The Arlington Housing Commission has gotten its first look at a redevelopment proposal expected to bring nearly 400 apartment units to a site across the street from Courthouse Plaza.
Trammell Crow Residential will seek County Board approval later this spring for “Alexan at Courthouse,” a 15-story residential building proposed to replace a 40-year-office building at 2000 15th Street N. As currently planned, the project calls for 394 units totaling about 412,000 square feet of interior space.
Plans for a 249-unit affordable housing building off of Langston Blvd are up for County Board consideration this weekend.
Planning Commission members voted 9-2 on Feb. 9 to support True Ground Housing Partners’ proposal to replace 40 garden-style apartments at the Leckey Gardens complex (2031-37 N. Woodrow Street) with a 10-story affordable apartment building.
Arlington government leaders appear willing to fill financial gaps if the federal government reduces housing grants to support vulnerable populations — but they don’t know how big those gaps might be.
“We’re not going to not find a way to fund it. We’re not going to let that all fall apart,” Board member Maureen Coffey said at the Housing Commission’s Jan. 15 meeting, which looked at impacts of current and future budget cuts to federal housing funds.
An updated plan for an affordable housing building near Langston Blvd has received mostly praise but some criticism from the Housing Commission.
The Housing Commission was provided an update on Dec. 4 on the plan to replace 40 garden-style apartments at the Leckey Gardens apartment complex with a 10-story apartment building with 249 committed-affordable units.
The number of Arlington rental units that are financially accessible to those earning less than 80% of area median income (AMI) has skyrocketed rather than plummeted over the past decade.
Not because housing is becoming cheaper, but because incomes of local residents have risen faster than the cost of renting.
No racial or ethnic group in Arlington comes close to earning enough household income to afford median priced single-family homes in Arlington, and some groups struggle to afford median-priced condominiums, according to new data.
Even the county’s white population, which has by far the largest median household income, is “nowhere near” being able to afford median priced single-family housing, said Keith Waters of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University.
Arlington’s Housing Commission is seeking more local leeway in addressing affordable housing and new formulas for determining the number of affordable units in new projects.
Commission Chair Kellen MacBeth included these recommendations in a letter to the County Board following a review of policies by the Affordable Housing Ordinance working group established earlier this year. County leaders are currently developing legislative priorities for the 2026 General Assembly session.
Numerous affordable-housing advocates showed up at a recent local government meeting to push for county support in removing regulatory hurdles around construction.
The advocacy group Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement (VOICE) is pressing for state-level changes to streamline the construction of affordable housing on land owned by faith-based and nonprofit organizations.
Efforts to provide more funding for Arlington’s Affordable Housing Investment Fund (AHIF) will require buy-in from elected officials, the development industry, the General Assembly, activists and the broader community to be viable, an advisory panel believes.
“We should take the time and get it right,” said Joe Ventrone, a member of the Housing Commission’s working group on revisions to the government’s affordable-housing ordinance.
The Arlington Housing Commission is considering a push to make it easier for houses of worship to redevelop their land with affordable housing.
A subcommittee of the full commission discussed whether to press the issue in advance of next year’s legislative session, which opens in January. Whether County Board members embrace the proposal remains to be seen.
A working group on affordable housing met last week to explore possible solutions to ever-spiraling costs for Arlington’s low- and moderate-income households.
Though the hour-long meeting on July 1 didn’t resolve any core issues, members suggested that pushing developers to provide more funding to the county’s Affordable Housing Investment Fund might be the best way to get more apartments built in Arlington.
Changes to Arlington County’s affordable housing regulations might bring some improvements, but they’re unlikely to solve larger affordability issues, people studying the topic say.
“Tempering expectations is really important,” said Bryan Coleman, who chairs a working group set up by Arlington’s Housing Commission to study potential changes in the county’s Affordable Housing Ordinance.
