Marcia Nordgren says she bought her house — a cream-colored, four-bedroom Cape Cod nestled on a ridge in the D.C. suburbs — specifically because it was in “a leafy, low-density” neighborhood.
In the two decades since she and her husband purchased the property for $1.5 million, the area stayed that way. And that was by design: Local laws meant that only single-family houses could be built in this corner of booming Northern Virginia.
Last year, though, lawmakers in Arlington County tossed out those rules with a landmark zoning change that mirrors similar efforts in cities and suburbs around the country. Many of Nordgren’s neighbors can now replace their…
