Acclaimed chef Peter Chang’s second Arlington restaurant is now open.
Chang and daughter Lydia today opened NiHao, at 1550 Crystal Drive, an “all-day modern Chinese concept will highlight Sichuan cuisine with small, shareable plates that lean into the famed chef’s signature use of peppers and spice.”
Don’t be so serious and meet Sirius, the newest Adoptable Pet of the Week!
This beautiful girl is up for adoption through the Animal Welfare League of Arlington and is currently in foster.
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…)
After a multi-week soft opening, 2910 Kitchen & Bar is set to hold its official grand opening this weekend.
Located at 2910 Columbia Pike, the restaurant serving American cuisine will officially open on Friday, May 10 and host a Mother’s Day brunch and dinner on Saturday and Sunday. Additionally, husband-and-wife owners Raheel “Ray” Khan and Griselda Giselle Fernandez plan to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Sunday at 5 p.m., according to a press release.
Model WWII props built in an Arlington veteran’s backyard were featured at a VIP event Wednesday at the French ambassador’s residence.
Former Army officer David Ostrander constructed a set of hedgehog anti-tank obstacles, as well as a portion of a World War II era landing craft, to go along with several surplus Army jeeps at two French fêtes. Yesterday’s event took place on Victory in Europe Day, while the second is scheduled to happen at the French embassy on June 6, the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
*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.
Courthouse Construction Continues — From Fox 5’s Steve Chenevey: “Can’t believe this now stands on the site of the long-time Arlington @Wendys, the name of the new building? The Wendy.” [Twitter]
Empty Office Building Worries — “What do empty office buildings and over-leveraged commercial developers have to do with Arlington’s parks, libraries and schools? A lot, actually. There’s a storm brewing in the business landscape that has yet to unleash its full fury. In the worst case, fierce economic winds and rain could lash taxpayers and the county services they hold dear.” [Arlington Magazine]
Green Valley Real Estate Profile — “Once known as one of Arlington’s last affordable neighborhoods, the values for Green Valley’s duplexes and single-family brick homes are climbing… Of the homes sold in the last year, the lowest-priced was a snug 1,360-square foot single-family without updates for $582,000; the highest was a 20-year-old mini-mansion near the country club with five-and-a-half bedrooms and more than 5,000 square feet for $1.2 million.” [Washington Post]
Arlington Scholarship Winners — “In the second round of scholarship winners in the 69th annual National Merit Scholarship Program announced Wednesday, students from Arlington were among the winners… Virginia had 65 scholarship winners, six of whom live in Arlington.” [Patch]
DJO Senior to Play for Maryland — “The Bishop O’Connell High School senior football player was pleasantly informed by Knights’ head coach Todd Sabatino and team counselor Tracey Leipold that the University of Maryland’s Division I football team wanted to offer McConnell a preferred walkon position to join the Terrapins’ squad this fall as a long snapper.” [Gazette Leader]
‘Coffee With a Cop’ Returns — “The Arlington County Police Department’s Community Engagement Division is excited to announce ACPD’s spring Coffee with a Cop events will be returning with a new twist. In reaffirming ACPD’s commitment to making engagement accessible for all, we are taking our spring Coffee with a Cop events on the road to Arlington neighborhoods!” [ACPD]
Eden Center Robbery — “Falls Church Police are looking for three suspects involved in an assault and robbery at the Eden Center (6700 Wilson Blvd). On May 7, 2024 at approximately 6:30 PM, the victim was approaching her vehicle in the parking lot when three suspects assaulted her, stole her purse, and fled the scene in a vehicle headed in an unknown direction on Wilson Blvd. The victim sustained minor injuries.” [City of Falls Church]
It’s Thursday — Expect scattered showers and thunderstorms, increasing in likelihood after 8am, with mostly cloudy skies and a high near 76. Light east winds will strengthen to 5-9 mph in the morning. Precipitation chances are 70%, with new rain amounts between a tenth and a quarter of an inch, possibly higher in thunderstorms. Thursday night, chances of showers and thunderstorms decrease to 50%, with a low around 58. [NWS]
Good Wednesday 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 — May 8, 2024.
Here is what’s going on Thursday in Arlington, from our event calendar.
Expect scattered showers and thunderstorms, increasing in likelihood after 8am, with mostly cloudy skies and a high near 76. Light east winds will strengthen to 5-9 mph in the morning. Precipitation chances are 70%, with new rain amounts between a tenth and a quarter of an inch, possibly higher in thunderstorms. Thursday night, chances of showers and thunderstorms decrease to 50% before 2am, with a low around 58. East winds of 7-10 mph will turn west after midnight. See more from Weather.gov.
“We become what we think about most of the time, and that’s the strangest secret.”
– Earl Nightingale
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.
McConnell accepts a preferred walk-on position with Terrapins
Initially, Kellen McConnell thought trouble loomed when he was called to an impromptu meeting that included his head coach and a school counselor.
Arlington’s Pentagon City Sector Plan has been overturned by a state court.
Reversing a trial court’s decision, the Virginia Court of Appeals ruled yesterday (Tuesday) that the Arlington County Board failed to provide sufficient public notice before adopting a vision for the next 30-plus years of growth in Pentagon City.
A D.C. man is facing multiple charges after police say he was caught with stolen scooters in the Rosslyn area.
The incident happened just before 3:30 a.m. Tuesday when someone called police to report a man stealing electric scooters from a residential building’s bike storage room.
