Alexandria’s controversial zoning overhaul punctuated the final Democrat City Council candidate forum before the June 18 primary.
Anti-Potomac Yard arena candidate Jonathan Huskey didn’t mince words on his opinions against citywide Zoning for Housing/Housing for All overhaul that eliminated single family zoning and allows developers to build homes with up to four units on any property.
“Eliminating single family zoning was peeing on my shoes and telling me it’s raining progressive or equitable public policy,” Huskey said. “It was not. And by not requiring developers to have any set asides, people on this council have convinced themselves that trickle down economics works as housing policy. It doesn’t. We’ve got to put some other people on council who will actually live our progressive values.”
It wasn’t the first time Huskey criticized the zoning changes in a debate.
The Alexandria Democratic Committee’s debate with 11 City Council candidates was held at the Oswald Durant Center in Old Town. It was moderated by Clark Mercer, executive director of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. A former ADC chair, Mercer spent two hours asking the candidates questions compiled by committee leadership.
City Councilman Kirk McPike defended the overhaul, and said that it included industrial zone changes, expansion improvements, improvements on the city’s office-to-residential conversion program and more.
“And yes, light changes expected to affect about 150 buildings across the 35% of our city, five square miles that are single family homes,” McPike said. “And I’m voting for that because I don’t think my neighborhood should be exempted from addressing a crisis that we’re facing in terms of housing.”
The reform package was unanimously approved last year by City Council also includes expansion of transit-oriented development, reducing parking requirements for single-family homes and analyzing office-to-residential conversions. The effort is meant to increase affordable housing options, as well as eliminate segregationist zoning practices of the past.
Candidate Kevin Harris said that he supports the equity component of the zoning changes.
“The biggest thing for me with zoning for housing is as a Black man, understanding the history of redlining,” Harris said. “I am about dismantling all forms of racism, things that were in place.”
Candidate Charlotte Scherer said that the zoning changes won’t result in more affordable housing.
“It doesn’t address the housing crisis if it doesn’t get new, affordable housing builds,” Scherer said. “My point here is this that developer driven affordable housing is a contradiction in terms.”
Candidate Jimmy Lewis said to prepare for major zoning changes that the city needs to focus on master planning infrastructure improvements.
“Where are the students going to go?” Lewis said. “Do we have enough capacity in our hospital? Do we need more buses in the dash fleet? Do we need more bus stops? I think that’s something also that we need to be very cognizant of as we are talking about bringing more housing.”
Turnout in the June 18 Democrat is expected to be low since this year’s cycle has only the mayor and City Council’s six seats on the ballot.
City Council Member John Taylor Chapman got the most votes in the June 2021 Democrat primary, getting 13,460 votes out of 98,728 registered voters — about 12%. That primary ballot was shared by primaries for Virginia Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, the House of Delegates, Commonwealth’s Attorney, sheriff, mayor, City Council and the School Board.
