Democrats Seek To Outlaw Suburban, Single-Family House Zoning, Calling It Racist And Bad For The Environment

Democrats in Virginia may override local zoning to bring high-density housing, including public housing, to every neighborhood statewide — whether residents want it or not.

The measure could quickly transform the suburban lifestyle enjoyed by millions, permitting duplexes to be built on suburban lots in neighborhoods previously consisting of quiet streets and open green spaces. Proponents of “upzoning” say the changes are necessary because suburbs are bastions of segregation and elitism, as well as bad for the environment.

The move, which aims to provide “affordable housing,” might be fiercely opposed by local officials throughout the state, who have deliberately created and preserved neighborhoods with particular character — some dense and walkable, others semi-rural and private — to accommodate people’s various preferences.

But Democrats tout a state-level law’s ability to replace “not in my backyard” with “yes, in your backyard.”

House Delegate Ibraheem Samirah, a Democrat, introduced six housing measures Dec. 19, coinciding with Democrats’ takeover of the state legislature in November.

“Single-family housing zones would become two-zoned,” Samirah told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Areas that would be impacted most would be the suburbs that have not done their part in helping out.”

“The real issues are the areas in between very dense areas which are single-family zoned. Those are the areas that the state is having significant trouble dealing with. They’re living in a bubble,” he said.

He said suburbs were “mostly white and wealthy” and that their local officials — who have historically been in charge of zoning — were ignoring the desires of poor people, who did not have time to lobby them to increase suburban density.

In response to a question about whether people who bought homes in spacious suburbs have valid reasons, not based on discrimination, for preferring to live that way — including a love for nature and desire to preserve woods and streams — he said: “Caring about nature is very important, but the more dense a neighborhood is, the more energy efficient it is.”

He said if local officials seek to change requirements like setbacks to make it impossible to build dense housing in areas zoned to preserve a nature feel, “if they make setbacks to block duplexes, there’d have to be a lawsuit to resolve whether those zoning provisions were necessary.”

He wrote on Facebook, “Because middle housing is what’s most affordable for low-income people and people of color, banning that housing in well-off neighborhoods chalks up to modern-day redlining, locking folks out of areas with better access to schools, jobs, transit, and other services and amenities.”

“I will certainly get pushback for this. Some will call it ‘state overreach.’ Some will express anxiety about neighborhood change. Some may even say that the supply issue doesn’t exist. But the research is clear: zoning is a barrier to more housing and integrated communities,” he continued.

He tweeted Sunday that that would include public housing. “Important Q about new social/public housing programs: where are we going to put the units? Under current zoning, new low-income housing is relegated to underinvested neighborhoods, concentrating poverty more. Ending exclusionary zoning has to be part of broader housing reform,” he said.

Tim Hannigan, chairman of the Fairfax County Republican Committee — in one of the areas Samirah represents — said that urban Democrats were waging war on the suburbs.

“This could completely change the character of suburban residential life, because of the urbanization that would develop,” he told the DCNF. “So much of the American dream is built upon this idea of finding a nice quiet place to raise your family, and that is under assault.”

“This is a power-grab to take away the ability of local communities to establish their own zoning practices … literally trying to change the character of our communities,” he said.

He said suburbs were not equipped to handle the increased traffic, and “inevitably it will just push people to places where they feel they’ll get away from that, they may move to West Virginia to get their little plot of land.”

Minneapolis became the first city to eliminated single family zoning in December 2018, after a push by progressive advocacy groups promoting “equity.” Austin, Texas, and Seattle soon followed suit.

But those cities were amending zoning codes that have always been the domain of local governments. Oregon passed state legislation blocking local governments’ single-family zoning in July, CityLab reported.

It quoted Alex Baca, a Washington, D.C., urbanist with the site Greater Greater Washington, saying that single-family zoning is a tool for wealthy whites to maintain segregated neighborhoods and that the abolition of low-density neighborhoods is necessary for equity.

CityLab acknowledged that “residents might reasonably desire to keep the neighborhoods they love the way they are,” but said that implementing the law at the state level makes sure that those concerns can be more easily ignored.

“By preempting the ability of local governments to set their own restrictive zoning policies, the state policy would circumnavigate the complaints of local NIMBY homeowners who want to block denser housing,” it wrote.

While he implied that suburbs are prejudiced, Samirah himself has a history of anti-Semitic comments, including saying sending money to Israel is worse than funding the Klu Klux Klan.

“I am so sorry that my ill-chosen words added to the pain of the Jewish community, and I seek your understanding and compassion as I prove to you our common humanity,” he said in February.

He interrupted a speech in July by President Donald Trump in Jamestown, Virginia, and said, “You can’t send us back! Virginia is our home.”

