Lost Dog Cafe’s owner is weighing his options as ongoing Columbia Pike construction and region-wide challenges for restaurants have him concerned about his bottom line.
The restaurant at 2920 Columbia Pike experienced a 10% drop in sales from 2023 to 2024, and if the current trend continues, owner James Barnes expects that number to dip another 8.75% by the end of this year.
The Falls Church City Council has reached a compromise on accessory dwelling units, allowing for by-right development on most single-family parcels.
The unanimous 7-0 vote followed public discussions with the public last summer and nearly a year of further deliberation. Most public speakers showed up in support of the decision, although some controversy remains on issues such as setbacks.
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 group trying to jump the Metro turnstiles in Pentagon City assaulted an officer and led police on a series of foot chases Tuesday night.
The wild incident started around 7 p.m., when Arlington County police were dispatched for as many as eight people reportedly loitering in the mall and refusing to leave. Shortly thereafter, as the group was said to be leaving the mall, a Metro Transit Police officer was allegedly assaulted by a “a group of individuals attempting to fare evade.”
There’s good news and bad news about the forecast for this coming Easter weekend in Arlington.
The good news is that it’s going to be warm. The bad news is that it’s going to be breezy and there’s a chance of storms.
Meteorologist Jackie Layer of DC News Now breaks down the forecast specifically for ARLnow readers in the video below. Catch her forecasts weekdays on DC News Now/WDVM and on DCW50.
Live standup comedy in Arlington on Friday July 31 starring Jim Bryan, Kim Villamera, and Greg Billet.
Friday, July 31, 2026
Spring break is coming to an end for Arlington’s three public high schools, with the sports schedules back in full swing next week beginning with events Tuesday, April 22.
Some baseball and softball teams played tournament games over spring break, but many other teams, like lacrosse and soccer, did not play.
A popular D.C. destination for Italian subs is opening a Ballston location tomorrow (Friday).
Grazie Grazie, a Philadelphia-inspired Italian deli, is preparing to open its first Virginia location at 4121 Wilson Blvd, where Farmbird closed three years ago. The new shop’s menu features over a dozen sandwiches and seven signature pizzas.
In the months since a circuit court judge struck down Arlington’s Missing Middle zoning changes, one of the initiative’s core goals appears to have backfired.
Beyond increasing the county’s overall housing stock, one of the main stated intentions of Missing Middle was to address a trend of developers tearing down existing single-family homes to replace them with larger, more expensive single-family homes.
The Falls Church City Council is keeping the door open to maintaining the same tax rate in the coming fiscal year.
Council members unanimously voted on Monday night to advertise a maximum tax rate of $1.21 per $100 assessed valuation — unchanged from the current rate.
ACPD Arrests Sexual Assault Suspect — “A 35-year-old man is in custody after abducting a woman and attempting to sexually assault her in Seven Corners… Through security footage, detectives learned the suspect was driving a 2008 Ford Escape and had traveled to Arlington County. Arlington County Police were notified and located El Moctar Mohamed M’Bareck, 35, of Falls Church and took him into custody.” [FFXnow, FCPD]
State May Support ‘Microtransit’ Pilot — The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation has proposed spending $2 million in support of Arlington’s microtransit pilot program in the coming year. If grant funding is approved in coming months, county officials would need to provide a $500,000 match. —Scott McCaffrey
Exit Sign Fixed on I-395 — “Confirmation… that the Exit 8B 110N to Rosslyn sign on I-395S is finally positioned properly after the @VaDOTNOVA work overnight.” [Dave Statter/X]
GMU Student Visas Revoked — “More than a dozen international students at George Mason University have recently had their visas terminated or revoked by the federal government, the university says. The U.S. departments of state and homeland security apparently changed the statuses of 15 students without any involvement by or prior notice to university officials.” [FFXnow]
It’s Thursday — Expect sunny skies and a high near 64 degrees, accompanied by a northwest wind at about 7 mph. For Thursday night, the skies will be partly cloudy with temperatures dipping to around 47 degrees. The calm wind will shift to a southerly direction at approximately 5 mph after midnight. [NWS]
