Alexandria lawmakers voted unanimously early Wednesday to eliminate single-family-only zoning in this Northern Virginia city, a functionally limited but symbolic and controversial move that opens the door for the construction of buildings with as many as four units in any residential neighborhood.
The vote, which extends a hotly debated trend in urban planning to another corner of the D.C. region, was one of several zoning changes approved as part of the city’s ongoing “Zoning for Housing” initiative.
As housing stock in the D.C. area has failed to keep up with demand, Alexandria officials cast the wide-ranging plan as an effort to increase housing supply and lower costs in their mostly suburban community — specifically, by amending rules on what can be built where.
But much of the public’s attention focused on one piece of the package: a set of zoning changes that will make it easier to put townhouses and small apartment buildings in neighborhoods that had long been reserved for one house with a yard on each lot.
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A growing number of local governments across the D.C. region and around the country have debated whether to adopt their own versions of this policy, which had divided residents over whether it would destroy their neighborhoods or make them more inclusive.
“We’ve all been talking past each other on this issue,” Mayor Justin M. Wilson (D) said. “I think both sides don’t understand the fears and worldview on the other side.”
Still, he said, the contested plan would lead to more housing while incorporating the necessary “guardrails” to address worries about change coming too quickly to the more suburban parts of this historic city.
“Our zoning authority is a powerful tool, and it’s one that it gives us the ability to actually shape the supply of housing in our community,” he said. “These proposals are modest, but I believe they’re good and positive ones in moving the city forward.”
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In nearby Arlington, a similar plan for more “missing middle” housing prompted a fiery, drawn-out discussion ahead of a vote this year and is now the subject of an ongoing lawsuit by 10 homeowners against the county.
Alexandria’s effort was less ambitious — at its most expansive, it allows for four-unit buildings rather than six-unit buildings — and it will affect fewer neighborhoods because much of the city is already zoned to include townhouses or apartments.
Yet even as the plan always seemed on track to get the green light from the city’s all-Democratic council, it drew similar kinds of debate throughout the fall.
Advocates for the policy argued that it would undo the legacy of exclusionary rules and provide less expensive housing options in some areas, although some also called on the city to go further. (The median home price in Alexandria was $617,500 last month, about 1½ times the national figure.)
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Opponents called on the city to slow the rezoning process, charging that it had not informed residents about a policy that could overwhelm city infrastructure. They also said it would increase profits for developers rather than producing affordable housing.
The policy’s impact will ultimately be relatively modest. Any properties built or redeveloped under the new policy must adhere to existing standards that limit the height and footprint of single-family houses. According to projections from Alexandria city planners, only about 66 of the city’s 9,000 single-family lots will be converted to denser housing over the next decade, adding somewhere about 150 to 178 housing units.
As part of the “Zoning for Housing” plan, lawmakers voted to roll back city rules that require off-street parking at residential buildings near Metro stations or rapid bus transit stops. This change will apply to single-family-only neighborhoods such as Seminary Hill, a leafy collection of cul-de-sacs, as well as areas that are largely filled with townhouses, such as historic Old Town.
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City council members also voted to delete a definition of “family” from the city’s zoning code entirely. That piece of code, written more than three decades ago, said no more than four unrelated people could live in one house — a rule that zoning officials said was impossible to enforce and that lawmakers called outdated and unreasonable. (Building codes that determine the maximum number of people who can live in any given house or apartment are passed at the state level and will not be affected by the decision.)
But Roy Byrd, chair of the Coalition for a Livable Alexandria — a group formed to oppose the change — said it underscored his ultimate feeling about the overall proposal.
“I fear that it means that families are no longer a priority for this city,” he said. “There’s going to be a different kind of development, but it’s still going to be unaffordable and it’s going to change the character of the city.”
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Byrd, who owns a three-bedroom house in the Clover College Park area, said most city council members had “dismissed and disparaged” residents who opposed the proposal. They will be to blame when the plan increases Alexandria’s density and overwhelms schools, parks and recreation centers, he added.
“They stirred up something that is not going away. They own it now,” Byrd said. “If it doesn’t work out, I hope that those that voted for it will stand up and say, ‘This is my fault. I take ownership.’”
Marsha Rhea, a leader of the interfaith advocacy group VOICE, predicted a different result. She said the zoning change was an important step to open up the city to more people and more diverse kinds of housing — even if more still needed to be done to support the poorest residents.
“I think you saw two very different visions of what Alexandria should be,” said Rhea, 69, who owns a two-bedroom townhouse in Old Town. “You had people holding on to the privileges they had acquired in the past and you had other people saying, ‘This city is growing, and we welcome that growth.’”
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As she looks to stay in Alexandria during her retirement and “age in place,” she hopes some of the zoning changes may lead to the development of smaller units that are more accessible than her four-story property.
“This is a way forward,” she added. “If you think about it as a three-legged stool, zoning is a pretty important leg in that stool.”
Other measures included in the “Zoning for Housing” package — which drew far less debate or attention — streamlined or tweaked other aspects of the city’s zoning policies in ways that Rhea and other advocates praised as more effective in creating affordable housing.
In particular, the package extends a particular zoning tool — which gives developers the right to build substantially more units in a given building than otherwise allowed — as a way to subsidize more units for the poorest renters. That has created more than 1,800 units — including over 1,000 set aside for affordable housing — in the last decade, and planners expect that it could have similar results moving forward.
For all the changes to go into effect, council members must now approve an ordinance enacting them — something they are likely to do next month.
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