Alexandria on the Cusp of Eliminating All SFH Zoning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failing schools, imploding commercial real estate, and murders are not quite enough to destroy Alexandria, so the Council is a freight train about to vote on Tuesday to eliminate all SFH zoning. Yay.

Hooray!

Don't worry, OP, they are not eliminating detached one-unit residential buildings. They are simply eliminating zoning that bans everything except detached one-unit residential buildings. Property owners - like you - will now have more options for your property.

This!

You know what pays for all the stuff you want, OP? Property tax dollars. From incremental smart development like the ones in this package of reforms.

You can keep your SFH but when you go to sell it, it may sell for more because there will be more options for what it can become, and that will lead to both more tax dollars and more residents as one large house becomes four smaller ones in some places, especially places that support transit. Win-win-win-win.

NP here. I thought the entire premise of upzoning is that it will increase the supply of “affordable” housing and decrease the average price of housing, thereby making housing more affordable. At least that’s what several members of city council ran on and the mayor has been pushing. And now PP is claiming that upzoning is for increasing the collected real property taxes.

Which is it?

The entire premise of zoning changes to allow a wider range of housing types is: to allow a wider range of housing types. This will have many benefits.

A wide range of housing types is already available. What are these “benefits” of eliminating SFH zoning in Alexandria?

If a wide range of housing types were already widely available, there would be no need for zoning reform.

Why is it so important to you to maintain large areas in Alexandria where the only permitted housing type is a detached house with a yard?

[Anonymous]

"Destiny! Destiny! No escaping that for me!
Alexandria finally fulfilling its destiny, becoming the DC! As it once was part of, before DC gave it back to Virginia. But unlike the District, it does not get money from the congress. So it needs to increase its tax base.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failing schools, imploding commercial real estate, and murders are not quite enough to destroy Alexandria, so the Council is a freight train about to vote on Tuesday to eliminate all SFH zoning. Yay.

Hooray!

Don't worry, OP, they are not eliminating detached one-unit residential buildings. They are simply eliminating zoning that bans everything except detached one-unit residential buildings. Property owners - like you - will now have more options for your property.

Great, so our neighbors can build condos next to our bedrooms and destroy the single family neighborhood we love.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failing schools, imploding commercial real estate, and murders are not quite enough to destroy Alexandria, so the Council is a freight train about to vote on Tuesday to eliminate all SFH zoning. Yay.

Hooray!

Don't worry, OP, they are not eliminating detached one-unit residential buildings. They are simply eliminating zoning that bans everything except detached one-unit residential buildings. Property owners - like you - will now have more options for your property.

This!

You know what pays for all the stuff you want, OP? Property tax dollars. From incremental smart development like the ones in this package of reforms.

You can keep your SFH but when you go to sell it, it may sell for more because there will be more options for what it can become, and that will lead to both more tax dollars and more residents as one large house becomes four smaller ones in some places, especially places that support transit. Win-win-win-win.

NP here. I thought the entire premise of upzoning is that it will increase the supply of “affordable” housing and decrease the average price of housing, thereby making housing more affordable. At least that’s what several members of city council ran on and the mayor has been pushing. And now PP is claiming that upzoning is for increasing the collected real property taxes.

Which is it?

The entire premise of zoning changes to allow a wider range of housing types is: to allow a wider range of housing types. This will have many benefits.

A wide range of housing types is already available. What are these “benefits” of eliminating SFH zoning in Alexandria?

If a wide range of housing types were already widely available, there would be no need for zoning reform.

Why is it so important to you to maintain large areas in Alexandria where the only permitted housing type is a detached house with a yard?

What do you have against people wanting to live in neighborhoods like this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failing schools, imploding commercial real estate, and murders are not quite enough to destroy Alexandria, so the Council is a freight train about to vote on Tuesday to eliminate all SFH zoning. Yay.

Hooray!

Don't worry, OP, they are not eliminating detached one-unit residential buildings. They are simply eliminating zoning that bans everything except detached one-unit residential buildings. Property owners - like you - will now have more options for your property.

This!

You know what pays for all the stuff you want, OP? Property tax dollars. From incremental smart development like the ones in this package of reforms.

You can keep your SFH but when you go to sell it, it may sell for more because there will be more options for what it can become, and that will lead to both more tax dollars and more residents as one large house becomes four smaller ones in some places, especially places that support transit. Win-win-win-win.

NP here. I thought the entire premise of upzoning is that it will increase the supply of “affordable” housing and decrease the average price of housing, thereby making housing more affordable. At least that’s what several members of city council ran on and the mayor has been pushing. And now PP is claiming that upzoning is for increasing the collected real property taxes.

Which is it?

The entire premise of zoning changes to allow a wider range of housing types is: to allow a wider range of housing types. This will have many benefits.

