Author: Jo DeVoe

Arlington faith communities pray, fast and organize for peace in the Middle East

By Jo DeVoe
1/2

(Updated at 11:35 a.m.) An Arlington rabbi led a group of Jewish and Muslim demonstrators, and allies, in prayer at a park near the White House on Thursday afternoon.

Rabbi Gilah Langner was one of several demonstrators who joined in a rally to denounce the violence perpetrated by Israel and Hamas and call on the Biden administration to address the humanitarian crisis.

“We need to stand for compassion, and ultimately peace and justice,” Langner, who leads the Jewish Reconstructionist synagogue Kol Ami, told ARLnow. “People can hold multiple views in their heads and grieve for both sides. It’s a staggering loss on both sides but in each community we feel the closeness to our own.”

Nearly two weeks ago, Israel declared war on the Palestinian militant group Hamas after it launched a surprise offensive. Some 1,400 Israelis and nearly 3,000 Palestinians are dead, authorities in each say, while Hamas holds hostage another 200.

Israel also cut off water, fuel and electricity to Gaza, though humanitarian aid — including $100 million from the U.S. — can now enter the Palestinian territories via Egypt, President Joe Biden announced this week.

Responding to the conflict more than 7,000 miles away, some members of Arlington’s faith community have turned to prayer and fasting, as well as organizing and fundraising. Some doing this work say they are focused on building bridges.

“These types of situations, always challenge friendships, they challenge relationships,” rally attendee Fatima Argun, the Inclusion and Equity Chair of Arlington County Democratic Committee and a Muslim, told ARLnow.

“So far I haven’t seen too much fallout as a result of it,” she said. “I think if anything, it’s made us stronger, and it’s made us more committed to creating understanding among ourselves so that we can take that understanding to put it in a larger context scale.”

Later this month, Kol Ami will also co-host a talk on faith and polarization by the Jewish-Islamic Dialogue Society of Washington, a nonprofit that brings together Jews and Muslims. It was planned a month ago and set to have an American focus — that could change now.

“It’s a very timely discussion,” Langner said, noting concerns about rising Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in the U.S.

This week, police in Illinois allege a man fatally stabbed a boy and wounded his mother after becoming “obsessed” with the Israel-Hamas war. Nationally, anti-Jewish hate crimes increased by 38% in 2022 to 1,306 incidents, while those against Muslims increased 8% to 205, according to new FBI data. Only a handful of these incidents have occurred in Virginia, the data indicate.

Last Shabbat, a week into the fighting, was a mournful one for Arlington synagogues, Kol Ami and Congregation Etz Hayim, as well as the Jewish society Chabad Lubavitch of Alexandria-Arlington. Etz Hayim incorporated special liturgical practices into its observance while the local Chabad lit candles to remember Israeli victims.

“We’ve added special prayers to our services and partnered with other area congregations for a vigil last week,” said Rabbi Amelia Wolf, who leads Etz Hayim. “We also held a day of fasting last week for the hostages taken by Hamas.”

Arlington Catholics were likewise called to fast on Tuesday.

(more…)

NEW: Missing Middle lawsuit allowed to move forward

By Jo DeVoe
A sign along Washington Blvd in Westover, in a neighborhood with duplexes (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

The resident lawsuit against Arlington County’s Missing Middle zoning ordinances can move forward.

Today (Thursday), retired Fairfax County Judge David Schell denied most of the county’s motions to dismiss the case, according to an attorney for the 10 residents who sued Arlington. He had put off making a decision for one month when the parties last convened in court in September.

The judge upheld their right to sue on six of seven charges they levied against Arlington County. The residents said the county ran afoul of state law when it allowed 2-6 unit homes, also known as Expanded Housing Options or EHOs, in areas formerly zoned exclusively for single-family homes.

Among other reasons, they say the county acted improperly because it did not commission studies to gauge their impact.

Only one charge will not move forward, we’re told. This charge asserted the county violated Freedom of Information laws in how the county disseminated information to Arlington County Board members on the day of their vote as well as to the community.

The court will now reconvene on Nov. 16 to set trial dates.

“Residents are seeking to hold the Arlington County Board accountable for failing to follow the law in its elimination of single-family zoning in Arlington,” Dan Creedon, a member of Neighbors for Neighborhoods Litigation Fund, which has provided financial support for the suit, said in a statement.

“The judge’s ruling recognizes that the plaintiffs — all Arlington homeowners — get the opportunity to make their case at trial,” he continued. “This is the democratic process at work.”

Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future (ASF), another group opposed to Arlington’s Missing Middle rezoning, called the decision “a major victory for residents.”

“Using our tax dollars to contest the residents, Arlington County’s attorneys tried to get this case dismissed before trial on multiple different grounds, but failed,” said ASF founder Peter Rousselot.

