Battle Brewing Over Broyhill — “The 70-year-old hilltop mansion built by area home builder M.T. Broyhill is set to be torn down, the News-Press has confirmed. The required signage for demolition permits were recently posted in front of the spacious white-brick home at 2516 N. Vermont St., angering neighbors, though the new owner says the plans of himself and his wife are still taking shape. The mansion, once considered as a potential residence for the U.S. vice president, has 10 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms on 9775 sq. ft., and was owned in recent years by the Woodlawn Foundation of the Catholic Prelature of Opus Dei.” [Falls Church News-Press]

New Portrait for Beyer — From Rep. Don Beyer: “I didn’t know this until recently, but Members of Congress are allowed to update their official portrait. I look a bit different now from how I looked nearly a decade ago, so I asked the House photographers to retake it, and they did. Here’s the new portrait.” [Twitter]

More on Key Bridge Marriott — “The building, which previously housed Marriott’s longest-operating hotel, sold in early 2018 and the new owners received county approval for redevelopment in March 2020 before shutting down the Key Bridge Marriott hotel the following year. But now the development team appears close to giving up on it.  The developers — Los Angeles real estate investors Woodridge Capital Partners and Oaktree Capital Management — stopped paying their property taxes late last year, public records show.” [Bisnow]

GOP Tiptoes Around Prosecutor Race — “Is the Arlington County Republican Committee encouraging its members to vote in the June 20 Democratic primary for commonwealth’s attorney? Technically, no, but both at recent Arlington GOP meetings and in e-mail missives to the rank-and-file, some in the party leadership seem to be walking right up to the line.” [GazetteLeader]

BID Partnering with Trail Group — “The Rosslyn Business Improvement District (Rosslyn BID) is excited to announce that it has teamed up with the Friends of the Mount Vernon Trail (FoMVT) to advance their shared goal of improving the Mount Vernon Trail for folks walking, biking, and rolling. Through this partnership, the BID will sponsor the FoMVT’s cleanup events and volunteer activities starting this April.” [Rosslyn BID]

It’s Thursday — Clear throughout the day. High of 53 and low of 37. Sunrise at 6:57 am and sunset at 7:31 pm. [Weather.gov]

Each week, “Just Reduced” spotlights properties in Arlington County whose price have been cut over the previous week. The market summary is crafted by Arlington Realty, Inc. Maximize your real estate investment with the team by visiting www.arlingtonrealtyinc.com or calling 703-836-6000 today!

Please note: While Arlington Realty, Inc. provides this information for the community, it may not be the listing company of these homes. 

As of March 27, there are 125 detached homes, 30 townhouses and 146 condos for sale throughout Arlington County. In total, 18 homes experienced a price reduction in the past week, including:

• 3308 N. George Mason Drive, 22207 — NOW: $2,999,000 (Reduced $280,000 on 3/20)
• 3523 N. Valley Street, 22207 — NOW: $2,899,000 (Reduced $51,000 on 3/23)
• 2211 Military Road, 22207 — NOW: $2,299,995 (Reduced $50,000 on 3/22)
• 6581 Washington Blvd., 22205 — NOW: $1,240,000 (Reduced $10,000 on 3/23)
• 888 N. Quincy Street #912, 22203 — NOW: $875,000 (Reduced $25,000 on 3/21)
• 3610 Arlington Blvd., 22204 — NOW: $664,900 (Reduced $4,000 on 3/21)
• 2001 15th Street N. #716, 22201 — NOW: $450,000 (Reduced $25,000 on 3/27)

Please note that this is solely a selection of Just Reduced properties available in Arlington County. For a complete list of properties within your target budget and specifications, contact Arlington Realty, Inc.

Good Wednesday evening, Arlington. Today we published articles that were read a total of 10000 times… so far.

📈 Top stories

The following are the most-read articles for today — Mar 29, 2023.

