Author: Jane Green

Making Room is a biweekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely the author’s.

Crystal City and Pentagon City have long been a patchwork of single-family homes, dense retail, and aging office buildings, cut up by wide roads. Nothing divides the neighborhoods more than Route 1, which is elevated as it comes from DC into Arlington.

Two years ago, when Amazon selected Arlington for its second headquarters, it pushed to include a plan to bring more sections of the highway to ground level. Although many urban highways should be removed, the Route 1 plan is imperiled by the decision to maintain current traffic volume.

Without an absolute commitment to lower speeds, reduce car travel lanes, build protected bike infrastructure, and reduce the total width, a lowered highway is a death trap running through our front yard.

Route 1 is a dividing line between Pentagon City and Crystal City, cutting people off from recreation, shopping, and jobs, to say nothing of the Metro Station and the Mount Vernon Trail. The elevated portions of the highway allow pedestrians and cyclists easier access. Many of my neighbors share the fear that an at-grade Route 1 will be a further impediment to connectivity.

The National Landing BID has been one of the leading forces in favor of the new “urban boulevard.” They assured us that lowering the highway would enhance connectivity and improve the road for all users. They emphasized multimodal improvements and likened their vision to Connecticut Avenue in D.C. or the Michigan Ave in Chicago. Left unstated is that this is only possible with a significant reduction in traffic volume through Crystal City.

Now VDOT shared a preview of its vision for Route 1, confirming everything locals feared and expected. In contrast to the vision championed by the BID (only 5 or 6 lanes, with protected bike lanes and wide sidewalks), VDOT proposes expanding the highway with 9 lanes and no bike infrastructure. The plan includes two left turn lanes, against the explicit wishes of the BID. To appease neighbors worried about commuter traffic cutting through nearby local streets, VDOT has to put drivers’ speed and convenience first.

This outcome is not surprising. VDOT consistently pushes to widen roads and views traffic safety as the need to keep cars moving. Arlington and VDOT are also pursuing a widening project on Route 50/Arlington Blvd, over the objections of adjacent residents and the Transportation Commission, under the auspice of “safety.”

Now that I see VDOT’s rendering alongside the purported study goals, the dissonance is laughable. These 9 lanes of traffic are neither safe nor environmental. They do nothing for transit effectiveness or multimodal accessibility. They do not mend the urban fabric. Instead, VDOT’s plan would put a dangerous, polluting highway through a growing downtown neighborhood.

VDOT’s unfortunate reality check might be enough to kill this project altogether. But we can do better than Route 1’s status quo. A committed group of local residents has been exploring alternative ideas, informed by extensive outreach to neighbors. It is time for our elected leaders to get involved and push for a real commitment to safety and connectivity. We can praise Arlington for approving large-scale development, both commercial and residential, to meet obvious demand. But unless we also commit to reducing car traffic, we will fail to bring inclusive, sustainable, humane growth.

Community members can voice their concerns at a public meeting on March 3.

Jane Fiegen Green, an Arlington resident since 2015, proudly rents an apartment in Pentagon City with her family. By day, she is the Membership Director for Food and Water Watch, and by night she tries to navigate the Arlington Way. Opinions here are her own.

 Making Room is a biweekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely those of the authors.

Guest column by Kellen MacBeth and Michael Pruitt

Arlington County has an opportunity to develop critical policies to address the ongoing negative impacts of over 100 years of racial segregation and discrimination in our housing market.

In fall 2020, county staff released a draft Fair Housing Plan and the accompanying Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice (AI) report which consolidated data on housing segregation and its continuing impact on our community.

The Analysis is comprehensive, detailing how the color of your skin and the neighborhood in which you live drastically impacts your life expectancy, educational attainment, income, employment, and poverty level. It makes abundantly clear that there are massive disparities between white residents and residents of color that are shutting many of our neighbors out of Arlington’s prosperity.

However, instead of being a serious attempt to implement Arlington’s 2019 Equity Resolution and meaningfully address our legacy of segregation, the draft Fair Housing Plan appears to be a bureaucratic paperwork exercise. The plan is a 10-page rehash of existing programs and half-hearted measures that have produced little evidence of progress toward eliminating obstacles to fair housing in a meaningful way. Arlington County’s elected leaders and County Manager have failed to acknowledge the clear political will in our community to address these longstanding issues.

Arlington’s draft Fair Housing Plan attempts to follow Obama-era federal guidance, but fails. Under past guidance from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), communities must tie their theoretical aims to specific, quantifiable goals. Arlington’s draft plan contains no such metrics, no way to monitor success or failure, and no way for the public to hold our leaders accountable.

If Arlington County truly wants to make good on their statements supporting racial equity, they should consider the following changes.

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Making Room is a biweekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely the author’s.

Development planning in Arlington is guided by the idea that density is a burden which must be paid for with public benefits.

If a property owner wants to add more units to their planned apartment building that they are allowed ‘by-right,’ they must also fund something off the community’s wish list. But if the price of this is too high, the community loses both new homes AND the improved urban space.

