County Board candidates are split in their thoughts about a planned update to Arlington’s Comprehensive Plan.
While some fear it could be used as a back-door effort to build denser housing, incumbent Democrat Takis Karantonis argues that concerns are overblown, or at least premature.
“I want to preserve Arlington’s single-family neighborhoods,” independent County Board candidate Audrey Clement said at a recent online debate sponsored by Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future.
Using the Comprehensive Plan update to open the door for more intense development will “tear the fabric of these communities apart,” said Clement, a perennial candidate.
Karantonis pushed back on such concerns, noting that the county has not even finished collecting community feedback.
“It’s too early to say if we are talking about densification or not,” Karantonis said at the forum.
Changes to the introductory chapter of the Comprehensive Plan area are needed to bring it in line with community evolution over recent decades, Karantonis said.
“We have to account for how Arlington has developed — socially, not just physically,” he said.
For Virginia’s localities, a Comprehensive Plan defines the structure and goals for community development. Arlington’s plan was created in 1960 and has been updated multiple times since.
The document includes 12 “elements,” tackling topics ranging from transportation and housing to energy and watershed protection. Updates to each occur on their own schedule and will not be addressed during the update to the introductory language.
No action is expected until 2026, but advocates on all sides of the development issue are attempting to make their points early in the process.
At the Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future forum, Republican candidate Bob Cambridge said he supported planning efforts, but did not want to “blindly” enter into an era of higher development without infrastructure in place.
“I do not want to see neighborhoods built up that do not have the transportation [resources] to support it,” he said.
Independent Carlos De Castro (“D.C.”) Pretelt did not address the pros and cons of densification directly, but said more community input was needed.
“We have to figure that out together,” said Pretelt, who has the endorsement of the Forward Party.
The fifth candidate, independent Jeramy Olmack, did not participate in the Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future event. At an early-September forum sponsored by the Arlington County Civic Federation, Olmack said he favored more medium- and high-density development, but not all at once.
“We need to be looking at much longer periods of time,” Olmack said then.
County leaders have set up four community meetings on the proposed Comprehensive Plan update:
- Tuesday, Oct. 14 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at Van Metre Hall on the Arlington campus of George Mason University
- Thursday, Oct. 23 from 7-9 p.m. online (English only)
- Tuesday, Oct. 28 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Arlington Trades Center
- Thursday, Nov. 5 from 6-7 p.m. online (with language interpretation)
In addition, an online feedback form will be open until Nov. 16.
During the Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future forum, candidates also tackled issues ranging from office-to-residential building conversions to appropriate levels of parking in the county.
The Nov. 4 County Board election will be run under ranked-choice rules, although as the Democratic nominee, Karantonis remains the odds-on favorite.
