The Arlington Planning Commission has given its nod to a 47-unit townhouse development, despite staff concerns that the proposal doesn’t match the Langston Boulevard Area Plan.
Commissioners supported developer BCN Homes’ plan for 2134 N. Taylor Street in a split 5-2 vote, with Commissioner Peter Robertson and Chair Denyse “Nia” Bagley voting against. The vote follows support from the Transportation Commission, the Waverly Hills and Cherrydale civic associations, the Langston Boulevard Alliance and the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, although county staff recommended against the project.
The rows of three- and four-bedroom townhomes on a 2.8-acre property would replace a proposal for a 175-unit senior living center that the County Board approved in April 2020. At a Tuesday meeting, representatives for BCN Homes said that the site has sat mostly vacant since at least 1999 and that this is the densest project that would financially viable on the site.
“This is a decent project,” Commissioner James Lantelme said. “It does not fit every single corner of the [Langston Boulevard Area Plan], but it’s close enough that it fits, certainly, what we want to have in this county.”
The Langston Boulevard Area Plan envisions up to seven stories of multifamily development on the site, supporting goals of increased density along the commercial corridor, according to a County Board report. While the project includes about 10,000 square feet of open space — well above what would be typical in a project like this — this is less than the roughly 17,000 square feet recommended in the area plan and “lacks hardscape elements to support large community gatherings.”
County staff also noted that the proposed tree canopy coverage is less than recommended.
“Collectively, these deviations result in a proposal that does not realize the site’s full development potential based on County adopted plans, nor does it adequately achieve several Langston Boulevard Area Plan goals, including expanding land use and density in appropriate locations along the corridor, achieving housing production targets, increasing community access to public spaces that promote social connection, and expanding tree canopy to strengthen the corridor’s sustainability and resiliency,” the report states.
Supporters of the project noted strong market demand for townhomes, which make up less than 4% of Arlington’s housing supply and, when compared to single-family homes, can offer a relatively viable path toward homeownership. They also contrasted the townhomes’ three- and four-bedroom units with the typical mix of studios and one- and two-bedroom units in most apartment buildings in Arlington.
“I don’t think we could feasibly deliver anything that would be a multifamily building on the site,” a representative for BCN Homes said at the meeting. “I think we’ve been clear about that. That’s not going to work.”
The current zoning would allow for the construction of single-family homes, if the developer chose to take that route. BCN estimated that it would be able to construct about 14 of these on the site.
“I acknowledge that it doesn’t meet all of the plan goals, but I am still interested in supporting this because of the fact that it has, for a long time, been an unproductive lot, this is a reasonable project and an alternative could be 14 single-family homes, which I would not like to see,” said Commissioner Tenley Peterson.
This proposal is slated for County Board discussion at this month’s meeting.
