Comments to Alexandria City Council - 14 June 2025

Mayor Gaskins, Vice Mayor Bagley, and members of Council,

As the Alexandria leadership team for YIMBYs of Northern Virginia, we are excited to see several significant housing developments on today’s docket, and we ask you to vote yes on all of them. Together, these developments will add 480 desperately needed new homes to Alexandria.

Docket item 22, The View, will add 177 desperately needed net new senior living homes, including 7 committed affordable homes, to Alexandria West, supporting seniors in our community in being able to
stay in Alexandria as their needs change. The development will also benefit its neighbors by improving the sidewalk on Fillmore Avenue.

Docket item 23, the Robinson Terminal North development, will replace a warehouse with 73 homes and retail space. It will also have huge benefits for neighbors and visitors in Old Town, as it will fill a gap in public access to the Old Town Waterfront with a large publicly ccessible park space. It will also add pedestrian improvements and protected bike lanes to North Union Street.

We want to note that both of these developments, as well as several other recently approved housing developments, require a Special Use Permit for a mechanical penthouse that is taller than 15 feet. Since this is both commonplace for modern buildings and has little impact on the community, we believe that this policy should be modified so the Planning Commission can approve small height increases for mechanical penthouses as a modification, rather than requiring Council approval of a Special Use Permit. Alternatively, the policy could be modified to increase or remove the limits on height and number of mechanical penthouses.

We also support the three DSUP extension requests on today’s docket, which together will add 230 homes in transit-rich locations in Alexandria.

We hope Alexandria will continue to welcome new homes of all types, all price points, and in all parts of our city to address our regional housing crisis and make our city better for everyone.

YIMBYs of Northern Virginia Alexandria leads