Alley housing

Duvall Court is a redevelopment of a previously “unbuildable” set of alley lots in Washington DC, and thus a re-establishment of a thriving “alley neighborhood.”     The site began as housing for workers in a local brewery in 1893, with small-scale rowhouses sharing an inner portion of the city block.  Over time these uses of the alley blocks were gradually diminished, until DC Zoning Code deemed them “unbuildable” lots.  The outer perimeter rowhouses that had developed later became the preferred standard for the DC block, and the inner lots often were unused open space.   In 2016, DC changed the zoning code to allow these abandoned alley lots to be once again buildable, and t... More