1. BREAKING: Arlington police investigating homicide in Buckingham
2. Morning Notes
3. Ballston backpack and booze burglar busted
4. Arlington Kabob is serving the community in more ways than one

📅 Upcoming events

Here is what’s going on Thursday in Arlington, from our event calendar.

• 12:00 pm: Beyond Bullet Points
• 5:00 pm: MoCA Connect: Art After Hours
• 5:00 pm: Tiny Stage
• 6:00 pm: Barry’s Bootcamp
• 6:30 pm: Art Night: Decoupage Eggs at Art House 7

🌤 Thursday’s forecast

Clear throughout the day. High of 52 and low of 41. Sunrise at 6:57 am and sunset at 7:31 pm. See more from Weather.gov.

💡 Thought of the Day

Amidst the intricate tapestry of life, common threads of precious moments tangled in shared humanity reunify these harbingers awaiting insight’s gentle acquisition.

🌅 Tonight’s sunset

Thanks for reading! Feel free to discuss the day’s happenings in the comments.

Police are investigating the first reported homicide of the year in Arlington.

According to Arlington County police, a man was found dead in an apartment on the 100 block of N. Thomas Street yesterday (Tuesday) morning. He was suffering from “upper body trauma,” police said.

More from an ACPD press release:

The Arlington County Police Department’s Homicide/Robbery Unit is investigating a homicide in the Buckingham neighborhood.

At approximately 11:25 a.m. on March 28, police and fire were dispatched to the 100 block of N. Thomas Street for the report of trouble unknown. Upon arrival, it was determined a maintenance worker entered the apartment and located the unresponsive adult male inside. Arlington County Fire Department medics pronounced the male deceased on scene.

The preliminary investigation indicates the victim suffered upper body trauma. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will determine cause and manner of death. The identity of the decedent is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

This remains an active criminal investigation and anyone with information that may assist the investigation is asked to contact the Arlington County Police Department’s Homicide/Robbery Unit at 703-228-4180 or [email protected] Information may also be reported anonymously through the Arlington County Crime Solvers hotline at 1-866-411-TIPS (8477).

The apartment building is located on the same block at the Cathedral of St. Thomas More, as well as the Catholic church’s PreK-8 school.

The last reported homicide in Arlington happened in February 2022 on Columbia Pike.

Address: 3515 7th Street S.
Neighborhood: Alcova Heights
Type: 3 BR, 3 BA single-family detached — 2,200 sq. ft.
Listed: $1,099,900

Noteworthy: 3 Car Detached Garages

Look no further than 3515 7th Street S. in Alcova Heights! Enter to gorgeous, refinished espresso oak hardwood floors on the mail level that flow to the warmth of the family room with a wood burning fireplace and large windows facing south.

Just off the family room you’ll find the sunroom or office space with sliding glass doors that open to the back patio and landscaped backyard. The sunroom also has an open pass-through to the converted living room space and full bath which can easily be converted back to a main floor bedroom.

The chef’s kitchen, renovated in 2014 features black granite counters, soft close white cabinets, a marble backsplash, stainless steel appliances, gas cooking with a stainless range hood and a large breakfast bar accented by pendant lighting. The spacious formal dining room, just off the kitchen has original arched entryways, chair rail and south and west facing windows for great natural light.

This home has 3 fully finished levels and two amazing, detached garages for three total garage spaces, along with a level 2 electric car charger attached to the home. Above the 2-car garage, you’ll find a loft space with electricity and heat, perfect for a secluded home office or a space for band practice.

You’ll love living in the amazing Arlington community of Alcova Heights, with a quick commute to D.C. and walking distance to one of Arlington’s favorite restaurants, Ruthie’s All Day, Arlington’s parks and so much more!

Welcome to Alcova Heights!

Listed by:
Shawn Battle — The Battle Group
[email protected]
(703) 999-8108

The following in-depth local reporting was supported by the ARLnow Press Club. Join today to support local journalism and to get an early look at what we’re planning to cover each day.

Last week, the Arlington County Board voted unanimously to allow homeowners, builders and developers to convert or build new 2-6 unit homes throughout the county.

