Alex Goyette and Jason Schwartz: The Successful YIMBYs of Northern Virginia
This week, Alex Goyette of the Alexandria YIMBYs ("yes in my backyard"-s) and Jason Schwartz of the Arlington YIMBYs join Michael to talk about recent primary victories in both cities for candidates that their groups sponsored--in general, a strong showing for candidates who supported "Zoning for Housing/Housing for All" reform and the end of exclusionary single-family zoning. They break down those races, the argument for greater housing density, and the future of housing policy Arlington and Alexandria going forward.
Episode Transcript
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope, and this is Pod Virginia. A podcast that's heading into the backyard. You know the backyard, it's where people are always saying, "Not in my backyard." Or sometimes they're saying, "Yes, in my backyard." Well, that's the focus of our podcast today; the YIMBYs of Northern Virginia, that's, Yes In My Backyard, YIMBYs of Northern Virginia. They're celebrating a victory in the primary elections last week. We're joined by two leaders of the group: Alex Goyette, who is with the Alexandria YIMBYs, and Jason Schwartz, who is with the Arlington YIMBYs. Thank you both for joining us.
Alex Goyette
Great to be here. Thanks for having us.
Jason Schwartz
Yes, thank you.
Michael Pope
Alex, I want to start with you because Alexandria had more stuff on the ballot. You're celebrating the victory of Alyia Gaskins, who was the victorious candidate for mayor in the primary. You're also celebrating some big wins here with the six seats on the Alexandria City Council. What's your reaction to the primaries last week?
Alex Goyette
Yeah, the big reaction on my end is that this is a win for housing. Our next mayor, Alyia Gaskins, has been a leader in housing in Alexandria throughout her term. She was a big supporter of zoning for housing. She co-sponsored an amendment to provide additional funds for affordable housing in the city. She has really led this issue from day one. She swept to an overwhelming victory in a three-way primary with almost 60% of the vote. I think that's really huge. On top of that, we had three endorsed candidates advance to the November election. Now, a majority of the Democratic ticket in November is going to be YIMBY-endorsed candidates, and that's really exciting for us. Even more than that, what we saw in Alexandria was the lack of an electoral backlash. All year, we were talking about zoning for housing, and there was a fight over Bus Rapid Transit on Duke Street in motion. There was the arena fight, which we were neutral on. But that was, again, another issue that people swore was going to have electoral consequences for the incumbents. In the end, what we saw was every single incumbent was elected, and everyone who was on that ticket was a pro-housing candidate.
Michael Pope
Before we move on to Arlington, I want to make sure that we get everything on the record here about Alexandria. So you got three of the six city council candidates. That's half of the six members. But it was not a clean sweep. One of the candidates, Abdel Elnoubi, was actually opposed to zoning for housing. So, while this is a victory for you, it was not a clean sweep, right?
Alex Goyette
So Elnoubi's position changed throughout the race. We saw his response in the Washington Post questionnaire, where he said he wasn't fully on board with zoning for housing. One of my fellow leads actually had coffee with him that next week to clarify his position because that was not the response that we'd received in our own questionnaire to candidates. You'll see in later public questionnaires that he did come out in support. He campaigned on that support throughout the remainder of the race with around a month and a half left. I would count him as a strong housing supporter.
Michael Pope
Oh, interesting. I moderated one of the panels, and my memory of that event was that I did not remember hearing him negatively speak about zoning for housing. So when I saw that he was a no-vote in the Washington Post electoral guide, I thought, hmm, that's kind of interesting. So, your take on this is that his position actually evolved during the campaign?
Alex Goyette
I think he clarified his position during the campaign. I would ask you to speak directly to him; I don't want to put words in his mouth. But from my understanding and the conversation we had with him essentially, he didn't feel he had done all of the research before that Washington Post questionnaires to come down as a firm yes. After that conversation, he looked a bit more, and l feel he could walk away with a 100% yes on the zoning for the housing project as it passed. He provided that answer in later questionnaires. I think there was one from WAMU, where he came down as a firm Yes.
Michael Pope
Ah, interesting. Okay, moving over to Arlington, Jason Schwartz, you had a much cleaner victory in Arlington. You had JD Spain in support of what the folks in Arlington called the missing middle, which is actually a little bit more of an aggressive platform. Also, it wasn't just JD Spain; the person who came in second in the voting was also a supporter of the missing middle. What did you make of the election results in Arlington?
