BZA Approves Variance for Falls Church Tree House With a 5-0 Vote

For at least the next 5-years, the debate over if a should be torn down over a zoning ordinance is over.

Wednesday the Fairfax County Board of Zoning Appeals voted unanimously in favor of a variance for the accessory structure that will keep the tree house in the front yard of the home.

“They made the right decision to save the tree house,” said 9-year-old Sean Grapin who was worried about the tree house his dad built for he and his brother before the board’s approval of the variance Wednesday.

The tree house gained international attention after the BZA voted 4-3 in favor of not approving a variance to keep the tree house on Sept. 21. An online petition on Change.org gathered about 1,600 signatures in favor of keeping the tree house with more than 600 of the votes coming from Fairfax County residents, said Jess Leber, a spokeswoman for the website. Over the next 5-years, Mark Grapin, a chief warrant officer in the United Stated Army, will have to maintain the landscaping around the tree house. The five evergreen trees planted in the yard around the structure were placed to provide shading for the tree house from people passing by on the street.

For several weeks Grapin, a war veteran, battled to keep the tree house he designed and built for his sons Eric, 11, and Sean up in a tree in the front yard of his home. With more than $1,400 in building supplies and plans he drew up while serving a tour in Iraq, Grapin started construction on the tree house in March. He said he only asked the county once if he needed a permit to build the tree house and was told no. He immediately went to work building the tree house until he received a letter from the county’s Department of Code Compliance in April informing him he was in violation of a zoning ordinance. The ordinance, 10-104(12c), prohibits county residents from building an accessory structure in their front yard. The tree house is built in his front yard.

“I took the first no and ran with it,” Grapin said after Wednesday’s meeting. “The biggest lesson earned was not asking more questions.”

BZA member James Hart said he made the motion to approve the variance because the rear yard of the home is shallow and does not have room to place the tree house. He said there was no other place on the lot to place the tree house especially since the home is a corner residence and the front and side yards are one in the same. Hart said the BZA never ordered the tree house be torn down throughout the process.

“That’s something a judge or a fire marshal has to order,” Hart said during the meeting.

A celebration of sorts is in order soon Grapin said. He said he will have some snacks and have some of his son’s friends over to officially open the tree house. In 5-years, Sean will be 14-years-old and Grapin said he is sure his son will be into other things by then.

“At least the boys would have had a tree house growing up,” Grapin said.