“Alexandria Civic Group Sues City to Preserve Single Family Neighborhoods” was the headline in the Post yesterday, a good summary that says it all. Even though the Alexandria City Council voted unanimously to allow some diversity in housing types in the residential neighborhoods of Falls Church’s neighbor to the south, the citizens have protested loudly, as they did in Arlington and in Falls Church with its “nothing burger” transitional zone issue. In Falls Church’s case, the number of duplexes or other small apartment buildings that may arise from the recent transitional zones modification will truly be minimal.

But citizens throughout this region are routinely going apoplectic over the notion that severe housing shortages besieging us, contributing to general misery as well as homelessness and crime, must not even begin to encroach on their pristine neighborhoods. This is despite the well-documented fact, including by the late area journalist Cragg Hines, that single family zoning restrictions around here were overtly racist in their original motives, as so many other things were in these parts.

These days, people around here are not appearing to care in the slightest about the link of their current objections to such an overtly racist past, and frankly, prevailing current attitudes derive from the modern sense of entitlement that tries to justify the free exercise of “selfish self-interest” over all other considerations.

This is sure to erupt here again as our new State Senator Saddam Salim has introduced legislation in Richmond that will mandate jurisdictions take up the cause of permitting so-called “accessory dwelling units” in their communities.
Such “ADUs” will do a lot toward relieving the housing shortage crisis by encouraging, if not incentivizing, local residents to build small accessory flats in their backyards that can be rented or sold for far less than the average single family home which in Falls Church new averages over $1 million.

The Falls Church City Council took up consideration of the measure in order to record a stand on it for Richmond’s deliberations. It did not reject the idea at all, but deferred to a study of the matter that will ostensibly help shape a consensus. That’s OK, but it seems more like just a delaying tactic while the City recovers from the divisive t-zone issue before tackling this one.

Such delays only deepen the crisis, alas, and reflect the reluctance of self-absorbed residents of this region to join their elected officials in taking up the very real housing shortage that will eventually overrun everything. Rather than opting for an orderly and reasonable solution that meets the demand that is only getting more and more exacerbated, perpetual delays will introduce chaos and even anarchy. Troubled inner city sidewalks lined with swelling disease-ridden homeless enclaves will not be kept out of our pristine neighborhoods, because we’re part of the urban landscape, like it or not.

The only solution is to grab the issue and act on it aggressively. Otherwise, selfishness will only lead to self-destruction.