It will eliminate single family home neighborhoods. That is the entire point of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failing schools, imploding commercial real estate, and murders are not quite enough to destroy Alexandria, so the Council is a freight train about to vote on Tuesday to eliminate all SFH zoning. Yay.

Hooray!

Don't worry, OP, they are not eliminating detached one-unit residential buildings. They are simply eliminating zoning that bans everything except detached one-unit residential buildings. Property owners - like you - will now have more options for your property.

The developers have more options and the economy of scale favors apartment buildings so that's what will be built. If you bought a SFH in a neighborhood of SFHs, tough luck. This will destroy the charm of Del Ray.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failing schools, imploding commercial real estate, and murders are not quite enough to destroy Alexandria, so the Council is a freight train about to vote on Tuesday to eliminate all SFH zoning. Yay.

Hooray!

Don't worry, OP, they are not eliminating detached one-unit residential buildings. They are simply eliminating zoning that bans everything except detached one-unit residential buildings. Property owners - like you - will now have more options for your property.

Oh, yes. Don't worry, no one will force demotion of your single family house.

What this means is that if you live on a street currently zoned for single family homes, your neighbor can sell their house to a developer who could throw up a multistory, multiunit apartment building as a matter of right.. There would be no review, no consideration of impacts, and no process in which you can submit a comment.

Um, yes? And you could do that too. You own your property. You don't own your neighbor's property. Your neighbor doesn't own your property.

This is why we have zoning. The Alexandria proposal deregulates a substantial part of the zoning restrictions in current neighborhoods of single family houses.

You will still have zoning. This is reform of the zoning system, not abolition of the zoning system.

You are so grossly disingenuous, dear builder.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failing schools, imploding commercial real estate, and murders are not quite enough to destroy Alexandria, so the Council is a freight train about to vote on Tuesday to eliminate all SFH zoning. Yay.

Hooray!

Don't worry, OP, they are not eliminating detached one-unit residential buildings. They are simply eliminating zoning that bans everything except detached one-unit residential buildings. Property owners - like you - will now have more options for your property.

This!

You know what pays for all the stuff you want, OP? Property tax dollars. From incremental smart development like the ones in this package of reforms.

You can keep your SFH but when you go to sell it, it may sell for more because there will be more options for what it can become, and that will lead to both more tax dollars and more residents as one large house becomes four smaller ones in some places, especially places that support transit. Win-win-win-win.

NP here. I thought the entire premise of upzoning is that it will increase the supply of “affordable” housing and decrease the average price of housing, thereby making housing more affordable. At least that’s what several members of city council ran on and the mayor has been pushing. And now PP is claiming that upzoning is for increasing the collected real property taxes.

Which is it?

The entire premise of zoning changes to allow a wider range of housing types is: to allow a wider range of housing types. This will have many benefits.

A wide range of housing types is already available. What are these “benefits” of eliminating SFH zoning in Alexandria?

If a wide range of housing types were already widely available, there would be no need for zoning reform.

Why is it so important to you to maintain large areas in Alexandria where the only permitted housing type is a detached house with a yard?

Because people want to live in SFH neighborhoods. Obviously. They are highly sought after and literally the picture of "The American Dream."

[Anonymous]

Alexandria is on the decline and this will accelerate it, exponentially.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failing schools, imploding commercial real estate, and murders are not quite enough to destroy Alexandria, so the Council is a freight train about to vote on Tuesday to eliminate all SFH zoning. Yay.

Hooray!

Don't worry, OP, they are not eliminating detached one-unit residential buildings. They are simply eliminating zoning that bans everything except detached one-unit residential buildings. Property owners - like you - will now have more options for your property.

This!

You know what pays for all the stuff you want, OP? Property tax dollars. From incremental smart development like the ones in this package of reforms.

You can keep your SFH but when you go to sell it, it may sell for more because there will be more options for what it can become, and that will lead to both more tax dollars and more residents as one large house becomes four smaller ones in some places, especially places that support transit. Win-win-win-win.

That’s not really how it works if there are any school-aged kids that move in since ACPS has an astronomic per pupil cost. So a SFH lot now has 8 school-aged kids to the two that previously lived there. Why would a childless person want to live in a quadplex in a once SFH neighborhood when they could live in Potomac Yard?

+1 they need to fix the schools for the existing population before they bring in even more students.
It actually does impact my property value even if I chose to keep a sfh. You can’t claim that my property value won’t go down if I am now wedged in between two four-plexes and everyone is battling for street parking?
The mayor has lost his mind as far as giving developers complete leeway. An example is a development in old town, on the historic part of king. A developer (with a bad reputation) was just able to buy out of the required parking ration for $43,000. This is in a building that will have about 40 condos, and he’s now not required to do parking. It’s on a main block of king st where there is already no parking. He’s being allowed to infill the existing parking behind the current building to create more units and less parking. The projected prices for these units will begin at $700 for a one bedroom, so this is hardly affordable housing. Most of the units are 2 bedrooms and yet there will be hardly any parking. Unfair to existing neighborhoods and just idiotic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failing schools, imploding commercial real estate, and murders are not quite enough to destroy Alexandria, so the Council is a freight train about to vote on Tuesday to eliminate all SFH zoning. Yay.

