Residents of 1020 North Quincy Street have started a blog in response to the building owner’s plan to renovate the aging apartment complex.
The renovations will force residents to pack up their stuff and vacate their apartment for 2-3 weeks. They will be moved to a vacant apartment elsewhere in the building, and will have the option of staying in that apartment permanently or moving back to their old apartment once renovations are complete.
Painted on the side of a cinder block warehouse and facing the popular Shirlington dog park, a large mural of happy dogs, bones and paw prints seems like a nice addition. And it would be fine with county regulators — if it wasn’t for the fact that a dog-related business commissioned it. But since the mural belongs to a small doggy daycare it’s considered advertising under county zoning code — and may eventually have to be painted over. For now, a blue tarp covers the $4,000 mural.
Thus is the paradox of county regulations intended to protect Arlington from commercial eyesores but permit public artwork — even if the “advertisement” is actually beautifying a monolithic wall in a run-down neighborhood, it is considered a violation. Yet if the doggie daycare were to paint airplanes or fire trucks or elephants on the side of the wall — which is in plain sight of a steady procession of defecating dogs — it would be perfectly fine.
According to Screwtop Wine Bar owner Wendy Buckley, a county zoning employee “randomly” stopped by just before 4:00 p.m. and took her sandwichboard sign.
“This sign cost me over $175!” Buckley wrote in an email shortly after the incident. “I just got a call… telling me he threw it in a dumpster.”
Owner Tracy DeBernard and daughter Holly were quietly manning their produce stand today, outside the Clarendon Metro Station.
DeBernard said she was allowed to return last week after Cooperative Extension agents from Stafford and Spotsylvania counties inspected her 400 acre farm and determined that she was growing all her own produce. Other vendors at the farmers market had alleged she was keeping prices artificially low by importing her produce from other farms.
In the news business, this is known as a “process” story. On Saturday the county board voted to accept a task force’s plan for development around the East Falls Church Metro Station. The board passed the plan on to county staff, who will review it and make changes while preserving 15 priorities outlined by the board. The board’s action will have no actual, practical consequences. That will come when the final plan is adopted by the board about six months from now, following more revisions and public discussion.
For what was essentially a procedural action, however, there sure were plenty of people who wanted to talk about it. About 25 speakers voiced their opinion on the EFC plan, most of them residents who believe that the addition of transit-oriented, mixed use retail/office buildings and the subtraction of the commuter parking lot would “destroy” or otherwise sully their relatively quiet residential neighborhood.
Board members repeatedly reassured owner Scott Vasko that Flatbread was exactly the type of business that Arlington County is trying to attract. In the end, however, promises made to local homeowners in 2004 were upheld, and a patio between the restaurant and an adjacent house will remain an undeveloped “buffer zone.”
In a concession to Flatbread, the board granted the more lenient of two possible scenarios for sidewalk seating in front of the Clarendon restaurant. Flatbread will be allowed to set up tables on 25 feet of sidewalk in front of 11th Street North (the other scenario called for 15 feet). Combined with sidewalk seating also approved for North Fillmore Street, Flatbread will likely have a total of four outdoor tables and 10 seats. The patio could have sat 24.
In one corner are the supporters and management of American Flatbread, the wood-fired pizza restaurant that bills itself as a “community hearth” and is best known for its locally-sourced, organic ingredients. In the other corner are county planners and a majority of local homeowners (others support Flatbread), who don’t want the restaurant to open an outdoor patio on their relatively quiet section of North 11th Street in Clarendon.
At stake for neighbors is the tranquility of the neighborhood and, possibly, the area’s steep property values. At stake for Flatbread is its viability as a business in Clarendon.
The market decided to prohibit a vendor, C&T Fruits and Vegetables, from returning this week after other vendors complained about C&T’s low prices and questionable product sourcing. They said C&T’s ability to sell off-season produce proves that they broke market rules that require all produce be locally-grown by the seller.
The dispute became public when a TV reporter showed up with camera in tow and began asking people if they thought a vendor should be expelled for having low prices (spoiler: most people said they did not have a problem with the low prices).
Speaking at a recent Arlington County Republican Committee meeting, Berry — whose narrow loss to retired Army colonel Patrick Murray surprised some local political watchers — said it’s “very important” for the party to unite with the goal of retaking control of congress. But while he said that Murray “deserves our respect,” Berry stopped short of endorsing Murray or pledging to help his campaign.
Murray, who will face incumbent Rep. Jim Moran in November, seems eager to put the controversy behind him. (For the record, he says he “would very respectfully but strongly disagree” that his campaign’s controversial mailer tried to exploit the fact that Berry is gay.)
It started when farmers market vendors started complaining about C&T Fruits and Vegetables, which was selling produce at prices that other growers could not match.
The Clarendon Alliance, which runs the market, tried to convince C&T owner Tracy Debernard to raise her prices so that long-time vendors would not be squeezed out. When Debernard refused, she was told that this would be her last week at the market.
In an exasperated email sent to customers this morning, restaurant management claims they were misled by building owners about the ease with which they would be able to obtain an outdoor seating permit. The email bemoans the “mixed signals, confusion and thousands in lost revenue” caused by the year-long, fruitless effort to get a permit.
The homeowner’s association president for the townhouses across the street from the restaurant “has made it his personal goal to use his new position of HOA president to attack all of our seating,” the email says. The Clarendon-Courthouse Civic Association has also joined the effort to block outdoor seating, despite efforts to find a compromise, according to the email.
The League of Women Voters of Arlington is bristling at a snub by the Committee for a Better Arlington (CBA).
The Committee did not respond to the League’s repeated requests for information about the effects of CBA’s proposed change to Arlington’s form of government, prompting the League to issue a press release today saying it’s “concerned” about “the depth of the public dialogue” regarding the change.
