New alley dwellings and old attitudes conflict in DC

Decades ago, alleys in eastern seaboard cities were inhabited mostly by the poor. Today, by contrast, they are becoming increasingly alluring to middle- and upper-income people, some of whom are willing to pay large sums for an alley home possessing style or character. Construction or renovation of alley dwellings is especially on the upswing in Washington, DC, despite the city’s longtime goal of getting rid of alley housing. In 1934, Washington adopted an Alley Dwelling Elimination Act, and by the mid-1950s most alley housing in the District was torn down. “There would be no more fetid, cramped, alleyway homes,” Bidisha Banerjee writes in a July 23, Washington City Paper article about the current revival of alley housing. Since 1958, new multifamily housing has been largely prohibited on the District’s alleys. Last year the Board of Zoning Adjustment rejected a proposal to erect affordable housing on an alley near 12th and U Streets in northwest Washington’s Cardozo neighborhood. A sign of the changing outlook, however, was the sale last fall of a renovated stable on an alley in the Shaw neighborhood for $1,050,000. The couple who bought it said they didn’t want to commute and did want to be in the center of the city. “Lately, alleyway housing has acquired so much cachet that developers are incorporating alleys and side streets into their designs and then playing them up,” Banerjee writes. Townhouses at Harrison Square, a courtyard between two alleys lined with rental housing, are selling for about $550,000. Developer PN Hoffman is planning a complex in northwest DC called Union Square, which will include housing that will face three connected alleys. Also included in the 280-unit project will be many dwellings whose entrances will be on regular streets. “We’re essentially dressing the alley up to be a community pedestrian area as opposed to rear access to houses,” said John Holmes of Adams Investment. His company intends to use decorative concrete as the paving for the alley, which will serve a cluster of two- or three-bedroom units priced at $450,000 or more. The intimacy of narrow alleys is seen as charming by a growing number of professionals. Better construction materials Mary Madden of Ferrell Madden Associates noted that the alley housing torn down over the past 70 years tended to be wood-frame construction, whereas the units being renovated “are frequently of solid brick construction” and are in “neighborhoods that are already considered stable and/or desirable.” For historical perspective, see James Borchert’s 1980 book, Alley Life in Washington: Family, Community, Religion, and Folklife in the City, 1850-1970, which tells of alley dwelling during less fortunate circumstances. Some alleys remain refuse-strewn and subject to unsavory activities such as prostitution. Questions continue to be raised about whether there is adequate access for emergency vehicles. So although developers are allowed to build single-family houses on vacant lots or renovate existing structures on alleys — and can build without special permission if the alley is 30 or more feet wide — construction of multifamily housing remains difficult on most Washington alleys. u