Jason Schwartz
In Alexandria, there were a lot of people in that race. Five people were running in the race, and we endorsed the two housing candidates, JD Spain and Tenley Peterson. All three of the other candidates, James DeVito, Julia Farnham, and Natalie Roy, campaigned against Arlington's missing middle, which expanded the housing options ordinance, which passed unanimously last March. Those three candidates all lost, and JD Spain emerged victorious. JD Spain had the highest number of votes in the first round. Then, because we had rank-choice voting, he emerged as the top vote-getter with 55% of the vote.
Michael Pope
I want to follow up on Arlington because this is the second consecutive election where we have seen missing middle essentially on the ballot, not directly but in terms of the candidates. Last year's election was really a humdinger; you had two candidates and two open seats on the Arlington County Board. And a rank-choice voting system that allowed for results that may surprise some people. In fact, I think your side would have benefited without rank-choice voting. My impression of Arlington politics is that if you removed rank choice voting from the system last year, both of the candidates that would have been successful in the two open seats on the Arlington County Board would have been missing middle supporters. But because of rank choice voting and how that works. What we ended up with was one candidate pro and one candidate con, which the rank choice voting supporters believed was a show of success of rank choice voting. What was your reaction to that?
Jason Schwartz
Yeah, last year's election was the first time that Arlington had done a rank-choice vote, and there were two seats to be selected. The voting method was called single transferable vote. That is a system where there's a threshold based on the total number of open seats. Then, the lowest vote-getter gets eliminated, and those votes are transferred to the number two choice that the voter puts in. Based on these results, the single transferable vote works as a proportional system, where it allocates the votes proportionally to the electorate. Overall, the electorate was fairly divided. Thus, there was a 50/50 split that occurred last year, which, in general, was between the candidates who were in favor of the missing middle and those who were against it. So that's how we split the vote last year.
Michael Pope
Well, yes, that's an explanation of rank-choice voting. But what I was trying to get at, what I was trying to get your perspective on is, what do you make of the fact that if traditional voting was used? If you removed rank choice voting from the system last year, both of your candidates would have won.
Jason Schwartz
Well, I don't think both of our candidates would would have won. It obviously depends because with rank choice voting, you can rank your choices. People could have put choices that they were less inclined to; there's no having to worry about if your vote is not going to count. We don't know exactly how people would have voted if they were only given one choice. But given the results, the top two vote-getters in the first round of last year's results were both against or not in favor, I should say, of passing E.H.L. as it was passed.
Michael Pope
Yeah. Well, what does that say about the popularity of missing middle among Arlington voters?
Jason Schwartz
Based on last year's results, there was a big divide among the voters. There also were a lot more candidates in the race for different offices, such as the Commonwealth's Attorney, State Senate, and Representatives that were on the ballot. I think that drew in a much higher turnout. The missing middle ordinance was passed earlier in the year, whereas now we've had a full year even though there hasn't been any housing yet. The biggest takeaway was that last year was very split. Then over the year, as we've gone on, we've just had the county board race, and there's just been housing and other issues on the ballot; the people that came out to vote in this county board race, they voted for pro-housing by a good margin.
Michael Pope
Staying in Arlington for just a minute here, you mentioned last year that during the election, two things were happening. One is that there was a lot of other stuff on the ballot, including a very controversial Commonwealth's Attorney election. There might have been pressures on the ballot that had nothing to do with the missing middle. Also, it was brand new—it just happened, and people didn't really know that much about it. Has people's thinking evolved over the last year in Arlington?
Jason Schwartz
I think it has. I think we've seen a continuous increase in home prices across Arlington, in the region, and across the country. People have also seen how moderate of a change the missing middle is, especially when you compare the footprint of all the new missing middle. The new style homes are going to be the same or have a smaller footprint than the existing permitted single-family homes. People are seeing that. I don't think it'd be that big of a change. We still haven't seen any construction on any of the missing middle. There have been some permits issued, but no construction has been completed or started yet.