Arlington County had argued the 10 residents who sued did not have legal standing to do so, saying it is too soon to tell if they will be harmed and it is unlikely they will experience particular harms other residents will not.

In court last month, Arlington County Attorney MinhChau Corr said this case amounts to upset residents who disliked the decision and took to the court for relief. She said this tactic is a “subversion of our democratic process.”

Schell disagreed. He said it was “readily apparent” that the plaintiffs have standing to sue as owners of properties that have been rezoned from single-family to multi-family, per the release from Neighbors for Neighborhoods.

“He added that the plaintiffs don’t need to wait for multi-family buildings to be built in their neighborhoods to sue and that the lawsuit is a ‘quintessential’ use of declaratory judgment (declaring that EHO zoning is void) as a remedy,” the organization said.

To illustrate the fact that the residents are affected by Missing Middle, the judge “used an extreme analogy that if their homes had been rezoned from residential to garbage dumps, it would affect their interests,” according to Natalie Roy, a former Arlington County Board candidate who published highlights in her “EHO Watch” newsletter.

(more…)

Arlington sees slightly elevated crime rates compared the region, per new report

By Jo DeVoe
Crime scene tape at shooting scene in Green Valley (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

Arlington has a slightly higher than average crime rate compared to the region overall, according to a new report.

The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments recently released its annual report, in which it compiled crime statistics reported out by local police departments, including Arlington County Police Department.

Overall, MWCOG found the D.C. area is seeing 18.3 crimes per 1,000 people involving rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and motor vehicle theft. This is higher than the 2021 rate of 16.8.

Arlington County’s rate increased from 15.9 to 19.7 and is now higher than the regional average, though the lowest in the region’s urban core, which also includes Alexandria and D.C. The former claims second-highest rate, at 20.8, and D.C. claims the highest crime rate, at 40.6.

Larger, more suburban counties tend to have lower crime rates, including Fairfax County, with a rate of 15.6 crimes per 1,000 people.

“This is something that you didn’t necessarily know the data point but you knew to be true: crime is increasing across the region and, right now, is at elevated levels that we haven’t seen in quite some time,” Arlington County Board Chair Christian Dorsey said during a meeting on Tuesday.

Crime rate in the D.C. area (via MWCOG)

Among Northern Virginia jurisdictions, Arlington saw a 25% increase in offenses, the median rise in crime for its Virginian neighbors.

“We’re all struggling and we’re not struggling any more than anyone else,” Dorsey said.

Property crimes drive the trends regionally, according to 5-year trends in the MWCOG report. That appears to be reflected locally, with an uptick of reported motor vehicle thefts: 412 thefts in 2022, up from 313 in 2021.

Property crime trends in the D.C. area (via MWCOG)

Carjackings are this year’s headline-grabbing offense, regionally, one that Dorsey stressed is thorny to tackle.

“There is a lot of interagency cooperation on these issues, but they are also quite difficult for police to bring to a satisfactory conclusion in terms of arrests and prosecutions,” Dorsey said.

Earlier this month Arlington surpassed the total number of carjackings from 2022, according to ARLnow’s count. While the county is seeing more carjackings, they are still less common than in D.C. and Prince George’s County, according to heat maps by the Washington Post.

One crime for which Arlington is an outlier, according to Dorsey, is assaults.

“We experienced a ridiculously huge increase in aggravated assaults in the year and are definitely a regional outlier, and not in a good way, with a 43% increase,” Dorsey said.

ACPD says “aggravated assault” is a category that includes distinct 20 felonies and three misdemeanor charges, spanning a broad range of crimes, including:

  • throwing items at occupied vehicles
  • brandishing firearms or similar-looking objects
  • child abuse
  • malicious wounding

The fact that 23 different charges encompass “aggravated assault” makes it difficult for community members to understand what exactly is happening in their community, says Chuck Miere, a Virginia criminal justice reform lobbyist who dug into ACPD data earlier this year.

“There’s very little transparency as to what gets counted year to year as falling into any of these categories because there isn’t a single ‘aggravated assault’ charge in Virginia,” he tells ARLnow. “There are a bunch of assault charges that can be aggravated.”

(more…)

Picnic shelter, court and field at Lacey Woods Park set for $2M renovation project

By Jo DeVoe
1/5

The northern portion of Lacey Woods Park will be getting a facelift.

Arlington County will replace the lighted basketball court and multi-use field at the 14-acre park along N. George Mason Drive near Ballston, according to a project webpage.

The building housing both a picnic shelter and restrooms will be replaced with a new picnic shelter and structure for restrooms.

Arlington County is mulling two design concepts for this project. It is seeking public feedback on these concepts via an online survey open now through next Thursday, Oct. 26.

