Safeguards are being put in place to ensure that county staff do not accidentally issue demolition and construction permits allowing the Melwood redevelopment to move forward before a planned historic-preservation analysis is done.
And that’s a process that could take a year.
County Board members on Saturday (Feb. 22) approved zoning changes needed for Melwood and Wesley Housing to move forward with a controversial mixed-use project near Crystal City.
The 4-0 vote, with one abstention, allows for plans to build a five-story building with 105 committed-affordable units to move forward. It came after nearly five hours of public comment and Board discussion.
The civic association representing residents living adjacent to the planned Melwood development project near Crystal City is taking a last stab at slowing down the approval process.
“It is time to take a pause and do better for this neighborhood,” said Stacy Meyer, vice president of the Aurora Highlands Civic Association, in a letter to County Board members. “We need the County Board to listen to its residents who have been very clear about opposing this project.”
A recent change to Virginia state code could delay proposed redevelopment of Crystal City’s Melwood parcel by more than a year.
That’s how much time county staff say they will need to evaluate the site’s 102-year-old Nelly Custis School building for any potential historic relevance.
Despite ongoing concerns from residents in the surrounding neighborhood, the Melwood redevelopment project near Crystal City appears on track to be green-lighted early in the new year.
“This project is going to be approved. It is going to be approved 5-0 by the County Board in February,” predicted Nicholas Giacobbe, one of several neighbors who voiced concerns about the proposal at a Dec. 19 meeting of the county government’s site-plan review committee evaluating the plan.
Common ground remains elusive in the proposal to redevelop the Melwood site near Crystal City.
At a Nov. 18 meeting, representatives for Melwood and Wesley Housing said they had come up with changes to reduce impacts on the surrounding neighborhood. The revisions also pay homage to the current building, which began life in 1923 as Nelly Custis Elementary School.
Six months after it was first submitted, a request to bestow historic-district status on an Arlington parcel slated for a major redevelopment continues to await action.
The request, formally submitted in April, came from local residents upset with plans by property owner Melwood to redevelop a 1.96-acre parcel on 23rd Street S. in Aurora Highlands as a mixed-use property and, likely, demolish the former Nelly Custis Elementary School on the site.
Melwood has formally submitted a site plan application for a 105-unit affordable housing project near Crystal City.
New renderings depict a five-story building with an 18,000-square-foot footprint at 750 23rd Street S., Melwood’s facility in Aurora Highlands, which it acquired after its 2017 merger with Linden Resources.
A civic association is pushing to prevent a century-old former schoolhouse from being demolished to make way for an affordable housing project near Crystal City.
The historical significance of the Nelly Custis School, which stands on the Melwood property in Aurora Highlands, is slated for discussion at a Historic Affairs and Landmark Review Board (HALRB) meeting tonight.
Plans to build an affordable housing development near Crystal City could take a key step forward next week despite a neighborhood association’s objections.
A request to advertise hearings on a possible land-use amendment for the Melwood property in Aurora Highlands is scheduled to go before the Arlington County Board on Tuesday. At issue is the possibility of shifting the site’s zoning designation from “public” to “low-medium residential” — bringing a proposal to build 104 units of affordable housing “within the realm of consideration,” a county report says.
A planned apartment complex is set to have even more affordable housing.
Speakers at an Arlington County Board meeting on Tuesday were divided in their thoughts about the Board’s unanimous vote to approve 88 units of additional affordable housing at 1900 S. Eads Street, in the Crystal City area.
(Updated at 4:30 p.m.) A land-use study teeing up an affordable housing redevelopment project in Aurora Highlands has generated significant interest as it nears completion.
Melwood, a D.C. area nonprofit that provides services to and employs people with disabilities, is looking to redevelop property it owns at 750 23rd Street S., two blocks west of “Restaurant Row” in Crystal City.
