With the Arlington School Board caucus now underway, several Democratic candidates have released introduction videos.
Local Democrats have until May 11 to vote in this year’s caucus, determining which of the four candidates currently running for School Board will receive the party’s endorsement for two open seats.
A cycling competition set to take place in a Crystal City parking garage next weekend has been postponed, likely until 2025.
“Unfortunately, the 2024 Garage Racing National Championships has been postponed for this year,” participants were told today, after ARLnow’s article about the races published. “Please stay connected with CXHAIRS for future bike events in the DMV, and follow National Landing for more events throughout the year.”
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…)
DUI Crashes Rise in 2023 — “The number of serious or fatal alcohol-related crashes in Arlington, Virginia, increased in 2023, prompting the chair of the [County Board] to call for a coordinated anti-drunk driving campaign across the D.C. region.” [WTOP]
Local GOP on MM Lawsuit — From Arlington GOP Chair Matthew Hurtt: “Arlington County’s elected leaders are using the court system to stifle dissent and intimidate residents who oppose their agenda. The so-called ‘Arlington Way’ is little more than a footnote in Arlington’s civic history.” [Twitter]
Good Tuesday 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 — Apr 30, 2024.
Live standup comedy in Arlington on Friday July 31 starring Jim Bryan, Kim Villamera, and Greg Billet.
Friday, July 31, 2026
The former board president of an elite youth swim program has been sentenced after pleading guilty to child sex exploitation charges in January.
Arlington resident Mark Black, who previously helped to lead the Olympian-producing Arlington Aquatic Club, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
County government requests for extensive documentation in a Missing Middle lawsuit have expanded to include an outspoken critic who’s helping to fund the suit.
Attorneys representing Arlington County contacted Dan Creedon, one of the founders of the anti-Missing Middle group Neighbors for Neighborhoods (NfN), with a broad subpoena last week. The request includes:
A man with a history of peeping into homes allegedly did it again — twice.
Police say Herbert Otey, 60, was seen peering into a woman’s home along the 2000 block of Columbia Pike last night. He was arrested and also charged with a peeping incident from earlier in the day.
It’s the end of an era in Crystal City.
The neighborhood, which has seen significant new development since Amazon’s HQ2 decision, is losing one of the most memorable vestiges of its time as a drab hub of military and government offices.
Firefighters from Arlington County and surrounding communities are on scene of a fire in a Crystal City apartment building.
The fire broke out shortly before 1 p.m. on the 6th floor of the Crystal Flats building at 505 18th Street S. Initial reports suggest that a kitchen appliance somehow caught on fire inside one of the units.
