Arlington ruling a bad omen for ZFH Ordinance
On Friday September 27, 2024, the plaintiffs who brought a similar lawsuit against Arlington County contesting the Upzoning "Missing Middle" ordinance prevailed. Ruling from the bench, Judge David S. Schell found that the Arlington board of Supervisors acted contrary to Virginia law. Back on August 26, 2024, Judge Schell ruled that while CLA did not have standing in the lawsuit because it does not own property in Alexandria; however, he also ruled the remaining plaintiffs do have standing denying the city's motion to have the lawsuit dismissed. The plaintiffs filed an amendment to the January 17, 2024, to the Complaint for Declaratory Relief against the City of Alexandria over a December 2023 decision to eliminate single-family zoning protections for housing. The lawsuit, filed in the Circuit Court for the City of Alexandria, alleges violations of state laws governing zoning procedures under city charter. You can download the court filing below.
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The Coalition For A Livable Alexandria
3008 Dartmouth Road
Alexandria VA, 22314
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Preliminary Assessment of the Proposed 2023 ZFH Initiatives
On September 5, 2023, the City rolled out summaries (but not the actual language) of its proposed comprehensive rewrite of the City's zoning code, Zoning for Housing. Nowhere in the 30-page document does it explain why these changes are intrinsically interconnected and unsuited for standalone consideration.
While the City maintains the “Zoning for Housing/Housing for All” tagline, the proposal doesn't mention the City's previously expressed goals of expanding housing production and affordability or addressing past and current barriers to equal housing access. By the City’s own estimate, these “reforms” will do little to solve housing affordability. Instead, they would create more favorable conditions for developers of luxury housing, and lead to increased gentrification. We are not opposed to fair zoning reform when it is a proven remedy for a defined problem with tangible public benefits. Despite the proposal failing to meet this simple test, we attempted to find areas where we might be able to find common ground.