Michael Pope
Moving back to Alexandria. Alex, go ahead. I wanted to ask you about opposition to zoning for housing, which has been vocal among a certain group of people. What do you say to the people who say this is too big, too much, too soon; the schools will be clogged, the roads will be clogged. Some people who live in single-family neighborhoods will say, look, I bought into this world, I want to live in a single-family neighborhood, I paid a lot of money to live in a single-family neighborhood, I thought I was going to be in a single-family neighborhood indefinitely. Yet here, my city government is screwing that up. What do you say to those people?
Alex Goyette
First I would say the notion that the schools are going to be overcrowded or the traffic is going to be awful. Regarding traffic, I'll point to our neighbors in Arlington, which is to the north. They've done a great job adding thousands upon thousands of homes over the last decade. And their traffic on their main arterials has actually gone down because they've added homes in smart places, primarily along transit corridors. There's an opportunity to continue doing that in Alexandria as well. The overall number of homes that are going to be produced by the reformed single-family zoning specifically is quite small. However, the point is to open up all neighborhoods in Alexandria to at least moderate growth. Folks who are concerned about changing their neighborhoods, first of all, I'd say I empathize; I love my neighborhood. I love it the way it is; I love the way it was when we bought our home here. But we have to talk about the costs of doing nothing as well. What we know is that every single year, Alexandria is forced out of the city by rising rent due to those Who are forced out of the city because it's time to look to purchase a home. Maybe they're getting ready to start a family, and there's nothing affordable for them in the city. And they are being pushed out. For folks who are concerned about a sense of aesthetic change, I don't want to dismiss that; I think that can be a real sense of loss for people. But I would say the change is not going to be as big as perhaps some people are thinking in their heads. The change in aesthetics does not hold a candle to a change in the actual people who make up our community when we're pricing out our own neighbors. So I'd ask folks who are concerned about the sort of continuity of their community: are you more concerned about what the houses on your street look like? Or are you more concerned about the neighbors who live in those houses? I think most people would say, I want the people in my community to be able to remain in my community.
Michael Pope
Same question for Jason Schwartz over in Arlington. What would you say to people who live in north Arlington, who wanted to live in a quiet suburban neighborhood and paid a lot of money to live in a quiet suburban neighborhood and love their neighborhood? They'll say, I don't want to live in Rosslyn; I don't want my neighborhood to look like Rosslyn; what would you say to those people?
Jason Schwartz
Yeah, as Alex said, there will be some change across Arlington neighborhoods as the missing middle E.H.R. ordinance was designed to affect all single-family-only residential neighborhoods. However, the policy that Arlington put forward is very much a trial because there is a cap on the number of sites that can become missing middle housing every year. On average, with this cap in place, there'll be one or two, maybe three sites per neighborhood across Arlington's over 50 neighborhoods that will actually see a new missing middle dwelling built in instead of a single-family home. So the change that's occurring will still be very, very slow. The odds are it'll be even more difficult to notice the difference because, again, the total footprint of the new houses will be the same size or less than new single-family homes, which are going up much more rapidly.
Michael Pope
I think you just put your finger on something I want to explore next: the scale of what we're talking about. Alex Goyette, in Alexandria, this scale of zoning for housing seems kind of extreme because you're abandoning this longtime zoning phenomenon, which has been around for 100 years. So you're abandoning this longtime thing; that seems kind of like an extreme thing to do. But then, when you actually dig down into the detail hills, you're talking about a very limited number of parcels. So, explain the scale of what we're talking about for zoning for housing in Alexandria.
Alex Goyette
I think you put your finger right on it there, Michael. It is a big shift when you're talking about it as an idea. Ending single-family-only zoning in Alexandria is an important normative statement that every one of our neighborhoods needs to be open to folks who can't afford a million-dollar house. However, in terms of how many of these duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes are going to be built, the staff estimated that when this policy was passed, there were going to be just over 100 units over 10 years. That is less than a drop in the bucket; I can't even emphasize how small the change is in terms of what people are going to actually see in their neighborhoods. Frankly, we pushed quite hard on the council and staff that the reform needs to be bigger if we want to actually achieve the affordability goals Alexandria has set out. And we're continuing to push that. I don't want to hide my cards here; I do want to see a bigger policy put in place at some point. But what was actually passed is really tiny, incremental change. I would be surprised if anyone actually notices a real change in the nature of their neighborhood based on what the council passed last year.
