Plane at Reagan National Airport (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)
Reagan National Airport is “expecting significant delays and cancellations through this evening due to air traffic reductions.”
The airport urged those with flight reservations “to monitor their flight status closely with their airline,” according to a social post Friday afternoon. As of 5 p.m., the FAA listed average flight delays of four hours at Reagan National, attributing the delays to “staffing” issues.
This regularly scheduled column is written by Eli Tucker, Arlington-based Realtor and Arlington resident. If you would like to work with Eli and his team in Northern Virginia and the greater D.C. Metro area, you can reach him directly at[email protected].
Question: How much of an impact do you think the ROAD to Housing Act will have on housing affordability in Arlington?
Answer: The Road to Housing Act became law ten days ago, with the stated goal of improving housing affordability in the United States.
I don’t see many policies in the Act that will improve affordability in the Arlington/Northern VA/DC Metro markets, outside of incentives for more affordable multi-family housing, but there are policies that should improve affordability in other markets that are more saturated with institutional investors that own swaths of single-family homes (e.g. Atlanta and Phoenix) and for manufactured/mobile homes.
The Local Conversation Needs to Change
If we are going to improve affordability in our market, most of the change has to be done locally/regionally, not nationally, but it requires a paradigm shift in how we discuss and solve for housing affordability.
Affordability Disconnect: Near Term Expectations Not Realistic
A disconnect between housing affordability expectations and reality prevents the right community and political conversations from happening. We expect/demand housing affordability immediately, ignoring the difficulty, and consequences, of achieving it that quickly.
Stable and healthy housing affordability is a long-term process requiring gradual change over a 10-15+ year period.
Demand-Side Solutions Won’t Work
Demand-side solutions, such as lower interest rates or easier financing, artificially inflate home values, as seen during the COVID-era housing boom and early 2000s. They are not a good long-term solution to affordability because they push values even higher (along with your property taxes) and affordability gets worse when rates/lending normalize and no longer provide artificially low monthly payments.
Supply-Side Solutions Are Not Immediate
Most policy discussions focus on supply-side solutions: building more/faster and denser housing (e.g. Arlington’s Missing Middle/Expanded Housing Option), incentivizing more existing home sales, or disincentivizing concentrated ownership by companies and individuals. Econ 101 tells us that more supply = lower prices = affordable housing (winner winner!).
This is the only path to stable, long-term housing affordability…BUT, at current interest rates, prices must drop 30-35% in the United States to become affordable, at current income levels. A 30-35% drop in home values would devastate the economy, so a supply-side solution won’t (shouldn’t) provide immediate affordability. (more…)
A 23-year-old man is accused of using an air pistol to shoot people and vehicles from inside a South Arlington apartment early yesterday morning (Thursday).
The Arlington County Police Department was dispatched around 4:40 a.m. to a report of a shooting just off of Columbia Pike, in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, according to a press release. They arrived to find two men who had been struck by projectiles, suffering “minor injuries.”
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While supportive of redrawing congressional boundaries, one of Arlington’s state legislators isn’t convinced that it will guarantee her party more seats in the House of Representatives next year.
“This is sort of a risky business,” Sen. Barbara Favola (D-40) said at a community roundtable yesterday (Thursday). “It could go either way. It is not a magic bullet.”
Arlington Ridge Road bridge (staff photo by Vernon Miles)
One side of a 1950s-era bridge over Four Mile Run will close for reconstruction beginning next week.
The west side of the Arlington Ridge Road bridge, which crosses from Arlington into Alexandria just south of S. Glebe Road, will close next Wednesday to all vehicle and sidewalk traffic. It will remain inaccessible for about 11 months while crews demolish and reconstruct the southbound side.
O'Connell's Mackenzie Barbato advances the ball in the state final (staff photo by Dave Facinoli)
The Bishop O’Connell Knights bounced back from a major defeat in regional action to win the four-team Northern Virginia Independent Schools State Invitational girls soccer tournament.
With a 2-0 home victory over the third-seed St. Paul VI Catholic Panthers in the Thursday (Oct. 6) title game, the top-seeded Knights (14-2-1) won the crown for the second straight year and fourth time in five seasons.
Whether you’re looking for a place to take relatives this holiday season or just looking for a nice night out with your family, Arlington has numerous family dinner spots to try.
A rendering of Altitude Wine Bar (photo courtesy of Episcope Hospitality)
A new wine bar with a selection of vinyl records and a cafe with a gourmet market are coming to Crystal City.
Both Altitude Wine Bar and Constellation, a cafe and gourmet market, will be installed at 2011 Crystal Drive — adjacent to the forthcoming pedestrian bridge connecting Crystal City to the airport. Episcope Hospitality, the group behind Water Park, plans to construct both establishments “inspired by the elegance of the golden age of travel and exploration.”
But while several local organizations have given the concept their blessing, a key state legislator who supported efforts in the 2025 legislative session has said she wants to hold off in 2026.