Hooray!

Don't worry, OP, they are not eliminating detached one-unit residential buildings. They are simply eliminating zoning that bans everything except detached one-unit residential buildings. Property owners - like you - will now have more options for your property.

Great, so our neighbors can build condos next to our bedrooms and destroy the single family neighborhood we love.

So let's play this out....

There is a neighborhood of say 100 homes. How many of those owners do you think will sell in the next ten years? Of those, how many do you think are currently "tear down" such that it is more palatable for a developer to purchase than for a new family to move in? Of those, how many have lots large enough to put in more than a duplex? And if they were to build that duplex, how likely is it that it would be any larger than a huge house that would otherwise be built?

The sky is not falling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failing schools, imploding commercial real estate, and murders are not quite enough to destroy Alexandria, so the Council is a freight train about to vote on Tuesday to eliminate all SFH zoning. Yay.

Hooray!

Don't worry, OP, they are not eliminating detached one-unit residential buildings. They are simply eliminating zoning that bans everything except detached one-unit residential buildings. Property owners - like you - will now have more options for your property.

This!

You know what pays for all the stuff you want, OP? Property tax dollars. From incremental smart development like the ones in this package of reforms.

You can keep your SFH but when you go to sell it, it may sell for more because there will be more options for what it can become, and that will lead to both more tax dollars and more residents as one large house becomes four smaller ones in some places, especially places that support transit. Win-win-win-win.

That’s not really how it works if there are any school-aged kids that move in since ACPS has an astronomic per pupil cost. So a SFH lot now has 8 school-aged kids to the two that previously lived there. Why would a childless person want to live in a quadplex in a once SFH neighborhood when they could live in Potomac Yard?

+1 they need to fix the schools for the existing population before they bring in even more students.
It actually does impact my property value even if I chose to keep a sfh. You can’t claim that my property value won’t go down if I am now wedged in between two four-plexes and everyone is battling for street parking?
The mayor has lost his mind as far as giving developers complete leeway. An example is a development in old town, on the historic part of king. A developer (with a bad reputation) was just able to buy out of the required parking ration for $43,000. This is in a building that will have about 40 condos, and he’s now not required to do parking. It’s on a main block of king st where there is already no parking. He’s being allowed to infill the existing parking behind the current building to create more units and less parking. The projected prices for these units will begin at $700 for a one bedroom, so this is hardly affordable housing. Most of the units are 2 bedrooms and yet there will be hardly any parking. Unfair to existing neighborhoods and just idiotic

Why would your property value go down? The REASON that you would be between two four-plexes is that there would be demand for them. If you sold you would just as easily get more for your sale than you otherwise would.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Failing schools, imploding commercial real estate, and murders are not quite enough to destroy Alexandria, so the Council is a freight train about to vote on Tuesday to eliminate all SFH zoning. Yay.

Hooray!

Don't worry, OP, they are not eliminating detached one-unit residential buildings. They are simply eliminating zoning that bans everything except detached one-unit residential buildings. Property owners - like you - will now have more options for your property.

This!

You know what pays for all the stuff you want, OP? Property tax dollars. From incremental smart development like the ones in this package of reforms.

You can keep your SFH but when you go to sell it, it may sell for more because there will be more options for what it can become, and that will lead to both more tax dollars and more residents as one large house becomes four smaller ones in some places, especially places that support transit. Win-win-win-win.

NP here. I thought the entire premise of upzoning is that it will increase the supply of “affordable” housing and decrease the average price of housing, thereby making housing more affordable. At least that’s what several members of city council ran on and the mayor has been pushing. And now PP is claiming that upzoning is for increasing the collected real property taxes.

Which is it?

The entire premise of zoning changes to allow a wider range of housing types is: to allow a wider range of housing types. This will have many benefits.

A wide range of housing types is already available. What are these “benefits” of eliminating SFH zoning in Alexandria?

If a wide range of housing types were already widely available, there would be no need for zoning reform.

Why is it so important to you to maintain large areas in Alexandria where the only permitted housing type is a detached house with a yard?

Because people want to live in SFH neighborhoods. Obviously. They are highly sought after and literally the picture of "The American Dream."

And we've arrived at the obverse of "Why do people want things I don't want?", namely "Everybody wants what I want."

[Anonymous]

This might be a good destination to deal with the migrant crisis in DC, NYC, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This isn't going to make any difference whatsoever to housing prices. This is just politicians selling gullible voters on easy answers to hard questions.

+1.

This is the truth.

Did Potomac Yard make Old Town affordable? Did the Bel Pre even dent Del Ray prices? Nope.