Two of the most pressing needs for Alexandria's residents — more affordable housing and more school capacity — went head-to-head in an Alexandria City Public Schools Board thought exercise.
At a work session Thursday evening, school board members discussed at length whether school properties, specifically the Minnie Howard Campus of Alexandria’s high school, could be a good place to build affordable housing.
Affordable housing is a significant need in Alexandria, which lost over 15,500 affordable units between 2000 and 2018. Multiple affordable housing projects are currently in the works, but much more is needed to serve residents.
School capacity is also a significant concern, as most public schools in Alexandria are already at or above capacity and updated enrollment projections show that public school enrollment in Alexandria's high school will increase by more than 1,000 students in the next 10 years. Significant increases are expected for students in grades K-8 as well.
(All slides/images are from the Thursday evening work session.)
Finding enough appropriate land to build a school is difficult, at best, and land tentatively earmarked for elementary schools at Green Hill off South Van Dorn Street and near Potomac Yard in the future may not turn out to be feasible. ACPS officials plan to discuss this, again, with the City Council in April.
School board members plan to make a decision on whether to pursue the colocation of affordable housing at Minnie Howard specifically on Feb. 4. A public meeting is set for Jan. 25.
Redesigning Minnie Howard
Minnie Howard’s complete reimagining is part of the Alexandria City Public School’s High School Project. In September 2019, the school board voted to expand Alexandria’s single high school into a Connected High School Network and build on the Minnie Howard Campus, offering a wider variety of educational opportunities for students across a connected network of virtual and physical locations.
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ACPS Superintendent Dr. Gregory Hutchings said at Thursday’s work session that deciding whether affordable housing belongs at Minnie Howard will affect the design of the new campus, so the decision needs to be made relatively early in the process.
“That is what is preventing us from moving forward, because it will take us in a very different direction if affordable housing is part of the planning,” Hutchings said.
The work session included “test fits” of ways a newly constructed Minnie Howard could provide room for students and for residents in need of affordable housing. Each “test fit” proposal was followed by a slide noting “trade-offs/considerations”.
Those trade-offs and considerations included security and safety concerns, costs associated with underground versus aboveground parking, building design, initial development costs, school operations and whether the presence of affordable housing would limit future expansion.
Scroll through the slides using the arrows to see all "test fits."
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Just Because It’s Possible…
Hutchings cautioned, “Because it’s feasible, that doesn’t necessarily mean that now it’s the best thing to do.” He also said that affordable housing “definitively” does not tie into educational programming, whereas other colocations options could be beneficial to students.
Many residents have already made their voices heard on whether affordable housing belongs on school grounds — and most of them say it's a “no.”
One of the slides during Thursday evening’s work session acknowledged that residents “have concerns about the appropriateness of collocating affordable housing on an existing school site.”
As of Thursday evening, it appeared that most school board members also had concerns about colocating affordable housing on school property. Unlike the colocation of other services designed for students or educational reasons, affordable housing would not add to education services provided at a school site.
Further, placing affordable housing could make any future expansion of a school complicated. If the school system needed more room for students in 20 years, would the presence of affordable housing limit possible solutions to student capacity issues?
“I don’t want to, 20 years from now, have a school board member shaking their head thinking, ‘Man, why did the school board do that?’” said School Board Member Ramee Gentry.
“If we needed that space in the future for something else, we could not easily make a shift,” said School Board Member Meagan Alderton, who advocated for an educational design at Minnie Howard that can be flexible for a growing population and shifting educational needs years in the future. “Affordable housing does not lend itself to the flexibility we need,” she said.
Residents have also voiced concerns about the physical security of students — something that School Board Member Jacinta Greene said concerned her, as well. “It is not safe to put housing on school grounds,” she said.
School Board Member Chris Suarez, a lawyer, questioned whether collocating affordable housing is even legal in Virginia. School system staff are looking into it.
Affordable housing advocates have argued in favor of using excess public land or colocating affordable housing alongside other civic uses for years. The Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance back in 2014 published a report that looked at using “surplus” public land for affordable housing, but the report noted, “This can become complicated, however, if (as is the case with schools and housing) the deciding entities are two different governing bodies.”
Other Colocation Possibilities
Even if affordable housing at Minnie Howard is off the table after Feb. 4, school board members may move forward with allowing other types of colocation, including recreation, resident services such as workforce development, or school system administrative space.
Currently, ACPS is renting expensive central office space, and the rebuilding of Minnie Howard presents an opportunity to save money on rent and build flexible space that could later be used to accommodate student needs as Alexandria’s population continues to grow.
“I find myself very persuaded about the value of building something that can be used for administrative purposes, with the thought toward transforming it into student purposes at a later date if needed,” Gentry said. “It seems very strange for me — for us — to not take this opportunity to be setting ourselves up so we no longer have to lease central office space. I think that would be a much more responsible thing to do.”