His father is Jordanian refugee Sabri Samirah, who authorities banned from the U.S. for a decade after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, in part because of his membership in the Muslim Brotherhood, the Chicago Tribune reported in 2014.

Tim Hannigan, chairman of the Fairfax County Republican Committee — in one of the areas Samirah represents — said that urban Democrats were waging war on the suburbs. “This could completely change the character of suburban residential life, because of the urbanization that would develop,” he told the DCNF. “So much of the American dream is built upon this idea of finding a nice quiet place to raise your family, and that is under assault.”

Yes, but … the unfortunate fact is that we are on track to double the population every 50 years. I would prefer that we control our borders, shift to a skills based immigration system, and drastically reduce total numbers of immigrants. I'd like to see us set population stability as a goal. But that's not what we are doing.

Every metro area will have its local peculiarities, but in the prosperous and growing cities that are driving the U.S. economy, the reality is that: (1) inner cities need to reclaim the bad areas, gentrify and densify; (2) inner ring suburbs need to urbanize and densify; and (3) outer ring suburbs need to plan intelligently for the inevitable growth that will in time turn them into much denser places as well.

Or we could control the borders, but I repeat myself.

The suburban jurisdictions compete fiercely for economic development. They throw up office parks and shopping malls along all the major roads, mostly built around automobile commutes. And too often, they continue to take the view that the poor can be quarantined 20 miles away, out of sight and out of mind, and impossibly distant from the jobs that might lift them out of poverty.

Again, every city has its own issues. Here in the DC area, the District proper, which is now growing again, has about 700,000 people. That's about 12 percent of a Washington Metropolitan Area of more than six million people. If we look to the Combined Metropolitan Statistical Area (the transportation/commuting region), the CMSA extends from Fredericksburg to Baltimore and Hagerstown and Winchester to Southern Maryland. It has nearly 10 million people. DC is about seven percent of that total. DC is not big enough for the rest of you to freeload on us on low income housing, social services and education for the children of the poor. Suck it up, snowflakes; you're going to have to pitch in and help. Because the poor are coming your way whether you want them or not.

Yes, we have a low income population that has serious problems. But the suburbs have most of the jobs, and almost all of the new jobs. Montgomery, Fairfax and PG counties are all larger than DC. Loudon and Prince William have over 400,000 people. And majorities in all these jurisdictions act as if they can continue to live in a protected bubble of exclusionary zoning while DC can and should continue to be the regional dumping ground for problems.

What I object to, most of all, is the idea that this is the natural order of things. It's not. It is the shabby state of affairs produced first by the post-WWII decision to massively subsidize sprawl development, followed by the barrage of public policy disasters of the LBJ/Great Society era. Today's suburban cowboys who think cul de sac suburbs linked to the urban core by major arterial roads (that destroy or degrade the closer-in neighborhoods across which they slash) are "normal" are buying into the LBJ plan to destroy the cities. That model was never the right one. And today, we are living in the long run, and that model is collapsing under problems of scale. Or do you think your commute on I-66/270/495/395/95 is the best we can do, and that doubling down on sprawl is a good idea, and that all we need to do is add another lane here and there?

A reminder: LBJ didn't get it right. He got it wrong. Massively so. What we are doing now is slowly unwinding some of the damage.

DC is gentrifying. The poor are getting priced out. The region's low cost housing is in the suburbs, and this will be increasingly the case with every passing year. Land costs are also lower in the suburbs, so if new affordable housing is to be built, the suburbs are where it should go -- especially since the suburbs have most of the region's jobs, including the service and entry level jobs that the poor might fill. The free market, left to itself, would push the poor to the suburbs, where they would double and triple up in homes, flock to boarding houses or rent spare rooms, and rent the duplexes and apartments that developers would normally build, if exclusionary zoning -- the heavy hand of the state impeding a free market in housing -- were not in the way.

Want to protect your cul de sac? Fine. I agree that the current one-size-fits-all upzoning proposal is a blunderbuss. I live in the Capitol Hill Historic District (which is getting its share of densification nonetheless). I want to preserve the historic district, and there are many suburban areas that I would like to see protected as well.

But if they don't want a blunderbuss approach to upset their little cul-de-sac applecarts, suburbanites need to sober up about the need to build much more affordable housing in reasonable proximity to emerging suburban job centers. Planning is not a dirty word. Zoning is planning; don't say exclusionary zoning to protect my cul de sac is good, but county-wide planning to accommodate affordable rental housing in proximity to jobs is bad.

