It’s Election Day, voting is underway, and the culmination of a seemingly endless presidential campaign is upon us.
Given how momentous this day is, we’re wondering how Arlingtonians are feeling.
As our community heads to the polls and awaits results that will shape our nation’s future, what best describes your emotions in this moment?
Rather than a frontal assault against it, Arlington School Board members may try to win a delay in implementation of the state’s new school-accountability regimen.
School leaders plan to ask the General Assembly to intervene and postpone the Virginia Department of Education’s new School Performance and Support Framework, a two-pronged evaluation and ranking system that is replacing the previous accreditation process.
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…)
New Rosslyn Development Proposal — “D.C. developer Penzance Cos. has filed fresh redevelopment plans for Rosslyn Gateway, a two-tower office complex fronting Gateway Park it bought late last year from JBG Smith Properties for $52 million. One Rosslyn, as it’s been rebranded… will combine roughly 860 residential units and ground-floor, neighborhood-serving retail.” [WBJ]
Voting Reminder — It’s Election Day and polling locations in Arlington will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Voters must cast their ballot at their assigned polling place. Learn more about the local candidates. [Arlington County]
Most Walkable Local Neighborhoods — “Here’s a look at Arlington’s 10 most-walkable neighborhoods, according to Walk Score. For each neighborhood, we’ve also included Transit and Bike Scores.” [Arlington Magazine]
Arlington Rents Among Highest in U.S. — Arlington’s median apartment-rental rate in October was $2,593, up 4.1% year-over-year and fifth highest of the 100 largest urban areas nationally tracked by Apartment List. Nationally, median rents ranged from $1,000 in Wichita (Kan.) to $3,084 in Irvine (Calif.). [Apartment List]
ACPD Donation Drive Update — From Arlington County police: “Thank you, Arlington! This weekend, public safety personnel and Paul Davis Restoration transported your generous donations from our Hurricane Relief Donation Drive to North Carolina to support those affected by Hurricane Helene.” [Facebook, Twitter]
Arlington NAACP Presents Annual Awards — Craig Syphax was honored with the Henry L. Holmes Meritorious Service Award and Joan Trumpauer Mulholland with the Esther Georgia Irving Cooper Civil Rights Activist of the Year Award at the Arlington NAACP’s annual Freedom Fund banquet. Also honored were Hilary Chapman and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, Devanshi Patel, and Nadia Conyers. [Arlington NAACP]
Falls Church Unemployment Rate Steady — The unemployment rate for Falls Church residents in September was 2.5%, unchanged from xa year before. There were 8,541 city residents employed in the civilian workforce and 259 looking for work in newly released data. [VEC]
N. Va. Clergy Election Message — “On the eve of the close national election, a wide variety of clergy from various faiths, including Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, today released a video emphasizing that Americans have much more in common than what divides them.” [Press Release]
Va. AG Condemns Political Violence — “Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has joined a bipartisan coalition of 50 other attorneys general calling for law and order and condemning political violence ahead of tomorrow’s presidential election.” [Press Release]
It’s Tuesday — The weather will transition from mostly cloudy to sunny, reaching a high of about 73°F. There will be south winds ranging from 5 to 13 mph, gusting up to 22 mph. As for Tuesday night, expect partly cloudy skies with lows around 60°F and a consistent south wind at approximately 9 mph. [NWS]
Good Monday 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 — Nov 4, 2024.
Here is what’s going on Tuesday in Arlington, from our event calendar.
The weather will transition from mostly cloudy to sunny, reaching a high of about 73°F. There will be south winds ranging from 5 to 13 mph, gusting up to 22 mph. As for Tuesday night, expect partly cloudy skies with lows around 60°F and a consistent south wind at approximately 9 mph. See more from Weather.gov.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
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.
*Mamistad Groups meet IN PERSON-only the introductory Zoom call is virtual. :)
Pregnancy and new mom groups are a lifesaver when it comes to normalizing those feelings we just can’t be prepared for.
A week off seemed to have been good for the Yorktown Patriots, considering how they bounced back with a strong performance and a winning result on the football field.
Yorktown (6-4, 3-2) defeated the visiting Marshall Statesmen, 24-14, in Liberty District high-school action Nov. 2. That was after getting blown out by the Langley Saxons in the team’s previous game, followed by their regular-season bye week.
Tom Flournoy died in his sleep the morning of October 27, 2024. He was 69.
Tom was born in Washington, DC. After graduating from Woodbridge Senior High School and Old Dominion University, he launched a successful career as a Professional Engineer, specializing in transportation projects from planning to final design. Projects he worked on included roadways, highways, bridges, transit facilities, commuter rail, and bike and pedestrian facilities. Many, if not most, were in the Washington, DC area, including Arlington County, which became Tom’s home in 1989. In his last position as VP at STV Inc., Tom was instrumental in starting and growing STV’s DC office, which is still thriving.
An Arlington County Board candidate is suing The Washington Post over the publication’s reporting on her age.
The lawsuit by independent candidate Audrey Clement, which alleges age discrimination and defamation, concerns a candidate questionnaire that the Post ran in October 2021.
Pubs, political parties and clubs across Arlington will be hosting watch events as election results trickle in tomorrow night.
Political groups of various stripes will be hunkering down at local establishments — some of which are offering drink specials in addition to live election coverage as the first polls close at 7 p.m.
An all-you-can-eat hot pot and Korean barbecue spot aims to open in Ballston early next year.
Construction work on Top Pot is underway on the ground floor of the Ballston Quarter mall (671 N. Glebe Road). The restaurant expects to open by early February in a 7,600-square-foot space between Mezeh and Chick-fil-A, Marketing Director Matthew Hall told ARLnow.
