Phoebe Coy of YIMBYs of Northern Virginia celebrates the Whitley Phase 2 housing approval but argues it exemplifies a flawed process in the following Letter to the Editor.
She contends that requiring City Council approval for nearly every housing project due to zoning, parking, or density bonus rules creates unnecessary delays and burdens the Council. Coy calls for zoning reforms to empower the Planning Commission to approve more housing directly, streamlining the response to Alexandria’s housing shortage.
The Letter to the Editor is in response to our recent story on Whitley Place – Plan to convert Old Towne Motel property into luxury condos heading to Planning Commission.
Disclaimer: The views or opinions expressed within this letter to the editor are those of the author and are not necessarily the views of ALXnow or its advertisers. Have an opinion that you’d like to share? Read more about speaking your mind through ALXnow Letter to the Editor here.
Letter to the Editor
The City Council’s approval of the Whitley Phase 2 development in Old Town North is great news. It will convert a stalled construction site for a hotel to 48 desperately needed new homes to help address our housing shortage emergency. However, it’s also an example of why Alexandria should let the Planning Commission do its job and approve housing. Let me explain.
In my time volunteering with YIMBYs of Northern Virginia, I have learned a lot about how housing gets approved in Alexandria. First, any proposed development is extensively reviewed by city staff. Then, any housing development that will build three or more homes goes before the Planning Commission for approval. The Planning Commission is the expert decision-making body for land use in Alexandria. They generally meet once a month to vote on land use matters, and Alexandria residents have the opportunity to share their views on any proposed development with the Commission. In theory, it can stop there – the Planning Commission approves the development. However, there are several reasons why a development has to then go before the City Council for approval, and in practice, one of these reasons applies to nearly every proposed housing development in Alexandria. Some of the most common reasons include:
- Rezoning, or changing the land to a different zone in which the proposed development is allowed
- Building a taller building than allowed by the city’s height limits for that location
- Building less parking than required by the city’s parking minimum policy
- Using the city’s Section 7-700 or “bonus density” policy, in which a developer can build more height and density than would otherwise be allowed in exchange for providing committed affordable homes.
The Whitley Phase 2 development was a triple whammy, requiring the City Council’s approval for a rezoning, parking reduction, and Section 7-700. In fact, 33 apartment, condominium and townhouse developments have been approved in Alexandria since January 2022, and every single one of them required an approval by the City Council. The City Council votes to approve these developments virtually every time, because they rightly recognize that building the homes Alexandria needs to address our housing shortage emergency is important enough to approve exceptions to our extreme 20th-century zoning laws.
So why is it a problem that the City Council has to approve nearly every housing development, if they have a track record of voting yes? First, the additional layer of approval adds time, cost, and risk to the home-building process, and we can’t afford to make it harder to build homes when our housing shortage is hurting so many people now. Second, serving on the City Council is a part-time job, and the more time our hardworking and dedicated Council members have to spend on reviewing exceptions to policy for specific housing developments, the less time they have for developing big-picture solutions to the many issues facing our city.
The good news is, we can fix this with some changes to our zoning policies. While Zoning for Housing was a fantastic step in the right direction, we need bigger changes to let Planning Commission do their job and approve most housing developments. A few of these changes should be:
- Simplify our zones to remove the constant need to rezone individual parcels in order to legalize the proposed housing
- Remove the city’s extreme parking minimum policy, and let the market determine how much parking is actually needed to rent or sell homes
- Modify Section 7-700 so that Planning Commission can approve this important tool to build desperately needed committed affordable homes, rather than requiring Council approval each time
In summary, we can’t afford any red tape that prolongs our housing shortage emergency. Let’s let the Planning Commission do the job they were appointed for, and give the City Council time to do the job they were elected for.
Phoebe Coy
Alexandria lead, YIMBYs of Northern Virginia