Pick your example. Tysons Corner has a daytime population of over 100,000 people; it's Virginia's biggest job hub and NoVa's spiritual capital. The last time I saw the numbers, 97 percent of those people drove. That's just stupid, given that Tysons is just a crossroads between Vienna and McLean, surrounded by very upscale housing in all directions. Whether the opening of the Silver Line through Tysons has begun to change its total reliance on the automobile, I don't know. At least Fairfax County has recognized that its bad transportation and zoning policies have created a traffic nightmare, and it finally has a long term plan to help Tysons mature, and become livable, as the dense urban place that it is.

Or drive up the Georgetown Pike, just for fun. Go all the way to Frederick. Mile after mile after godforsaken mile of strip development, most of it fairly upscale but ugly and hopelessly congested. That's bad planning. But the reality is that Georgetown Pike is a linear city, and it needs to function as an urban place even though it runs through counties that still want to act like low density suburbs. There are tens of thousands of service and entry level jobs for lower income people along the Pike. Those folks shouldn't have to endure brutal commutes to get to their minimum wage jobs. There needs to be much more affordable housing along the corridor. If you don't want blunderbuss legislation in the Virginia legislature upzoning your cul de sac, roll up your sleeves and help solve the problem in a more constructive way.

Bottom line, simply dumping the poor in DC ain't gonna work no more. Just because LBJ concentrated housing projects in Anacostia doesn't mean that's the natural order of things. It's not; that was just one of LBJ's myriad stupidities. That era is over. We've learned that concentrating poverty is not a good idea. DC is gentrifying. The city is trying to maintain a balanced housing stock, but we are twelve percent of the Washington metro area and seven percent of the CMSA. The suburbs have been free riders on housing for too long. End of rant.

Merry Christmas everyone.

We already have them. Capitol Hill is an old neighborhood that bottomed out during the Marion Barry era and is now mostly gentrified. We have a mix of every kind of housing you can imagine, other than highrise apartment complexes. There are probably a few duplexes around though I can't picture one, but many of the rowhouses have been subdivided into two, three and four unit buildings. We have quite a few smaller apartment buildings; these were part of the Victorian urban style and they've survived the transition. We have converted schools. We have converted churches. Here and there, especially along our major arterial streets, we have large scale rebuilds, and some of these have a mix of price points including supported low income units. It's old news now, but the infamous Ellen Wilson dwellings are now a successful mixed income redevelopment, and that pattern has become the norm when public housing is replaced. We have a few rough patches left, and some of the surrounding areas such as Rosedale, Carver Langston, Ivy City and Trinidad are not nearly as far along in gentrification. We are still a mixed neighborhood, though trending up, and the city is trying hard to retain a stock of affordable housing as this happens. This is strategy for other rapidly improving areas in DC as well.

Suburban jurisdictions need to do something similar in suitable locations. I'm not saying that every cul de sac should have an apartment building, but if you don't want multifamily housing on your cul de sac, you need to accept it elsewhere. Near metro and near suburban job hubs would be my first priority. The burden needs to be shared, and this calls for a regional approach with coordinated planning. The theoretical alternative is to go full free market. Were that to happen, there would be NO low income housing left on Capitol Hill; we would lose the historic district and be overrun by office development. The residential housing stock would be sharply reduced, and whatever is left would be extremely expensive. Full free market would push most of the poor out of DC fairly quickly, and they would double and triple up in illegal rentals in the 'burbs, closer to jobs.

Your #55: I could have answered that better. Capitol Hill is an old trolley neighborhood, mostly built pre-automobile. It is built on a walking scale. This was of course the norm in older cities; what is unique about the Hill is that most of this has survived, as opposed to being torn down for industrial or commercial development in the first half of the 20th century. The teardowns destroyed a lot of graceful, picturesque, old red-brick, Victorian Washington in Northwest, but Capitol Hill remained residential. It is today the nation's largest surviving Victorian neighborhood. That is its charm.

It's sad to look at a book like Capitol Losses, which shows what has been lost across so much of DC. Frankly, most of the 20th century architecture is inferior to what it replaced. But that's another story. On the west side, Georgetown was preserved as a residential gem. On the east side, ditto for Capitol Hill (at a much lower price point than Georgetown). In between, there is downtown, which is graceless.

The point is that in a pre-automobile city, mixed income and mixed use neighborhoods were the norm. People walked. The gentry and the wealthy might choose a rail or trolley line commute from the burbs, but most people lived close to their work. The Hill was built to this pattern. We have larger rowhouses (not mansions) on the named avenues. We have smaller rowhouses on the side streets. Small apartments and shops were commonly found on the corners. Servants lived in English basements and on the fourth floors of the larger Victorians. There was a lot of alley housing. So we've always had density and an income mix. The challenge for us is preserving affordable units in the face of gentrification on steroids, but they've always been here; we don't have to try to retrofit them, which is the issue in the suburbs.

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