223 23rd Street S. on May 14, 2024 (staff photo by Dan Egitto)
Temporary pickleball and beach volleyball courts could be coming to Crystal City as plans to build two apartment towers face significant delays.
A pair of 30-story apartment buildings are ultimately expected to bring 1,439 residential units and over 22,000 square feet of retail to 223 23rd Street S. and 2250 Crystal Drive. But the project approved in early 2023 won’t be getting off the ground until “construction costs and interest rates normalize” — likely next year at the earliest, developer JBG Smith told ARLnow.
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…)
ARLnow is establishing its first news beat with the addition of two new editorial staffers.
ARLnow and its sister sites, ALXnow and FFXnow, will all be served by the new breaking news, public safety and local business beat. The beat will allow our newsroom to build more subject matter expertise while better serving readers and making our editorial operation more resilient.
An abandoned storefront at the Fillmore Gardens Shopping Center (staff photo by James Jarvis)
Plans to redevelop a Columbia Pike retail strip as a 247-unit apartment building have fallen through.
Following a year and a half of delays and recent issues with vermin and vandalism, the would-be developer has filed to abandon former ambitions and return the Fillmore Gardens Shopping Center to its former status as a strip mall.
Over the past couple of weeks ARLnow has reported on a pair of lawsuits against Arlington County.
There’s the ongoing suit against the Missing Middle zoning changes, which has the support of at least two candidates for County Board. And there’s a lawsuit against the Pentagon City Sector Plan, by condo residents upset about proposed development on the RiverHouse site potentially being detrimental to their property values and view of D.C.
The approval of Missing Middle and the sector plan both had supporters and outspoken critics when approvedunanimously by the County Board.
Both suits ultimately rely on technicalities. An appellate judge in the sector plan suit rejected more substantive arguments about the proposed development and instead nullified the plan based on an insufficiently descriptive legal notice ad. The Missing Middle suit, meanwhile, primarily argues that the changes were insufficiently advertised and inadequately studied for potential impacts.
One could argue that such suits hold the Board accountable for discrepancies in its processes, while at minimum delaying policies that some people strongly disagree with. One could also argue that it’s a waste of taxpayer money that delays policies that duly elected representatives supported and still support.
Regardless of the reasons why, today we’re asking readers: do you support these lawsuits against the county?
Blooms at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove near the Pentagon (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Rosslyn-Based Solidcore for Sale — “A little over a year after taking over a majority stake in the fitness chain Solidcore Holdings LLC, its private equity-equity owners are reportedly exploring a sale of the Arlington company.” [Washington Business Journal]
Ballston-Based Company Expanding — “A Northern Virginia technology firm plans to establish a new 57,000-square-foot research-and-development facility across in Montgomery County to accommodate its growing workforce. [BlueHalo’s] headquarters is in Arlington’s Ballston neighborhood and it also has offices in Chantilly, Reston, Herndon and Leesburg.” [Washington Business Journal]
Low Turnout for Caucus — “Turnout of 1,941 votes was about 1.2 percent of Arlington’s 160,000 active registered voters, emblematic of a race that was both out of sight and out of mind of the large majority of the county’s residents. While there likely will be other candidates in the Nov. 5 School Board race, being endorsed by the Arlington County Democratic Committee is all but tantamount to election.” [Gazette Leader]
Commission Vote on Israel-Hamas — “Citing several factors, the Arlington County government’s Human Rights Commission has opted against taking a stance in the ongoing Israel-Hamas fighting. Activists wanted commission members to support a military ceasefire in the region. But on a 7-1 vote, commission members on May 9 decided they should contain their efforts largely within the county’s 26 square miles, leaving the planet’s 197 million other square miles to others.” [Gazette Leader]
Missing Arlington Teen — “Arlington County Police are asking the public’s help in locating [a] 15-year-old… who was last seen Saturday in the 2400 block of S. Glebe Road. Police described [him] as standing 5-foot-11, with brown eyes and black hair.” [Patch]
Marymount Commencement Recap — “Is there a doctor in the house? In the Garrett family, there are now two. Shantia Garrett, a teacher in the Baltimore city school system, earned a doctorate in education during May 12 commencement exercises for Marymount University’s College of Health and Education. Appropriately enough for Mother’s Day, Garrett became a second-generation Ed.D. holder, following in the footsteps of her mother.” [Gazette Leader]
Public Feedback on DCA Noise — “Alexandria is looking to gather more public feedback on an issue that’s impacted Old Town since the popularization of the jet engine: noise from Washington National Airport (DCA). Alexandria, Fairfax County and Prince George’s County have hired Vianair Consulting to spearhead a collaborative effort… to recommend changes to DCA airspace and flight procedures.” [ALXnow]
Metro Considering Bus Changes — “With your help, Metro has developed our #BetterBus 2025 Proposed Network, the one that better serves you! The public comment period is NOW OPEN.” [Twitter, WMATA]
It’s Tuesday — Expect showers and potential thunderstorms after 5pm, accompanied by cloudy skies and a high of 72°F. South winds will range from 8-11 mph, gusting up to 18 mph, with a 70% chance of precipitation and rainfall of a tenth to a quarter inch. Tuesday night brings a low of 62°F, south winds of 6-10 mph, a 90% chance of precipitation, and additional rainfall amounts between a quarter and half inch. [NWS]
Expect showers and potential thunderstorms after 5pm, accompanied by cloudy skies and a high of 72°F. South winds will range from 8-11 mph, gusting up to 18 mph, with a 70% chance of precipitation and rainfall of a tenth to a quarter inch. Tuesday night brings more showers, possibly a thunderstorm, with a low of 62°F, south winds of 6-10 mph, a 90% chance of precipitation, and additional rainfall amounts between a quarter and half inch. See more from Weather.gov.
💡 Quote of the Day
“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.” – Emily Dickinson
The two Warriors teams combined to win 17 events in the meet
By wide margins and with many individual contributors, the host Wakefield Warriors won the girls and boys Liberty District outdoor track and field championships on their own turf over the evenings of May 9 and 10.
