Airbnb, which has become an alternative to hotels or vacation rentals for many, is growing in popularity, prompting county staff and the County Board to initiate a public process that is expected to lead to regulations on such rentals.
Nearly 1,000 properties in Arlington were listed on Airbnb this month, according to a county press release. The number was closer to 1,600 earlier this summer, said County Manager Mark Schwartz.
(Updated at 5:45 p.m.) Arlington has more to do to make the county friendlier to small businesses, particularly those with brick-and-mortar storefronts.
That was one of the messages sent by Arlington County Board Chair Libby Garvey during her State of the County talk this morning.
As ARLnow.com first reported Monday, the most recent draft of the child care regulations would have required child care centers to encourage mothers to breastfeed and would have dictated what type of milk, juice and birthday treats could be fed to children, among other provisions.
That’s in addition to new staffing and employee education requirements that panicked the operators of small and part-time child care centers, who said such rules would put them out of business or at least drive up the cost of daycare and preschool programs.
Daycare and preschool providers in Arlington are decrying proposed new child care regulations as overly onerous and intrusive.
A 34-page draft of new child care center regulations would set stringent requirements for employee education, require food handling certificates for handing out snacks and would require providers to encourage mothers to breast feed, among numerous other regulatory provisions.
The Board voted unanimously to adopt changes to the Arlington County Code which went into effect immediately on Saturday. Previously, the Animals and Fowl ordinance did not specifically address dog tethering.
Under the new regulations, dog owners cannot leave their pet tethered unattended for more than three hours in a 24 hour time period. Dogs tied to running cables or trolley systems with access to water and shelter can be tethered for up to 12 hours in a 24 hour period. As previously reported, the rules only apply to dogs that are not within physical reach of their owners.
Citing “challenges” posed by the 100 or so food trucks and carts licensed in Arlington, the BID says the county should work to create a “level playing field” between mobile vendors and restaurants. Among the BID’s recommendations are regulating the “location and schedule of food trucks, trash, parking and access to restroom facilities.”
We reported exclusively last week that the BID was in the process of formulating a set of recommended county regulations for food trucks, at least in part to protect brick-and-mortar restaurants against the onslaught of competition from food trucks, which don’t make the same kind of long-term investments in a neighborhood as restaurant owners.
Zimmerman said that the board and county staff have been listening to feedback from business owners, many of whom bemoan the county’s sign ordinance as too restrictive. The county is still in the process of collecting comments on its web site and some additional sign focus groups are in the works, Zimmerman said.
County staff will work with a consultant to review the feedback and to review “best practices from around the country on sign regulation.” A draft copy of some of the regulation changes should be ready for review by the board and community groups in July. If all goes well, Zimmerman hopes to have the new sign ordinance ready for adoption “in the fall.”
Two days after we reported about a delay in Comcast’s plan to switch on additional HD channels for Arlington customers, the company has managed to get the promised channels up and running.
As of this morning, channels including CNBC HD, Comedy Central HD, BET HD and ESPNews HD were up and running. Also available was truTV HD, which is carrying a number of NCAA March Madness basketball games.
In a mailing that went out last month, Comcast told Arlington County customers that they would be getting “The World of More” — the company’s phrase for a slew of additional high-definition channels — on March 15.
Alas, that date has come and gone and the channels are nowhere to be seen. In fact, the only noticeable change in the past two weeks is that customers can no longer receive basic cable channels without a digital converter.
Comcast recently mailed informational material to customers regarding the changes, and earlier notified the county’s Cable Television Policy and Administration office of its plans.
Starting on or about March 3, Comcast will stop transmitting most basic cable channels in analog. Instead, anybody who currently watches cable TV without using a set-top box or a CableCARD device (like TiVo) will need to get a digital adapter to see the channels. Comcast is offering up to two digital adapters free of charge, with each additional adapter priced at $1.99 per month.
It’s not so much that the Comcast customer service agents themselves are that bad, it’s just that the customer service system in which they operate seems to be designed with the sole purpose of minimizing cost at the expense of producing meaningful solutions to customers’ problems and complaints.
Comcast has a partial monopoly in Arlington. Sure, Verizon FiOS and satellite TV are available to single family homes and certain apartment buildings and condos. But for many apartment and condo-dwellers, Comcast is the only game in town. The only option for those folks in the event of an unresolved grievance is to either grin and bear it, cancel service and forgo cable and/or internet altogether, or complain to the county’s cable administration office and hope for the best.
