Lawsuit Contests End of of Single-Family Zoning in Alexandria

Last November, the city of Alexandria became the second Virginia jurisdiction to eliminate single-family zoning in a bid to increase affordable housing. Now a local civic group created last year to preserve the city’s single-family neighborhoods has filed a lawsuit, reports Teo Armus of the Washington Post.

“The lawsuit, filed in Alexandria Circuit Court this week, argues that the Northern Virginia city violated its charter as well as the Virginia Constitution by loosening zoning rules last year for its more suburban residential areas but failing to adequately study how those changes would the impact the real estate market or the city’s infrastructure,” Armus writes. The city of Alexandria, the city council, and the city’s planning commission as defendants.

The plan was part of a broader package of changes called the “Zoning for Housing” effort and allows for buildings up to four units on lots currently zoned single-family and was approved by the Alexandria City Council unanimously. 

According to the Washington Post, the move “mirrors a similar push by at least four states and a growing number of localities — including in nearby Arlington County — to roll back single-family zoning laws, an increasingly popular idea among city planners and urbanist groups who point out those laws were first implemented to keep out people of color.” Lawsuits have been filed around many of those efforts as well; a case in Arlington will go to trial this summer.

Alexandria’s city planners project only around 66 of the city’s 9,000 single-family lots will be converted to multifamily over the next decade, adding about 150 to 178 housing units. But opponents say the studies conducted do not show how the policy change would result in affordable housing or increased resident diversity or prevent developers from replacing older, smaller homes with luxury four-unit buildings. “The lawsuit also charges that no studies were conducted to examine how increased density might affect traffic, schools, first responders or sewer pipes — in violation of the Alexandria city charter and city’s comprehensive plan,” Amos reports.