Comments to Alexandria City Council - 17 May 2025

Mayor Gaskins, Vice Mayor Bagley, and members of Council,
As the Alexandria leadership team for YIMBYs of Northern Virginia, we are excited to see several opportunities, both policy changes and individual developments, to add much-needed homes to Alexandria, and we ask you to vote yes on all of them.

First, we’d like to share our enthusiastic support for the zoning text amendments in docket item 13 that will make it faster and easier to build ADUs in Alexandria. ADUs are a great way to add more housing to Alexandria, and removing the redundant ADU permit requirement will remove time and cost from the ADU-building process. Removing the ownership requirement and three-person occupancy limit will also
make building and living in ADUs possible for more Alexandrians.

The Special Use Permit for the Alante and Oliver apartments, in docket items 5 and 6, will add 30 much-needed homes to Alexandria West. These docket items are a perfect case study of how Zoning for Housing has made a positive impact, but more changes are needed. Zoning for Housing removed the “units per acre” requirement in the RA zone, allowing the property owner to convert unused space in the building to additional homes. However, due to Alexandria’s parking minimum policies, this change requires a parking reduction, even hough surveys showed that these properties have plenty of vacant parking spaces to accommodate additional residents. If it weren’t for Alexandria’s parking mandates, these renovations would not require an SUP, and we hope you’ll consider eliminating these unnecessary requirements so that we can end the housing shortage faster.

The Carlyle Block P development, in docket item 7, will add 186 much-needed senior living homes to a currently empty lot in the walkable Carlyle neighborhood.

The Westridge Towns development, in docket item 12, will create 19 net new homes close to the transportation improvements coming with the Duke Street in Motion project, including one committed affordable homeownership opportunity. Considering the urgency of adding more committed affordable homes to our city, Section 7-700 should be modified to allow these requests to be approved by Planning Commission, rather than requiring a Council vote.

We hope Alexandria will continue to welcome new homes of all types, all price points, and in all parts of our city to address our regional housing crisis and make our city better for everyone.

YIMBYs of Northern Virginia Alexandria leads