A newly released audit calls for stricter controls to ensure that developers provide the community benefits that they promise county leaders.
The report, detailed at a March 23 meeting of the county’s Audit Committee, found a lack of “formal policies and procedures” within the county government to track benefits proposed by developers in exchange for zoning changes.
County leaders and taxpayers need assurances that promised benefits are “effectively documented, tracked, implemented and monitored,” said assistant county auditor Shirley Brothwell.
One of the concerns raised in the report was the potential for administrative changes to adopted benefits following their approval, without the public or elected officials being made aware.
County Auditor Wayne Scott said efforts must be made to provide “procedures and a process to ensure changes such as these are documented and there’s a relevant trail for everyone to see.”
The audit also raised red flags about inconsistencies or ambiguities in reports that staff provide to County Board members. This lack of clarity can result in staff approving later changes that do not align with community or Board expectations.
The audit looked at eight site-plan projects from 2014 to the present day to determine if promises were kept, and if benefits — be they affordable housing, open space, cash or something else — were received.
It was a representative total of the nearly 50 site plans approved during the period, Brothwell said.
“We felt as if we had done enough work to be able to draw some overall inferences,” she told committee members.
To add layers of transparency to the process, Scott recommends county officials develop methods to better educate the community about the community-benefits process. He suggested that county officials should also improve webpages related to specific projects, clearly outlining anticipated community benefits.
The auditor suggests that county officials consider creating an online database tracking all benefits obtained through the site-plan process.
“That is something that would help the civic associations and community see what the community benefits are,” Scott said.
The focus of the audit was tracking benefits approved by the County Board. It did not examine the community engagement process leading up to the adoption of a final benefits package.
Samia Byrd, director of the Department of Community Planning, Housing and Development, said the audit largely vindicated her department’s efforts related to community benefits.
“The process is delivering results,” Byrd told members of the audit committee.
Though the process is “fundamentally sound,” Byrd agreed with most — though not all — of the audit’s recommendations for improvement.
“Our practices can be strengthened around documentation, consistency and transparency,” she said.
Among improvements to be quickly implemented, Byrd said, was increasing online information on community benefits.
County Board member Maureen Coffey, who chairs the audit committee, took a similar glass-half-full view of the community-benefits process.
“We’re seeing that the benefits get realized,” she said, while pressing for improved processes to “trust but verify.”
“Without adequate controls, we know that it’s possible for things to go in a different direction,” Coffey said.
Among Virginia localities, Arlington’s site-plan process is unique in how the government, developers and the community interact.
“It is tricky sometimes,” Coffey acknowledged.
Typically, only a handful of major development projects go through the site-plan process each year. The review process can take months or years, depending on the complexity.
Proposals made in the audit won support from a number of civic activists and community leaders.
“It’s a thorough report, it’s well-organized, it’s precise, it’s ambitious,” said former County Board member John Vihstadt.
Vihstadt previously served on the audit committee, first as a Board member and later as a representative of the public.
Edie Wilson, representing the Shirlington Civic Association, also reacted positively.
“I’m very heartened to see this report and see people digging in,” Wilson said.
She relayed the story of a $200,000 community-benefits payment from a Shirlington developer that sat untouched in the Department of Environmental Services’ coffers for two decades before a member of the public stumbled upon it.
“There was no one who even told us this money existed,” Wilson said. “It’s not a good fiduciary practice to have hundreds of thousands of dollars … sloshing around in an untransparent fund.”
That incident had a happy ending, with the funding being used for traffic-calming infrastructure in the Shirlington and Green Valley areas. But, Wilson noted, $200,000 would have gone a lot further in the 1990s than it did when expended 20 years later.
Maurya Meiers, representing the Ballston-Virginia Square Civic Association, also praised the report’s thoroughness.
“The findings really resonated,” she said, urging the county government to publicize the audit as well as any related changes in procedure that evolve out of it.
“I hope you do a roadshow with civic associations and others,” Meiers said.