Michael Pope
Actually, before we move on, you just touched on something I want to follow up on in future actions. I noticed in the YIMBY of Northern Virginia statement when the Planning Commission approved zoning for housing that you said, "Zoning reform is great, although Alexandria also needs funding for affordable housing and legal protection for renters." How does zoning for housing fit into the platform of ideas that you guys are supporting?
Alex Goyette
I'd say, as YIMBY's in general, we take a sort of all of the above approach to the housing crisis. We, as a region in Northern Virginia, as a city in Alexandria, and really across the United States, have dug ourselves a real hole when it comes to housing. It's going to take every idea we have to address that issue. So YIMBYs like us are focused, I would say, on the zoning reforms that are going to increase the overall supply. Because that's the only way we can get a broad base decrease in housing costs. We also know that changes in price take time in the supply base, and they take a lot of units. Even if you legalize a massive apartment tower today, it's going to take a while for that apartment tower to get built. In the meantime, we need to be doing things to protect the communities that are here already. In Alexandria, we have particularly vulnerable communities in Alexandria West and in Arlandria. Those folks who have been members of this community for years or decades deserve to stay here, too. That requires things like dedicated affordable units and tenant protections to ensure that they can't get pushed out by landlords who know that they can jack up rent prices. I'd say it's really an all-of-the-above approach. We're really happy to work with our local partners, who are more focused on those other issues in Alexandria.
Michael Pope
Returning to the topic of this scale of what we're looking at over in Arlington. Jason Schwartz, you mentioned there was a cap. Give us an idea of the scale of what we're talking about in Arlington. It's the same kind of thing here; it's symbolically very important. We don't want to understate the importance of the symbolism here. However, the scale of what they're actually doing is not huge, right?
Jason Schwartz
Yes, as Alex said, the estimates of the current number of sites are very low because the developers are still new to this. They're not used to building this scale of housing units. They're either used to building big, large buildings or single-family homes. There is a learning curve with all the new rules and regulations pertaining only to these new missing middle units that don't pertain to single-family homes. There's definitely a learning curve. That is slowing the development of these homes. There's also the hard cap where every year, right now, there can't be any more than 58 sites across the county that can be developed as a missing middle housing unit. Based on what we're seeing so far, the housing that's being proposed across the county, although there is some correlation between being close to the metro corridors, not exactly on the metro corridors themselves, but being at least in the nearby neighborhoods. Overall, there's still a very low impact. The odds are that if you're living in one of the single-family homes in Arlington right now, the odds of you living next to a missing middle home are very low.
Michael Pope
All right, I want to talk about the rest of the election cycle. You are both celebrating victories in the Democratic primaries. But that's not the end of the story because we've got the November election. If we look at Alexandria, you've got a slate of Democrats who are on the record supporting zoning for housing with an asterisk, which you have clarified a little bit. But in general, you are going to have an independent candidate, Roy Byrd, whose whole platform is opposing zoning for housing. So, this political fight is not over yet, is it?
Alex Goyette
No, it's certainly not. I've had conversations with Roy; we sat down and got coffee during the zoning for housing campaign if you want to call it that, and he's a nice guy. Obviously, we don't share the same ideas on housing. But I am excited; proud is maybe a little bit strong of a word, but I'm kind of proud of him for actually putting his ideas to the test. I'm excited for Alexandria voters to be able to weigh in on what they think the future of housing should be in Alexandria. I'm confident that Alexandria voters are again going to elect a ticket full of housing supporters. I point out that in addition to Roy running, there's also a Republican, Celianna Gunderson is running, and her housing platform on her website is pretty pro-housing. It's all about removing some of these regulations that make housing too difficult to build. This idea that we need to build more housing is not even bipartisan; it's entirely nonpartisan. It's something that progressive Democrats con, conservative Republicans, and everyone in between can all get behind. I'm excited to see what comes out of that November election in Alexandria.
Michael Pope
It's one thing for candidates to be pro or con on zoning for housing, but Roy Byrd is associated with the opposition to zoning for housing; it's the centerpiece of his campaign. For voters out there, if you are in favor of zoning for housing, you've got candidates. If you are opposed to zoning for housing, you've got a clear supporter in terms of the person on the campaign trail who supports your ideas. As you said, this will be put to the test; this is Democracy. Moving over to Arlington, you've got the Democratic candidate on the ballot, JD Spain, who's a supporter of zoning for housing. What do you think the fall campaign looks like?
