The Arlington Housing Commission plans to spend the year exploring ways to include more diverse voices in conversations about housing policy.
But trying to get fuller representation of residents of color and those at the lower end of the economic scale will not necessarily be easy, the commission’s chair said.
“It can be challenging for low-income folks to set aside time for something like this,” Kellen MacBeth said at the Feb. 13 commission meeting.
At that meeting, the advisory panel to the County Board formally established a community engagement task force. To be led by commission member Katie Wenger, the task force will spend the rest of the year looking at ways to incorporate “groups that typically don’t have a say” into the conversation, MacBeth said.
Participants will be sought from the Tenant-Landlord Commission, Human Rights Commission and housing-advocacy organizations, in addition to members of the Housing Commission.
The effort is vital, commission member Bryan Coleman said.
“It’s incredibly important to build more trust with the community about how the county operates,” he said.
Another commission member, Joe Ventrone, said Arlington County needs to do better at informing the entire community about its efforts to promote affordable housing. The county’s communication strategy sometimes falls short, he said.
For years, the county has tried to encourage more civic engagement from underrepresented groups, often coming up short. MacBeth said that there’s a Plan B in place in case that happens this time.
“Even if we don’t get all of the different folks represented on the subcommittee that we would like, the subcommittee is going to still make sure that we’re hearing their voices and incorporating their feedback,” he said.
The task force is slated to present recommendations to the full commission by December. That body can then recommend policy or process changes to County Board members.
The initiative comes as Arlington’s high housing costs show no signs of easing, either for homeowners or renters.
The median rent across the county in January was $2,548, up 5% from a year before, according to figures new reported by Apartment List.
That increase (to $2,399 for one-bedroom units and $2,899 for two bedrooms) came as the year-over-year national median rent declined 0.5% to $1,370.
Of the 100 urban areas tracked by Apartment List, Arlington recorded the fifth highest median rent and the highest nationally outside California. Arlington’s rate was also well above the median of $2,149 across the D.C. region.
On the home-purchase front, average sales prices in January for Arlington properties were just over $1.5 million for single-family properties; about $536,000 for attached homes; and just under $475,000 for condominiums.
Those figures come from Bright MLS, based on data from MarketStats by ShowingTime.