We see this dynamic at play with the Clarendon Sector Plan. Most recently amended in 2006, the Sector Plan sets forth a vision of the “urban village” where “people of all income levels, ages and household make-ups can walk to home, work, shop, and play.”

Fifteen years later, some items on the community’s “wish list” haven’t come through. Large blocks south of Washington Boulevard remain half-used parking lots. No parks have been added. Cars still reign supreme. The goal of relocating Fire Station 4 has not been achieved. The Sector Plan does not allow enough density and height to fully maximize the community benefits these sites could provide.

A Sector Plan guides the private development around Arlington’s Metro stations, establishing the density, height, and uses of future buildings, and lays out the community features (affordable housing, LEED building certification, parks, improved streetscapes, etc.), that new developers will provide if they want to “buy” additional density. It can be specific, including where a new road should break up a superblock and which blocks should have a hotel vs. retail or office space.

The Sector Plan implements Arlington’s Comprehensive Plans, specifically the General Land Use Plan (GLUP), which “establishes the overall character, extent and location of various land uses.”

Sector Plans are visions of what a community wants but has almost no power to realize. The fulfillment is left up to the development process. In the update to the Clarendon Sector Plan now underway, County staff and community members hope to create the right recipe to achieve their urban vision. Private development could transform these empty parking lots into vibrant streetscapes and buildings for people to live, work, and stay, all within a short walk of the Metro.

But before these planned developments can even begin their long process toward approval by the County Board, they need amendments to the Sector Plan. The projects need taller heights and steeper building tapers than what the 2006 Sector Plan calls for. Additionally, they need to shift the location of the desired new street (“10th Road”) and the owner of the Silver Diner site wants to redevelop their property as a hotel rather than an office building as the Sector Plan indicates.

Over the coming months, participants will determine how they can “advance the sector plan’s vision” with new “guidance and zoning for private development.” These changes will hopefully allow Clarendon to replace more parking lots with residential and commercial buildings, offering more productive uses of our scarce urban land. But the Sector Plan process also reveals the central flaw in our development planning.

In the short term, you should participate in the Clarendon Sector Plan process to allow more height and density in these blocks south of Washington Boulevard to maximize the direct and indirect benefits to the broader community.

In the longer term, Arlington should rethink the development process that treats new housing or office space as a problem that must be mitigated through expensive public benefit projects. By funding public improvements through fees from new development, the costs end up borne almost exclusively by renters and new buyers, rather than on the whole community.

Instead, we should make it easier to build homes and offices and use general revenue to pay for community needs. Funding infrastructure and amenities through property taxes, or better yet a land value tax, would put urban improvements in the hands of citizens, rather than leaving them to the whims of the development process.

Jane Fiegen Green, an Arlington resident since 2015, proudly rents an apartment in Pentagon City with her family. By day, she is the Membership Director for Food and Water Watch, and by night she tries to navigate the Arlington Way. Opinions here are her own.

Making Room is a biweekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely the author’s.

This fall, the Arlington County Board will vote on a controversial proposal to make condo development easier along Columbia Pike. The County should reject this proposal and focus our bonus-density programs on low-income renters at risk of displacement and let market-rate development (fueled by better zoning) serve aspiring homeowners.

The Columbia Pike Neighborhoods Form Based Code (N-FBC) is a set of regulations that allows a developer to build to a much higher density in the corridor in exchange for public benefits, including Committed Affordable Housing (CAFs). Currently, a developer using the N-FBC must commit 20-35% of the net-new units in their project as Affordable for households making up to 60% AMI. This applies for both apartment buildings and condo or ownership projects.

The problem is that homeownership is expensive. Arlington staff have found that even when they find families at 60% AMI that qualify for the reduced-price mortgage, the condo fees and maintenance costs can put them at the brink. A job loss or unexpected expense can put them in serious financial jeopardy.

Because the staff still want to encourage condo development along Columbia Pike, they have proposed raising the income level for these units to 80% and 100% AMI. They did not provide evidence that families at this income level will succeed in homeownership where lower-income families struggled. They also fail to mention in their presentation that under these new rules, the developer could sell a Committed Affordable unit for up to $441,000, rather than $264,600. The CAF units are also allowed to be smaller with fewer amenities than the market-rate units. This “public benefit” comes at considerably less cost to the developer, with no change in the number of units they are expected to provide.

Stakeholders in the Columbia Pike corridor have expressed concern that this proposal could exacerbate displacement of low-income renters. The area contains some of Arlington’s last remaining “market-rate affordable” apartment buildings, which are at risk of redevelopment at a higher price point.

The proposal to increase the income limits for Committed Affordable ownership units to moderate-income households is an inappropriate use of the bonus-density system. Arlington County should use its Committed Affordable housing program to prevent displacement, not underwrite homeownership. And while moderate-income families have few ownership options in the current housing market, strengthening rental options would be a better public policy goal than getting a few more households into condos they might not be able to maintain.

Leaving Arlington to buy a home is a choice, not displacement. Displacement means losing options for housing affordable at your income. It could be that your rent rose faster than income, your building was redeveloped at a much higher price point, or your building was demolished.

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Making Room is a biweekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely the author’s.

My column talks a lot about single-family vs. multi-family homes. But what counts as a family?

