A simmering controversy over the Alexandria City Council’s decision to redevelop the city’s historic waterfront erupted into open legal warfare on May 11, when the council and the city’s director of planning and zoning filed a lawsuit against their own Board of Zoning Appeals and five private individuals. The suit asks the Circuit Court to reverse last month’s BZA ruling that essentially invalidates the council’s January approval of a waterfront development plan.
Two days before the council vote, nearby landowners who would be directly affected by the high-density development tried to file a protest petition against the proposed changes to the city’s master plan. But Planning and Zoning Director Faroll Hamer refused to accept it — twice — claiming such a petition can be submitted only when the city’s actual zoning map is being altered, as opposed to the text of the city’s zoning law. After a marathon 11-hour meeting in which more than 100 city residents testified, including members of the Citizens for an Alternative Alexandria Waterfront Plan who accused Alexandria officials of “selling our city down the river,” the council voted 5-2 to approve the new development, which includes two boutique hotels.
Irate citizens appealed to the Circuit Court and lost. They then took their case to the BZA, a quasi-judicial board that routinely provides the last word on disputes arising from Alexandria’s often-confusing zoning laws. On April 12, BZA members voted 4-2 that Hamer had improperly refused to accept the citizens’ protest petition. Had she accepted it, the council would have been required by law to come up with a supermajority of six votes to pass the waterfront plan, instead of the five they got.
The council’s lawsuit offers several excuses as to why the BZA ruling should not be considered legitimate, including a hair-splitting distinction between “text” and “map” amendments. It also argues that the opinion of a city employee like Hamer is entitled to greater deference than an official vote by the public body charged with adjudicating the city’s zoning disputes. Alexandria City Manager Rashad Young insists the city isn’t suing itself, even though that appears to be exactly what it is doing.
As Alexandria officials turn on one another, at least one good thing has come out of this costly legal battle. “This has brought many local Democrats and Republicans together for the first time ever,” one of the petition-signers wrote recently in a public letter. Hopefully, they will remain united long enough to choose new public officials who are more responsive to citizen input.
