Historic District Lawsuits

This site was originally started to document the abuse and inconsistencies within the Windover Heights Historic District. A quick synopsis of Vienna "historic" politics:

1. Nothing Historic; No Preservation
   The Historic District is not about 'preservation'. Guess the "historic" houses now?
2. No Objective Standards Exist
   There are no rules, guidelines or standards. The rules are made up on the fly.
3. Color Insanity
   Read these three links (1, 2, 3). Understand the rules on "color" now?
4. No Inventory or Structure Survey
   The Town conducted no structure inventory when the District was created.
5. Manipulation and Fraud
   Historic Vienna, Inc. changes brochures to manipulate.
6. Special Treatment Given to Some
   A new house was added for no cogent reason and without Board approval.
7. Changing Borders Create Inequalities
   Borders have been modified to let properties in and out of the District.
8. Past Attempts to Fix Have Failed
   The Town suspended the Historic District during 1991-92.
9. Lower Property Values
   The District is used to cause economic harm. It's a game of 'favorites'.
10. Intentional Acts; Purposeful Ignorance
    Town officials know their Historic District is unconstitutional. The Council would rather waste tax dollars and let the courts strike a bad law down.

Feedback from Town resident:

The Windover Heights Historic District appears to be not about historic preservation, but all about neighborhood preservation. A group of individuals operating within the Town government under the guise of historic preservation are self-empowered to judge what a property owner can and cannot do with their property within this district according to their own subjective opinion of what they like and don't like. They have aborted any legitimacy of this district allegedly formed for historic preservation by their unprofessional, capricious, and self-serving decisions to allow or not allow development within the district. Take a 'Walk on the Hill' and you will see an exclusive westward hilltop neighborhood in Vienna that has a lot of pretty houses and much new development. The historic district is not about history; it is about select property owners being allowed to control what gets built next door. The Town can not win any lawsuits over this charade and should stop wasting our tax dollars defending this unfounded "historic district". It is not unreasonable to want to control development in a cutesy section of Town, but it is unacceptable to attempt to do so under a false and arbitrary pretense of historic preservation and with no legal basis. I wonder why the Town newsletter doesn't mention that the Town is being sued? It's all rather embarassing, I suspect!