In the months since a circuit court judge struck down Arlington’s Missing Middle zoning changes, one of the initiative’s core goals appears to have backfired.
Beyond increasing the county’s overall housing stock, one of the main stated intentions of Missing Middle was to address a trend of developers tearing down existing single-family homes to replace them with larger, more expensive single-family homes.
It’s a pattern that has continued in Arlington and across the country in the years since officials began discussion of the Expanded Housing Options (EHO), much to the dismay of some local residents.
Today, with the future of Missing Middle hazy at best, it’s a trend that some of the would-be EHO developers are contributing to.
At least 16 of Arlington’s 45 projects with previously approved EHO permits have applied to pivot to become single-family development projects instead, an ARLnow analysis of online permitting records found.
These projects had already received county approval when Judge David Schell overturned the county’s Missing Middle initiative on Sept. 27.
Schell allowed approved EHO projects to continue for the time being as the civil lawsuit awaits further consideration in the court of appeals and, potentially, the Virginia Supreme Court. However, the judge warned that doing so means making a gamble.
“You’re taking a huge risk, in my humble judgment, if you’re building a six-plex or a four-plex while the case is pending in the court of appeals,” Schell said in October.
Many developers appear to agree with his assessment.
The largest of the proposed single-family homes, located near the East Falls Church Metro station at 2315 N. Tuckahoe Street, would be 8,487 square feet. The smallest, at 921 22nd Street S. in Aurora Highlands, would clock in at 2,516 square feet.
The most expensive of applications are for a pair of neighboring properties in Alcova Heights: 4015 and 4019 7th Street S. Both have estimated work costs of $1 million.
Applications for single-family projects are still trickling in. Most recently, the application for the 22nd Street S. property was filed on Monday.
Only a small handful of projects are soldiering on with their approved multifamily permits, according to county records.
To comply with Schell’s rulings, these developers had to place a notice in land records indicating the risk that future landholders are accepting if they choose to buy these properties.
Just three projects have taken this route, according to Arlington County’s fourth quarter 2024 development tracking report. The remainder of the former EHO developments — totaling 175 units — have either pivoted to single-family projects or haven’t filed any new development plans.
The county’s development tracking report is expected to update “in the coming weeks” with data from the first quarter of this year, county spokesperson Ryan Hudson told ARLnow.