Those changes will not go into effect until July 1 and it will be even longer before such buildings actually spring up.

“Nothing will be built a year from now. It may be permitted, but it won’t be built,” Arlington County Board Chair Christian Dorsey predicted to ARLnow after the vote last Wednesday. “We’re really going to have to wait, I think, 18 months before we actually have anything we can sink our teeth into.”

Dorsey seemed confident that county staff have sufficient direction to prepare for the first “Missing Middle” housing applications.

“[Staff] are already going to work on ‘What are we going to do with permitting? What are we doing to set up a structure?’ but then, also, ‘What are the technical, advisory resources that we’re going to make available to allow people to navigate through it?'” he said.

For staff and for builders, the county is entering uncharted waters.

“It’s really new,” Dorsey said. “The existing duplexes, triplexes and townhouses are fairly matured in this county, but the other forms, we haven’t really seen them in recent history,” he said.

While it will be at least a year and a half before there is anything to see, behind the scenes, activity is already humming.

County staff are working on educational materials and getting Permit Arlington, the county’s online permitting system, ready. A few local developers have put out feelers regarding where to build townhomes. County Board members are already directing planning staff to study other aspects of the zoning code to see how standards can be strengthened to prevent tree canopy loss.

Staff gets to work 

The next three months will be busy for county staff.

Staff will put out educational materials for property owners and building industry professionals explaining possibilities and requirements.

County planners will study up for meetings with people who want to build EHO units — Arlington’s term of art for what it just allowed is “Expanded Housing Options” — which are being encouraging so people can go over code requirements and their applications with staff before submitting them. Lastly, they will add a zoning permit application for EHO development to Permit Arlington.

ARLnow recently reported on issues with the online permitting system. Builders and architects blame these issues, along with the need for pre-construction meetings, for construction delays and more expensive projects. They tell us that the staffing level dedicated to reviewing applications will determine how successful Arlington is in encouraging EHO construction.

“Having a consistent plan review process would be the most helpful way that the county could support this new type of initiative,” David Tracy, the president of local home-building company Classic Cottages, tells ARLnow. “The permitting piece in Arlington is rigorous already [for single-family detached homes]. This is supposed to go through more or less the same process and that is a months-long process.”

What will be built and where? 

While 2-6 unit buildings are broadly allowed in all districts previously zoned only for single-family detached dwellings, some lots will be too small for certain kinds of projects and others are ineligible because the county says they could be assembled with other properties for bigger development projects.

A cap of 58 approved projects per year for five years, distributed geographically, will to some degree dictate where these buildings go.

Some in the home-design and building industry predict that despite the nearly blanket allowance, EHO homes will likely be concentrated around walkable amenities.

“My own personal view is that there need to be walkable amenities around in order for people to want to live in this type of house,” Tracy said. “If there’s a condo building in the western part of the county where the zoning is R-10 and R-20, the head-scratcher is why would you buy a condo or townhome, which I associate… with a more urban existence.”

Tracy said the cap has benefit and trade-offs. It might help regulate the review process but it could create a “false scarcity” that dissuades people from undertaking EHO projects.

“The worst thing you can do for a builder is create uncertainty,” he said, adding that they cannot afford to wait a year if the cap is hit and their project misses the boat. “You’re going to distort the market.”

County Board member Katie Cristol tried to make that point during the rezoning approval, arguing that uncertainty will keep Missing Middle units from being built, but her motion to double the cap was voted down.

County Board Vice-Chair Libby Garvey told supporters in an email this week that she pushed for these two measures.

“I have consistently worked to make these changes more of a pilot than sweeping changes,” said Garvey, who for a while led the charge against the never-built Columbia Pike streetcar. “While the final adoption is not quite as limited or as dispersed as I would like, I think it will allow us to see how this works out over time and over different portions of the County.”

Architect Ethan Marsh expects Missing Middle-type homes will pop up near transit, such as in Lyon Village and Lyon Park, which flank the Clarendon and Courthouse neighborhoods along the Orange and Silver lines.