Jason Schwartz
I think in Arlington, the path is pretty clear for J.D. to win. It's very hard in Arlington for a non-Democratic candidate to win, but there will be other candidates on the ballot. Right now, we have three so far. We have Audrey Clements, Juan Carlos Fierro. And then there'll be another person running, I believe, with the Forward party ticket. But I am very confident, and based on past elections, that J.D. will be able to emerge victorious, not only victorious but with a great margin.
Michael Pope
I want to turn our attention to a topic that is the backstory of these zoning changes: the racist history of zoning. If you look at the origins of single-family zoning, it's about white supremacy. Separating white people from Black people was the reason that single-family zoning was created. It's actually the reason zoning was created. There is a clear and documented history of white supremacy, documented in zoning in Alexandria and in Arlington. This is a very clear backstory here of zoning. But people who oppose zoning for housing, people who oppose missing middle, they don't want to have this conversation because they'll say things like, well, Black people live in single-family housing, too; therefore, it doesn't matter what the history is. Alex, I'll ask you first: does it matter that the origin of single-family zoning is white supremacy?
Alex Goyette
Yes, that very obviously matters. I'll start by saying I know when a lot of folks, especially folks who live in a single-family house now, hear this conversation. They may feel defensive, they may feel well, I'm not a racist. I don't live here because of the exclusion. I think that's fair and true. I don't want anyone to walk away with the impression that I'm calling you a racist for living in a single-family house. I grew up in one. I think that's perfectly okay. However, we need to look at the history behind single-family zoning. The intent of these laws was exclusion. It was explicitly racial exclusion. It works to this day; we can look at the neighborhoods in Alexandria that are no longer single-family only zoned but were up until last year. We can look at the racial diversity in those neighborhoods compared to surrounding neighborhoods that allow more affordable types of homes. Those neighborhoods are still, to this day, less diverse than neighborhoods that allow more affordable types of housing. There's a reason that you can draw a straight line through the history of racism in this country. There persists to this day a wealth gap between white families and Black families. That is because of the history of discrimination against those Black families who are not allowed to build up wealth in the same way that white families were. So, while the language of zoning may now be race-neutral, the intent when these zoning laws were originally written and the impact today is not race-neutral, I think that's an important part of the conversation that we can't lose.
Michael Pope
Same question for Jason Schwartz in Arlington. People across Arlington will say, look, I'm not a racist; I live in a single-family zoned area. My neighbors are Black, and they live in a single-family zoned area. So, does it even matter that the origins of what we're talking about are steeped in white supremacy?
Jason Schwartz
Yeah, to echo everything Alex said, single-family zoning, people who live in single-family zones are not racist in themselves. The policy certainly is steeped in the origins of racism and exclusion. I think it's important to separate those two items because we're really not attacking anyone as being racist. That is one really important thing. In Arlington, again, as Alex was saying, in terms of the neighborhood composition, where neighborhoods are more diverse within Arlington. The places that allow for more density have more diversity, racially speaking, in Arlington. It's really important to note the way that the exclusion took place in the zoning. Also, the racially restrictive covenants prevented anyone who was not white from living in these houses that had them, and those covenants are not legally enforceable now. However, there was one home that was being proposed as being a duplex. Still, the neighbor's home had a racially restrictive covenant. Along with that, the covenant also had a single-family, home-only covenant, and the neighbors threatened to sue the developer for building a duplex. So now the developers are just building a single-family home. Even today, there are still these same documents, which have racially exclusionary language in them. They are still being used, not the racial exclusion part, but the single-family part that was written at the same time.
Michael Pope
So our listeners are clear about what we're talking about. Are these zoning documents that had racially exclusive language? We're actually property by property. I'll give you a good example of this that I dug up in Alexandria's records. This property was in what's known as the Beverly Hills section of Alexandria. This is page 215 of the Alexandria city land records from 1939; section five of Beverly Hills has this language, "that no lot, nor any part thereof shall be sold, rented, or in any way conveyed to any person, not of the caucasian race." The entire section five of the Beverly Hills neighborhood cannot be owned by anyone who is not of the caucasian race. That's only one example. There are literally hundreds of these in the record books in Alexandria and Arlington. But Alex, go ahead, I'll ask you this question. They were only recently set aside. The vote for zoning for housing actually was a vote to get rid of this racially exclusionary language that was, in fact, still part of the code.
