Cue Willie Nelson, as Arlington Democrats will be on the road again for the final weekends of campaign season.
The Arlington County Democratic Committee is dispatching volunteers to both North Carolina and Pennsylvania, two battleground states that remain tossups in the presidential race.
Gerald Ford was in the White House the last time Arlington voters rejected a school bond in a local referendum.
But the two local residents tasked with making sure such ancient history doesn’t repeat itself are taking no chances as they make the case for passage of the 2024 school bond.
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’s two main political parties are putting the finishing touches on their greet-the-voters strategies.
Democrats plan to staff all 54 county precincts from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day, and have had volunteers at early-voting locations since balloting began on Sept. 20.
With campaign-signs-in-medians season in full bloom across Arlington, one 2024 candidate for local office is standing out from the crowd. And doing so face-first.
Paul Weiss, a former public-school educator who is running as an independent for School Board, is the lone candidate for local office in Arlington this year whose face graces his campaign signs.
*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.
By OLIVIA DIAZ Associated Press/Report for America
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Virginia election officials Friday that accuses the state of striking names from voter rolls in violation of federal election law.
Work Starts on Crystal House Expansion — “The expansion of Crystal House, the Arlington multifamily project in the shadow of Amazon’s HQ2, is finally beginning. True Ground Housing Partners, known as Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing until a name change in September, has started utility work at Crystal House with plans to start vertical construction on the first new building there in 2025.” [WBJ]
Public Defender Stepping Down — From Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti: “@BradleyRHaywood announced he will step down as Arlington’s Chief Public Defender. It is no exaggeration to say that insofar as Arlington’s (and all of Virginia’s) criminal legal system has moved toward justice and fairness, it’s in great part because of his work.” [Twitter, Twitter]
Chief Asked About Election Unrest — Perhaps not impossible, but unlikely. That was Arlington Police Chief Andy Penn’s view of the the likelihood, if one group or another is displeased with the outcome of the presidential election and starts to make trouble, that Virginia’s governor will move to take control of the response away from local elected leadership and public-safety personnel. The matter came up at the Oct. 8 meeting of the Arlington County Civic Federation. During the meeting, Penn and several other county leaders fielded questions of security issues related to the Nov. 5 election. –Scott McCaffrey
Police Chase in Crystal City — From Dave Statter: “A crash and bail out early this morning at S. 20th and S. Eads in Arlington. @ArlingtonVaPD were seconds behind an SUV that appeared to run the light on Eads and was hit. As an officer pulled up at least three people from the SUV ran off. Police gave chase and were able to catch some if not all of them.” [Twitter]
Chase Near Pentagon — Also from Statter: “A driver chased by @VSPPIO kept going the wrong way on roads around the Pentagon early today. A trooper apparently tried to stop the car for bad tags along Route 1 in Crystal City just after 1:30 a.m. The car began to escape on S. Eads Street northbound from 15th. At Army Navy Drive it went the wrong way underneath I-395 and made a U-turn before entering the Pentagon.” [Twitter]
Layoffs at Arlington-Based Boeing — “Boeing plans to lay off about 10% of its workers in the coming months, about 17,000 people, as it continues to lose money and tries to deal with a strike that is crippling production of the company’s best-selling airline planes. New CEO Kelly Ortberg told staff in a memo Friday that the job cuts will include executives, managers and employees.” [Associated Press]
Overflowing Trash in Pentagon City — “Every. Single. Sunday. These barrels at 12th + S. Hayes are overflowing. This isn’t about separating trash from recycling anymore. Who do we need to talk w/ to have an additional barrel or two placed here?” [Twitter]
It’s Monday — Partly sunny today, with a high near 65. West wind of 13-17 mph, with gusts as high as 29 mph. Tonight it will be mostly cloudy, with a low around 45 and a northwest wind of 5-10 mph. [NWS]
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Flickr pool photo by Brian Gannon
An Arlington man is dead and another young man has been charged in the crash that claimed his life.
Police and medics responded around 2 a.m. to a crash along the 2200 block of N. Harrison Street, in the Tara-Leeway Heights neighborhood south of Langston Blvd. A car being driven northbound by an 18-year-old Arlington resident struck several parked vehicles and overturned, according to Arlington County police.
The Wakefield Warriors certainly gained enough yards, but that production wasn’t enough to win.
The host Warriors amassed 466 total yards the night of Oct. 10 high-school football action, but lost to the Langley Saxons, 42-30, in Liberty District action.
Arlington County police are investigating gunfire along Columbia Pike.
The shooting happened Friday night, shortly before midnight. Initial reports suggest that several shots were fired during a fight among a large group of teens near the intersection of S. Taylor Street and the Pike, a block or two west of the Harris Teeter store.