But the building might extend to neighborhoods a bit further afield from transit, like Marsh’s former neighborhood of Penrose.

“In those areas, you can walk to Columbia Pike and catch a bus, which I did often, or get to Clarendon on a scooter,” he said. “Those areas lend themselves better to Missing Middle because you can increase density without increasing parking, because you have walkability… This area sort of markets itself.”

It seemingly already has. In a conversation in a local neighborhood email listserv, shared with ARLnow, someone who owns a property in Lyon Village explained how he would make more money replacing his $1.2 million house with a 3-unit townhouse, with each unit listed around $1.5 million, over one large, $2.7 million single-family home. Citing concerns of overcrowding in the neighborhood school his kids attend, the individual said he would not build a 6-plex.

Meanwhile, a speculative development brochure shared with ARLnow seeks investors for a similar development planned for a single-family colonial home, built in 1947, in Lyon Park.

The home, described as “in disrepair” and on an “under-utilized” site, was sold for around $950,000 this February to a registered LLC named for the home’s address, according to county property records. The investment pitch proposes envisions building three townhouses, which would sell for just over $1.22 million each, which would still be less expensive than many older single-family homes in the area.

Over the last couple of years, people have debated how attainable these units would be, particularly to people making less than $100,000 per year. ARLnow asked a few local nonprofit affordable housing providers if they would be building Missing Middle-type homes to provide homeownership opportunities to lower-income residents.

Two said they would not be, but they support the changes because of how they will expand housing. The local Habitat for Humanity chapter, however, indicated interest.

“This change opens up large portions of the County where we were effectively priced out before, and we will be working hard to make the new policy a successful reality,” Director of Donor Engagement & Communications Liz Salter told ARLnow.

She said Habitat has “considerable experience” building stacked flats, two-over-twos and smaller multifamily structures in D.C. for homeownership units.

“And we have successfully built 3+ bedroom units within the smaller envelopes that would be characteristic of an [EHO] multiplex,” she said.

Planning for growth

Missing Middle critics often predicted overcrowding at schools, some of which already have not-so-temporary trailers offsetting enrollment increases.

For the part of Arlington Public Schools, it says the rezoning adoption will have impacts small enough not to significantly affect enrollment planning in the near term. APS believes Missing Middle will add roughly nine to 13 students per year, spread across elementary, middle and high schools.

“The Missing Middle housing growth should be similar to what to the growth in accessory dwellings, which were approved in 2017,” APS spokesman Frank Bellavia says, noting that 99 parcels across Arlington have ADUs.

He did say that the annual cap on projects would be beneficial.

“The caps established for the first five years of the MM makes it more manageable for APS to absorb any increase in new students,” he said. “APS closely collaborates with Arlington County staff on projections and any changes to the pace of development will be on our radar.”

Addressing overcrowding, Bellavia said APS has a few planning processes through which it can address growth by expanding existing schools, repurposing current space or collaborating with the county on other types of expansions.

“The most recent APS Capital Improvement Plan and bond is investing in a new facility that will expand the number of students served by the Arlington Career Center,” he said. “The next CIP will also include a schedule and funds to begin renovating and modernizing existing APS facilities. We believe that the combined initiatives will help absorb any increases in enrollment due to Missing Middle.”

Meanwhile, those who like crunching numbers can eventually expect a lot of data tracking growth related to Missing Middle.

Permit applications and approvals will be published in real-time and likely added to interactive map promoted through newsletters. Annual reports will include data on:

• EHO types, unit numbers and locations
• New construction vs. renovations
• Owner and renter-occupation rates
• Lot size and coverage and impervious surface coverage
• Tree planting and retention
• Parking spaces provided per unit
• Number and location of requested and approved parking reductions
• Demographics of residents living in EHO development, if possible
• APS student generation

In the cases where new EHO construction replaces a dwelling, for interest, the county is also interested in tracking whether the owner or renters live inside.

