The vice chair of the Arlington County Board is seeking a new community center somewhere along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor.
Vice-Chair Maureen Coffey noted at the Board’s July 21 meeting that the corridor is now home to 65,000 residents — more than one in four Arlingtonians — but lacks a dedicated government community center.
A recent project review by Arlington County planning staff flagged numerous practical concerns about plans to build a triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery.
Noting incomplete and sometimes inconsistent information in an environmental assessment by the National Park Service, county staff questioned likely impacts on roads, pedestrians, historic views and air traffic if the Trump administration builds a 250-foot arch in the middle of the Memorial Circle roundabout.
County leaders are being urged to not forget about Virginia Highlands Park when planning facilities upgrades.
“The community would like that to happen on schedule,” Park and Recreation Commission chair William Way told County Board members during a July 9 work session.
Design plans for a future townhouse community along Wilson Blvd at the border of Arlington and Fairfax counties near Seven Corners may be taking shape.
During a June 24 Fairfax County Planning Commission meeting, the development consortium of EYA and Southern Management suggested that their planned townhouses on the Arlington (eastern) side of the boundary could be patterned after EYA’s Sutton Heights community in the City of Fairfax.
The effort to redevelop an unusually sized parcel on W. Broad Street in Falls Church has hit headwinds.
Both city staff and the Falls Church Planning Commission have raised concerns about incomplete information in a plan to raze a dental office at 815 W. Broad, replacing it with a facility that would serve similar uses but would be more than five times larger.
Falls Church officials are awaiting developments in Richmond to determine whether the city’s Planning Commission will get back powers that the General Assembly stripped last year.
However, legislation to restore the old arrangement could face an uphill battle.
Competing visions for the future of development in Arlington are facing off as the county gets closer to rewriting a core planning document.
As a feedback form on planned changes to the Comprehensive Plan is set to close on Sunday, slow-growth advocates are vying with a broad coalition of pro-housing groups to shape some of the county’s foundational goals.
Some projects are behind schedule in the Falls Church capital-improvement program (CIP), but they aren’t facing any major funding challenges.
Of the 37 active projects in the CIP, which range from roadway improvements to sports-field upgrades, 20 are listed as “on target,” six are “at risk” and 11 are “behind target,” according to a quarterly summary.
A massive proposed expansion to Pentagon City’s RiverHouse development concluded a key phase of the county’s public feedback process with generally solid reviews.
“It’s hard to argue with new housing and park space on underutilized parking lots,” said Kateri Garcia, who represents the Arlington Ridge Civic Association on the site-plan review committee (SPRC) that recently concluded five meetings on the development plan.
The Arlington County Civic Federation wants county leaders to be more transparent when negotiating with developers on community benefits.
In a comprehensive resolution on planning and zoning issues, delegates overwhelmingly voted last week to ask for a “clear, written, transparent process” for determining what benefits the county seeks when developers pursue rezoning and land-use changes.
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.
In a cost-saving move, Falls Church leaders on Monday (May 12) voted to reconfigure how the city oversees its economic-development, planning, zoning and permitting operations.
In adopting the fiscal 2026 budget, City Council members eliminated the position of Community Planning and Economic Development Services director.