Alex Goyette
I'll clarify quickly; I think we're talking a little bit about two slightly different things. What you just read is a restrictive covenant, I believe, which is a legal document that can be placed on a specific property or on a group of properties when they're developed together. That can include exclusive language. Many of those historically in Alexandria included race, explicitly racially exclusive language, like the quote that you just read. That explicitly racist language is no longer legally enforceable, thanks to a Supreme Court decision. However, those same documents include other forms of exclusion. That's what Jason was touching on. The racist people who wrote those documents in the first place to exclude members, all members of non-caucasian races, knew that there were other ways to exclude people; one of the other ways to exclude someone was by ensuring that property remained very expensive. By ensuring that only a single house could sit on a plot of land, no one who can't afford a large plot of land can afford to live in that neighborhood. Those parts of the covenants where you're requiring only one home can be built on a plot of land, as opposed to a duplex or a small apartment building. Those remain legally enforceable and continue to drive occlusion in Arlington and Alexandria today. Zoning for housing legalized within the zoning code means building more than one unit on any single family's plot of land. But my understanding is that exclusive covenants, as long as they're not leaning on explicitly racist language, those I believe would still be enforceable and could still prevent the development of more affordable types of housing on individual properties.
Michael Pope
You just alluded to something that we probably should talk about in Arlington and Alexandria. So Jason Schwartz is in Arlington. I'll ask you first: there are lawsuits here, right? There's an Arlington lawsuit and an Alexandria lawsuit. Give our listeners an update on what's happening legally in Arlington.
Jason Schwartz
Yes, in Arlington, we've seen on the policy and politics side that the pro-housing side is clearly winning. The people against housing are now turning to legal matters as well. For each individual site, there is a going to the B.Z.A., which is the board to adjudicate zoning decisions. People are going to other ways to block housing. But in terms of the court case that's going to be taking place this July. I'm not an expert on the full legal arguments. But many of the arguments that are being presented are more of a procedural matter, which could de, pending on the outcome, be easily remedied with a new advertisement about it. Overall, more information will be coming out. But most of the arguments that are being presented have little merit of actually really removing the policy versus just on procedural grounds that can be easily fixed.
Michael Pope
You said you're not necessarily a legal commentator. But what do you expect to happen with that Arlington lawsuit?
Jason Schwartz
I think, whatever happens, we'll find that there's really not much of a legal case in terms of overturning the unanimous decision of the county board in terms of implementing this policy. There could be some other issues, such as the advertisement not being 100% correct, as we've seen in other lawsuits. In a suit against the Pentagon City area plan that was passed because that was not advertised correctly. The county board is quickly re-advertising that plan, and then it will be passed. These procedural issues can be fixed relatively easily, depending on the way that the board decides to go. Overall, I'm not too worried about legal matters. If listeners want to learn more about it, there's a group in Arlington called ArlingtonWINs, which sends out newsletters to provide updates to people who are steeped in legal knowledge and lawyers who can give proper knowledge of what is going on. We'll be doing a breakdown of all the different counts that are being levied against the county.
Michael Pope
Well, that's helpful before we move to Alexandria; I just want to follow up on Arlington. The legal case that is being made by people who don't like the missing middle is that they're challenging not the constitutionality of the zoning change, or I guess that would be a federal case. They're not challenging the zoning change on its merits; they're challenging the process that's required for any government change in terms of proper notification in local newspapers.
Jason Schwartz
Yes, that is one of the specific counts. There's a handful of counts, and they're mostly about the procedural changes that Arlington didn't follow. There is a Virginia State law that gives localities the statute to render their zoning decisions. Part of that is very general language about providing for the general welfare of people and taking into account all the different things. It's very hard to prove in a court case that doing a zoning change is specifically adversely impacting certain individuals, which is one of the counts they're looking at. This zoning change has had a specific adverse impact on the handful of people who have decided to sue the county.
Michael Pope
I have the same question for Alex Goyette in Alexandria. Can you tell us a little bit about the legal challenges to zoning for housing in Alexandria court?