The rules that govern who can legally occupy Arlington’s housing have changed to reflect our understanding and acceptance of diverse types of families. But even with significant progress to make our definition of families more inclusive, we have further to go to support the different forms that households take the 21st century.

Arlington’s Zoning Ordinance sets limits on the number of families that can live on a particular lot — what we typically call single-family zoning or multi-family zoning. It also defines what constitutes a family. According to Arlington’s Zoning Ordinance, a family is “an individual, or two or more persons related by blood, marriage or adoption, or under approved foster care” or “a group of not more than four persons (including servants) whether or not related by blood or marriage living together and sharing living areas in a dwelling unit.” So if a group of people is related, they can live together as a family, no matter how people are in the household. But if the group is not related, Arlington limits the household size to four people.

The restrictions placed on families comprised of unrelated people are based on prejudiced assumptions about their character and their impact on the community. This regulation typically targets young people who seek to live together in a single home because presumably they would be dirtier and rowdier than a “traditional” family of two parents and 1.5 kids. It also discriminates again “functional families,” such as two single parents, not in a relationship with each other, cohabitating with their children to share costs and childcare.

Arlington is not alone is viewing households of unrelated people as a nuisance and incompatible with the “character” of a residential neighborhood. However, our country has a long history of restricting people viewed as a nuisance or as lacking character from living equally and openly in our communities.

Until 1968, when the Fair Housing Act was first enacted, it was legal to discriminate against Black Americans, Jewish Americans, or immigrants because you thought these residents would degrade the character of your neighborhood. Until 1974, you could decline to rent or sell your property to a single woman out of a moral concern for women living without a father or husband. Until 1988, you could keep a renter with a disability or a family with children out of your rental property because you thought accommodating them would be a nuisance. Until just this year, it was legal in Virginia to deny housing to a gay, lesbian, or transgender person, because you objected to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

These are all cases where a person or family was view as a nuisance or a detriment to the community’s character based on bigotry or prejudice. Spurred by civil rights movements, the law gradually rejected the basis for discrimination and recognized housing access as an essential component of equality.

The nuclear family is no longer the dominant family type (if it every was), and in the absence of extended family networks, many people look beyond traditional family relationships of blood and marriage to build their lives. Arlington County shouldn’t be in the business of determining which families or households are worthy of living in residential neighborhoods, and it shouldn’t prevent the diverse forms that families take from finding mutual support and affordable housing. As we evaluate the proper density for our neighborhoods, we should also expand our definition of family.

Jane Fiegen Green, an Arlington resident since 2015, proudly rents an apartment in Pentagon City with her family. By day, she is the Membership Director for Food and Water Watch and by night she tries to navigate the Arlington Way. Opinions here are her own.

Making Room is a biweekly opinion column. The views expressed are solely the author’s.

We lost a tree in my neighborhood during the storms last month. It was a large tree that provided shade for the nearby tennis and basketball courts. It will take decades for a new tree to provide that benefit for the park. But as a forward-thinking community, we plant trees now knowing that they will provide shade in the future.

This is an apt metaphor for housing affordability. We need to build new housing now so that we have older homes that will be affordable for middle-income families in the future. Therefore, when we evaluate our zoning policy or a site plan, we shouldn’t only judge it by the cost of the new housing that will be produced, but also on the cost of the older housing that it will become.

It is easy to complain about a new apartment building because it will charge extremely high rent when it opens. But this is the beginning of the building’s lifecycle that will eventually end up as a more affordable property.

Searching through advertisements in the Washington Post from the 1960s-1980s, I found many examples of buildings once described as “luxurious” that now have rents affordable to those making 60-80% of the Area Median Income (approximately $50,000-$90,000, depending on household size).

For example, RiverHouse in Pentagon City was described as “luxurious” when it first opened. It was Northern Virginia’s first high-rise apartment building and it had air conditioning, which was rare for homes in 1957. Now, River House one of the most affordable buildings in the area and is home to many long-term residents. Older buildings are cheaper because they have fewer amenities and lack the on-trend upgrades of the newest buildings.

The process can work in the opposite direction as well. Older properties can get renovated and command high prices. Every year, Arlington loses market-rate apartment buildings that are affordable to moderate- and low-income households. Every redevelopment is a noticeable loss because we don’t have a pipeline of aging buildings that can provide affordable options.

Preserving these older, more affordable homes is one strategy for maximizing housing options in Arlington. We can also accept that older buildings will eventually be renovated and made more expensive and rely on a new crop of aging buildings to take their place in our housing ecosystem. When we allow enough housing to meet demand, there will always be a segment of older, less flashy buildings are affordable to lower- and middle-income households.

Blocking new construction because it results in “luxury apartments” is the same as objecting to a newly planted tree because it doesn’t yet provide shade. Let’s plan for future growth that we know is coming so that we can have homes for people at all income levels and at all stages of their lives.

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Jane Fiegen Green, an Arlington resident since 2015, proudly rents an apartment in Pentagon City with her family. By day, she is the Membership Director for Food and Water Watch and by night she tries to navigate the Arlington Way. Opinions here are her own.