Just in time for Bastille Day, a new bistro with Parisian-inspired offerings is set to open this Friday in Crystal City.
Bar Colline plans to offer French-American cuisine at 269 19th Court S. A sister to Cafe Colline on Langston Blvd, the bistro will join a growing mix of retail and dining at The Grace and Reva apartments.
An adorable Chihuahua, Bodhi, is looking for a new home.
Bodhi — his foster insists he does not answer to Buddy — is a Chihuahua in foster care who was surrendered to Homeward Trails Animal Shelter after years of living with another family. The family moved and was unable to care for Bodhi, who is now in foster care.
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…)
Arlington has some popular spots for classic barbecue, offering smoky specialties like pulled pork and brisket with satisfying sides.
Here are the nominees for “Best Barbecue Restaurant in Arlington” as part of our ARLnow Readers’ Choice awards.
Did we miss your favorite place? Write them in!
Voting will close in two weeks.
Voting for the Best Bar in Arlington is still taking place. Be sure to cast your vote before voting closes next Friday at 9 a.m.
Two weeks ago, we voted on the Best Place for Wings in Arlington. The results are now official:
As the summer is winding down, Art House 7 is gearing up for August Classes! Offerings include painting, drawing, cartooning, mixed media, and printmaking. Some highlights: Animals of the Serengeti, k-2nd; Digital Art, 4th-6th grades; Painting Metal with Watercolor, Adults. Classes are 3-4 weeks: a short commitment for a lot of creative output. Check out everything on our website.
August Classes at Art House 7:
County leaders are promising action after an audit found major deficiencies in the operation and oversight of a transit program serving Arlington residents with disabilities.
Identified issues with the Specialized Transit for Arlington Residents (STAR) program ranged from billing discrepancies to a lack of review of driver manifests by WeDriveU, which operates the paratransit program under contract to the county.
We’re ending Movie Nights on the Pike with a scream.
Join us at Penrose Square for a special outdoor screening of I Know What You Did Last Summer, the iconic summer slasher that became a defining horror film of the late 1990s.
Revamps of parking, towing and tree-canopy requirements could be coming to an increasingly urbanized Falls Church.
A work plan from City Manager Wyatt Shields includes a possible rewrite of existing rules for how much parking new development projects must include, plus possible changes to the city’s tree canopy ordinance and towing ordinance.
Arlington residents’ commitment to serving others took center stage at the 2025 Arlington Cares event last week.
More than 200 people attended the Tuesday gathering at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association headquarters in Ballston.
Arlington 911 Using AI — “Arlington County’s 911 center is… turning to artificial intelligence to help man non-emergency calls coming into its dispatch center this Fourth of July holiday… Officials say non-emergency calls were down by nearly 16,000 in the first quarter of the year compared to the same time period in 2024.” [Fox 5]
Youngkin Calls Out Arlington — “Youngkin said his Virginia Homeland Security Task Force arrested 2,500 people so far this year, who he says are violent criminals in the U.S. illegally. Youngkin also renewed his call for local law enforcement in Northern Virginia to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Youngkin has called out Fairfax County and Arlington County for not honoring ICE detainers and working with ICE.” [WJLA]
Families Worry About Title I Change — “Two Arlington schools previously categorized as Title I campuses won’t be eligible for that designation in the fall, a change that some parents are concerned about the consequences of.” [WTOP]
Fairlington Parade on TV — “It was a day for neighbors in Fairlington to break out the red, white, and blue and spend time with each other as they and people across the DMV marked the Fourth of July. The Fairlington Citizens Association (FCA) and Fairlington Villages held the community’s July 4th Parade and Celebration on Friday.” [DC News Now]
Teen Girl Arrested — “The female victim and juvenile female victim were inside a common area of a residential building when the known juvenile female suspect in her teens allegedly approached and pepper sprayed them before fleeing the scene on foot… Petitions for the juvenile suspect were sought for Malicious Wounding by Caustic Agent (x2).” [ACPD]
Blue Line Closure — “A stretch of the Metro Blue Line will be out of service starting Saturday and will remain closed until July 26 for construction. Franconia-Springfield and Van Dorn St. stations will be closed for three weeks, making Reagan National Airport the last stop on the Blue Line.” [WTOP]
It’s Monday — Showers and potential storms are expected throughout the day, with some storms potentially producing heavy rainfall. It will otherwise be partly sunny with a high near 89°F and a southeast wind of 3-6 mph. There is a 70% chance of precipitation. On Monday night there’s a 30% chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 7pm, followed by partly cloudy skies and a low around 75°F. [NWS]
Today’s Morning Notes are brought to you by Industrious. ARLnow has been in an Industrious office for years and we love the convenience — you get to focus on your work rather than worrying about brewing coffee or keeping the printer stocked. Industrious has several Metro-accessible coworking locations in Arlington.
Flickr pool photo by Jason Gooljar
Good Thursday evening, Arlington. Let’s take a look back at today’s stories and a look forward to tomorrow’s event calendar.
The following articles were published earlier today — Jul 3, 2025.
Here is what’s going on Friday in Arlington, from our event calendar.
Expect partly cloudy skies throughout the day, with temperatures reaching a high of 75°F and a low of 55°F. A mild breeze will blow at 10 mph, ensuring a comfortable atmosphere. There’s a slight chance of rain around 20%, so you might want to pack an umbrella just in case. Overall, it looks like a pleasant day ahead. See more from Weather.gov.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.”
– Winston Churchill
The MonumentCam screenshot above is used with permission of the Trust for the National Mall and courtesy of EarthCam.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to discuss the day’s happenings in the comments.
Sitting on the reference stacks at the Charlie Clark Center for Local History at Arlington Central Library are five thick, blue, nearly 50-year-old bound editions.
They are the archives of the Arlington County Bicentennial Commission, which, from 1974 through the end of 1976, was tasked with overseeing local efforts to celebrate the nation’s 200th birthday.
At Northern Virginia Family Services (NVFS), one of the region’s largest and most established human services nonprofits, we believe every child deserves to walk into the classroom on the first day of school feeling confident, prepared, and ready to learn. But for many local families, the excitement of a new school year is overshadowed by the financial stress of buying school supplies. By helping families meet this essential need, we can ease financial pressure and give students the tools they need to succeed from day one.
This summer, NVFS is bringing together individuals, businesses, and community partners from across Northern Virginia, to provide new backpacks and essential school supplies to more than 1,500 local students in kindergarten through 12th grade.