Alex Goyette
Yes, I will open with a similar caveat: I am not a lawyer. So, my ability to provide any actual legal analysis is pretty limited here. But the story is similar to what we're seeing in Arlington. These are largely procedural allegations, essentially alleging the city did not properly notify residents by advertising in a newspaper within the specified timeframe before hearings were held. This is not a lawsuit aimed at the actual policy on the table. It's just nitpicking procedure to say that the city did not follow the proper procedures before making these zoning changes. This is a lawsuit brought by the owners of million-dollar homes who are concerned about the idea that someone might live in a duplex on their street. One of the harms that they are alleging is actually that their property values will go up because of these changes. So I'm really not understanding. As a non-lawyer, I do not understand what case exactly it is they're trying to make here. But we hope that the lawsuit will be dismissed or defeated. But I'm also confident that given the election results, even if this lawsuit succeeds, our next city council can go through the procedure again and repass zoning for housing.
Michael Pope
Well, let's put ourselves in the minds of people who own million-dollar houses, and they spend a lot of money to live in that neighborhood with a street that has a bunch of single-family houses. They don't want to live in a neighborhood that has a duplex; what would you say to those people?
Alex Goyette
We talked earlier about how these laws are, in effect, exclusionary. I think we're talking about the same thing here. Folks in Alexandrialive live in a neighborhood of million-dollar houses that a nonmillionaire can't afford. If their attitude is that they want a neighborhood exclusive to millionaires, I'd say that's fundamentally against the interest of most people in this city. And that's what this reform has been about.
Michael Pope
One last topic I want to hit you both up on before we conclude the podcast. What is the future outside of Alexandria and Arlington? On this podcast, we've talked a lot about Alexandria, politics, and Arlington politics. But do we expect other jurisdictions, perhaps even jurisdictions outside of Northern Virginia, to adopt this policy change of getting rid of single-family-only zoning? Jason Schwartz? I'll put that question to you first. Do you think that we are going to see other local governments take similar action across Virginia?
Jason Schwartz
Yeah, so we're already seeing that across Virginia and great examples down in Charlottesville, which also passed a new ordinance. Their ordinance, in some ways, goes further than Arlington in that they have somewhat of a form-based code, and they have added provisions for density bonuses that our ordinance here in Arlington doesn't have. So Charlottesville is a very housing-constrained market with the university there. But we also see across the river in Montgomery County that they are looking to make a similar, not completely county-wide, but looking to pass a version of the missing middle within their mostly inner suburban areas. So we're definitely seeing this is not just an Arlington thing, this is not just a Virginia thing, this is a nationwide idea. And I think that's really taking hold across localities across the country.
Michael Pope
I'll put the same question to you. We spend a lot of time and attention talking about Alexandria and Arlington politics. But is this something that we are going to see in maybe even heavily suburban areas? What about Fairfax County? Are they ever going to do this?
Alex Goyette
I would say, as a spectator of Fairfax County, they should do it; I hope they will do it. I don't live there, and I'm not attuned to the local politics, so I can't speak to whether that's actually on the table right now. But I would say that across Virginia, Virginians are facing a housing crisis. Part of that, frankly, is brought on by the fact that places like Arlington and Alexandria took so long to allow more people to live here. That's caused the folks who work in D.C. and who are maybe now only working in D.C. two or three times a week to live further and further out. My family has a lot of friends who've moved down to Richmond and commute up to D.C. a couple of days a week. That's putting pressure on housing markets in places that have traditionally been more affordable, like Richmond. This is a problem that is faced by the entire state. I think that legislators across the entire state are going to be looking for solutions. I would not be surprised if we see this in other localities as well. I'll take this opportunity to give a quick shout-out to some of our sister YIMBY chapters across the Commonwealth. We have a chapter in Hampton Roads, Richmond, and, I believe, Fredericksburg. There's a similar group in Charlottesville. There are folks across the Commonwealth who are seeing the same problem in their community; their neighbors are being priced out because they can't afford to buy a home. As local politicians are looking for solutions to this crisis, I would encourage them to look at what happened in Arlington and Alexandria. To see that you can make reforms to these exclusionary laws and be celebrated for it at the ballot box and return to your office. I encourage lawmakers to be bold and to do the right thing by allowing more affordable types of housing to be built across their communities. You have
Michael Pope
You've been listening to the YIMBYs of Northern Virginia. Alex Goyette is in Alexandria, and Jason Schwartz is in Arlington. Thanks for joining us.
Alex Goyette
Thank you, Michael.
Jason Schwartz
Thank you.