The data would provide a clearer picture of whether predictions from critics are coming to pass, including one that the changes will yield more 1-2 bedroom rentals than family-sized, 3-4 bedroom units for sale.

The future of McMansions

The foil to EHO development has long been the so-called McMansion, a pejorative for new single-family homes derided by critics as oversized, cookie cutter and cheaply built.

Some proponents have reasoned that if the zoning code can allow for these buildings housing one family, it should allow structures with the same footprint to house multiple families. Now, the question is whether large single-family homes might see additional county scrutiny.

The Arlington County Board has encouraged staff to prioritize studying lot coverage and building placement standards to find ways to preserve trees from being cut down. The new zoning code requires between four and eight trees per unit on properties developed with EHOs.

Members and Planning Commissioners are also interested in adding to the zoning code a standard for floor area ratio, or the ratio of a building’s base to the size of the lot it is built on.

“We’re hearing a lot about this, I’d love to move it forward faster,” Garvey said during a budget work session with the Department of Community Planning, Housing and Development.

Planning Director Anthony Fusarelli responded that staff may be overextended and that work could not begin until other studies wrapped up in 2024.

Cristol recommended implementing “quick-strike” rule changes for lot coverage that could come out of an update to Arlington’s Forestry and Natural Resources Plan, a final draft of which is expected to be ready this spring or summer.

This will, she said, “really serve this strongly held desire to protect trees in development of low-density properties.”

She warned that without determining community priorities for lot coverage, the county could end up in another contentious policy debate.

“I’m very eager to take up this conversation and I think there are a lot of interesting ideas,” she said. “I hope we can find a little capacity to pursue that goal overall.”

Greetings Arlingtonians! Our first ever spring at Bronson Bierhall was in 2020. Back then we were only a few months old when the world shut down, and we didn’t know if we’d make it.

We’re thankful that we’ve not only survived, but thrived thanks to the amazing support from the Ballston community, Arlington residents in general, and beyond.

As we grow, we’re always looking for great ways to add value to your experience at Bronson. We thought we’d stop by to say thanks for your support these first few years and tell you about stuff we’re working on lately.

Starting now, we’re excited to jump into spring by rolling out live music 7 days a week! Now, you can come by and enjoy a talented singer every day.

If you’d like to keep tabs on who’s up next, our website is constantly updated with our acts! We pause every now and again for major sporting events, but outside of that, the show must go on. We’ve even built a new stage and set-up for our daily shows. Live music is something we love, and we hope you do, too. We’re going to continue to work on the viewing and listening experience.

We’re also doing our best to become the most dog friendly bar in the county. Have you seen our @dogsofBronson Instagram page yet? It features some of the most awesome pups that come by and hang with us on the patio. If you haven’t been, come by. All dog owners who swing by for a beer or a bite on the patio automatically receive one of our @dogsofbronson koozies, and we’ve got treats and plenty of water bowls for your four-legged family.

Lastly, we’ve become quite the venue for events of all shapes and sizes. Recently we’ve hosted parties from 10 to over 250 folks, and we’d be happy to help make your event a success. Tap in with us here anytime and let us know what you’re looking for in your next event.

Thanks again for all of your tremendous support! We’re thankful for a great first few years at Bronson, and looking forward to having a great spring and summer season with you all. Swing by with your dog or some friends sometime soon for a beer or some live music. We’ll be here looking forward to it!

Police arrested a man after a somewhat unusual burglary in Ballston yesterday evening.

The burglary happened shortly before 7 p.m. Tuesday, on the 900 block of N. Stuart Street, which corresponds with the Meridian at Ballston Commons apartment building.

Police say a sleeping resident woke up to find someone rummaging through his bedroom.

“The victim yelled at the suspect [who then] fled the scene on foot with the victim’s backpack and alcohol,” said today’s Arlington County police crime report. “Responding officers located the suspect in the area and took him into custody without incident. During a search of the suspect’s person incident to arrest, credit cards and other personal belongings of the victim were located.”

A 19-year-old D.C. man was arrested and charged with burglary and four counts of credit card theft, police said.