre property, which is situated east of Centreville Road and south of the West Ox Road intersection, consists of two lots. The first lot contains the Happy Heart Children’s Center, two large play areas, and a parking lot. The second lot contains a single-family detached dwelling.

The entire property is in the R-1 District and has a conservation easement for stormwater management. Both lots access Centreville Road through a shared commercial driveway.

When the overall property was originally developed, the single-family detached dwelling was established as a residential building or a "caretaker's house" associated with the child care center. For this reason, both lots fell under the special exemption for the child care center.

The applicant, Centreville Road LC, no longer wanted to have the residential building associated with the child care center and applied for a special exception amendment with the county to sever the relationship between the lots. In so doing, the applicant sought to remove the residential lot from the special exception governing the child care center. The applicant had no other plans to alter the child care center or residential dwelling.

Since the stormwater of the overall property is managed by a conservation easement on the residential lot, the property owner agreed to install a curb and gutter along the edge of the parking lot to channel runoff into a filtera structure at the southwestern corner of the parking lot.

Once the lots are severed, both properties will continue to access Centreville Road via the child care center's commercial driveway.

County staff recommended the application be approved provided transitional screening requirements are met and the Board directs the director of Land Development Services to approve a waiver to build a third lane of Centreville Road. This last item reaffirms a waiver already on the property from the earlier special exception.

The Fairfax County Planning Commission approved the application on May 6, and the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve the application including staff's recommendations on Tuesday.