Fast and Loose with People's Lives
Before the 2004 abuse of property rights here, the same abuse of property rights was seen in 1999 when the Windover Heights Board of Review, led by historic hypocrite Laine Hyde, denied a proposed new house. What did the house Laine Hyde and Frank Lillis work to deny look like?
Here are some excerpts from that now infamous (and still very relevant) 1999 meeting:
After the ordinance was passed and the Town Council and residents successfully quashed some challenges, younger couples bought houses and spent significant monies on repair, additions and landscaping. Other properties felt comfortable in spending significant monies to upgrade their houses and property. The proposals before you do not belong in this historic district. In 20 years these are the most horrendous proposals made to the board. They belong somewhere else, not even in this Town of Vienna. The house proposed to face Windover Ave. bears similarity to the Amphora and the Steak and Ale on route 123, however the Steak and Ale has real brick. It is obvious that this developer is only interested in the highest return for his investment and to hell with the neighborhood. Please for the sake of all the residents of the Windover area who have fought successfully for over 50 years to preserve a piece of old Vienna, reject these proposals.
Frank Lillis
They are massive. I know the Board does not consider size, but the board does consider relation to buildings in the area.
Frank Lillis
This board approved the Anderson application I guess it was last year. Look at the Anderson house. Look at the characteristics that it picks up. If you look at that house closely you can see a lot of features that are repeated throughout the neighborhood. Turrets, the shingles, but look at this house that you are looking at tonight. It is totally unique as Mr. Lillis says that much mass in the roof there is not style to that house. It is a hodge podge design. It is southern living and we don't have southern living here. We have a lot of eclectic houses that give a lot of vibrancy to this neighborhood, but we don't have massive houses that look like this that pick up nothing of anything around that neighborhood. Any house you consider must have scale with the other houses in the neighborhood. Like the Anderson house this particular location is critical to the District because it is a very prominent corner. It is a very, very important piece of property. The scale of this house is wrong. Its overpowering. Its massive. Its hodge podge.
Chuck Sloan
Building [243 Church Street Marco Polo building] is in harmony with the old and historic aspect of the surroundings.
Frank Lillis
There isn't a roof like that in the whole area, that's number one. And there isn't another house in the District that has faux stone. That doesn't by itself reject it, but if you take the mass, the relationship to other houses, the size of that roof, and the house -- taking it all together it just doesn't fit into the District.
Frank Lillis
In voting against this new house Historic Review Board member Laine Hyde opined:
My concern is only the appropriateness for the neighborhood. As Mr. Sloan says I don't think any feature, any, any single feature is any way reminiscent or evocative of the historic district or feels of a historic district. I don't have a problem with the size of the house. It is the mass of the house. I make a distinction between those two things.
In voting against this new house Historic Review Board member Fred Skaer opined:
One of the challenges in harmonizing with the neighborhood is there are a number of properties that post date the period of historical significance, but predate the ordinance. So you do get a variety of colonial styles or belong on a plantation down south somewhere and others that are very much what was in vogue in the 1960's. So it is tough to say what harmonizes and what doesn't. I feel like other styles would fit much better with the neighborhood, but where we as a Board should draw the line I am having a tough time with that. Tonight's discussion has helped a little, but not a whole lot.
The man hoping to build his house at the time was asked if he was aware that the ordinance calls for "compatibility"? He responded:
I don't know what you mean by compatibility? If I were to walk down that street I don't know what you would say is compatible. There are a lot of different houses, some beautiful, some not so beautiful. But this is certainly not Savannah, Georgia. I don't see any great compatibility already in the neighborhood.
After digesting all of this consider what Laine Hyde's "massive" roof looks like:
Who in their right mind would want to subject themselves to this type of inconsistent and arbitrary nonsense?
