As Election Day nears, Audrey Clement, the Independent candidate for Arlington County Board, took shots at her opponent, County Board Chair Libby Garvey, on the county’s Missing Middle Housing study.
Facing a shortage of moderately-priced housing options in the “missing middle” between apartment buildings and single-family homes, the County is kicking off a study to figure out whether it should open up some areas zoned only for single-family homes to denser housing types.
In 1900, Black people comprised more than a third of Arlington’s population and lived in 12 neighborhoods in the county.
Over the last 100 years, however, the population and the variety of places Black people can afford to live has dwindled, according to a new video from the Alliance for Housing Solutions, a local advocacy organization.
The title of today’s column is a common adage in the planning world that’s at least 30 years old; I regret that I do not know its original source to provide credit.
At its heart, it reflects the insight that the best way to ensure people can quickly and easily get to the places that they need to go is to ensure that they don’t have to go as far to get there – trips, on average, become shorter.
After months of planning, Arlington County is preparing to enter the first phase of its “Missing Middle Housing Study.”
The study will look at whether the county should diversify its housing stock by introducing more housing types that have been typically prohibited from many neighborhoods.
Amazon Makes Local Donations — Amazon has made a some substantial recent donations to local charitable organizations. Arlington-based Doorways for Women and Families received $100,000 from Amazon “in COVID-19 relief to keep survivors safe in housing and hotels,” while newly-created Project Headphones received $75,000, which “allows us to get headphones with mics for all grade levels in @APSVirginia.” [Twitter, Twitter]
Clement Blasts ‘Missing Middle’ Housing — “‘Missing middle’ may be two words totaling 13 letters, but depending on which side of the Arlington political divide you are on, it may qualify as a single four-letter word. The proposed housing policy, which in theory aims to find ways to stop Arlington from becoming an enclave of the very wealthy with some low-cost housing thrown in as fig leaf, came under withering attack from a veteran campaigner during the recent Arlington Committee of 100 County Board debate.” [InsideNova]
Amazon Buys Hotel Next to HQ2 Site — “Amazon.com Inc. has purchased the Residence Inn by Marriott in Pentagon City with plans to demolish it and expand its second headquarters, the company tells the Washington Business Journal. Acorn Development LLC, an Amazon subsidiary, paid $148.5 million for the building and its 1.5-acre site at 550 Army Navy Drive.” [Washington Business Journal]
Trail Roundabout Now In Use — A new roundabout along the Custis Trail is now in use, improving safety at a formerly hazardous T-intersection in Bon Air Park. [Twitter]
(Updated at 11:30 p.m.) The County Board over the weekend approved a zoning change that will make life a bit easier for owners of a few hundred duplexes in Arlington.
The change affects “non-conforming” duplexes in certain zoning districts, which under existing zoning code were prohibited from any exterior change or expansion without permission of the county’s Board of Zoning Appeals. Single-family home owners in the same districts are allowed to make such changes by right, without a zoning variance.
One recurring argument against upzoning is that Arlington needs single-family zoning to protect affordable starter homes from expensive redevelopment.
Without restricting lots to one unit, the thinking goes, a developer would be willing to pay a substantial sum to demolish small homes and replace them with multiple units, reaping the profit.
Changes Proposed for Rosslyn Development — “The Dittmar Co. is tinkering with it plans for the redevelopment of the Holiday Inn in Rosslyn, shrinking the size of a planned hotel and adding more residential to account for Covid-19’s impact on the hospitality industry. The developer filed revised plans for the project with Arlington County earlier this month, outlining its new designs for a 326-room hotel and a 523-unit apartment building” [Washington Business Journal]
Rainstorm Leads to Vivid Rainbows — “For such an awful year, 2020 has lots of rainbows. This one continued into the grass below me.” [@STATter911/Twitter, @RosslynVA/Twitter]
The McMansion is the universal punching bag for housing politics in Arlington.
It is a symbol for both pro-growth and anti-growth advocates of everything that is wrong with our land use and zoning policies.
This regularly-scheduled sponsored Q&A column is written by Eli Tucker, Arlington-based Realtor and Arlington resident. Please submit your questions to him via email for response in future columns. Enjoy!
Question: I’m prepared to make a strong offer in Arlington’s hyper-competitive market, but I can’t even find a house to make an offer on! Why is every home on the market either old and too small or new and too big??
On May 6, a select group of Arlington Democrats voted to endorse Takis Karantonis as their candidate in the special election to fill the seat vacated due to the tragic illness and death of Erik Gutshall.
(Full disclosure: My husband was a member of the closed caucus and I serve with Takis Karantonis on the board of the Alliance for Housing Solutions.)