“Your feedback will help inform updates to the existing amenities, including a preferred layout for the restrooms and picnic shelter,” the survey says.

Two concepts for updates to Lacey Woods Park (via Arlington County)

In the first concept, the bathrooms and picnic shelter both border the new court and the restroom entrance is off to the side.

In the second concept, the bathroom entrance faces the court and the picnic shelter is behind the bathrooms.

Two concepts for updates to Lacey Woods Park (via Arlington County)

The county will also update site furnishings and make improvements for circulation and accessibility for people with disabilities. There will be landscaping, drainage and stormwater management upgrades.

This project is set to cost a little more than $2 million and was approved as part of the 2019-28 Capital Improvement Plan. Some $388,000 comes from short-term financing and another $1.6 million from bonds.

“Capital maintenance projects address facilities that have exceeded their lifespan and are in need of renovation,” the survey says. “Renovations to the existing playground and the addition of new amenities are not within the scope of this project.”

A picnic shelter in the southern half of the site was replaced in 2014.

The county is currently estimating that construction on this project would start in the second quarter of 2025 and wrap up in the last quarter of the year.

A program that diverted people from jail is fizzling without a coordinator

By Jo DeVoe
Jail entrance at the Arlington County Detention Facility (file photo)

A one-woman show ran one of the county programs that diverts people from jail.

Her departure this summer has left a hole in the county’s series of initiatives that keep defendants out of jail, reduce their time in the detention facility or improve their chances of not reoffending once they leave.

Bond Diversion works with criminal defendants who the Arlington Dept. of Human Services (DHS), attorneys and judges determined would fare better waiting for court appearances in stable housing and receiving community-based medical treatment. In many cases, participants had mental illnesses and committed minor misdemeanors.

DHS oversees the program as well as many of the services used by defendants who go through the program. The department is recruiting for a replacement but is up against a regional shortage of licensed behavioral health specialists, says DHS spokesman Kurt Larrick.

“[Bond Diversion] is basically on hold, though both the Forensic Diversion team and jail-based team are identifying opportunities to divert people and doing so when possible,” says Larrick, noting the position, which pays between $92,000 and $140,000, has been offered to two people who have declined.

Meanwhile, more people with mental illnesses are being booked in the Arlington County Detention Facility even as Arlington County is trying to disentangle law enforcement from mental health issues. Since 2020’s widespread calls for police reforms, the county has taken some steps to create community-based services that do not involve the criminal-legal system.

Arlington’s top prosecutor and chief public defender esteemed the last Bond Diversion coordinator for providing high-quality re-entry planning. They said these plans instilled confidence among prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges that defendants released from the jail would show up to court, stick with their treatment plans and not reoffend in the long term.

“[Bond Diversion] allowed us to have creative solutions that allowed us to not criminalize mentally ill people,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti. “It allowed us to spend our resources in areas where you really needed to prosecute.”

Without it, the jail — already under scrutiny for the deaths of inmates, some of whom were homeless and booked on trespassing charges — has become home to people with mental illnesses who are held without bond or on bonds they cannot afford to pay. Although the jail has clinicians to help these inmates, this trend worries Dehghani-Tafti.

“We are warehousing mentally ill people in our jail because we do not have a functioning Bond Diversion program,” she said.

When it worked well, the program was “really cutting-edge diversion,” Chief Public Defender Brad Haywood said.

Now, his office is shouldering a lot of the reentry planning previously overseen by the Bond Diversion coordinator. Two paralegals, who normally review body-camera footage and prepare legal filings, are instead helping the office’s mitigation specialist draft reentry plans.

“Even that’s not enough,” Haywood said. “My office is too taxed to do reentry planning and someone at DHS is better equipped to access services they provide.”

Bond Diversion: One of several jail ‘off-ramps’  

Arlington has several “off-ramps” through which the court-involved can be diverted from the detention facility.

Some off-ramps are put into motion the moment law enforcement could be involved or does get involved. The Crisis Intervention Team, for instance, trains law enforcement in better responses to people with mental illnesses and encourages them to work with DHS to find mental health professionals or other services in lieu of incarceration.

Police who do arrest people bring them to the jail where they go before magistrates who determines — as part of the Magistrate’s Post-Booking Project — if they should stay in jail or be released for behavioral health interventions.

Bond Diversion is the next step.

If someone is held without bond or on a bond they cannot pay, they are arraigned before a district court judge. If applicable, Haywood says, the public defender’s office will be appointed and shortly after, will request that the client be released until their court date. For some clients, his office might request a Bond Diversion plan.

Other times, the referral may come from the prosecutor. Or the judge may be sympathetic to releasing the defendant because the crime was minor, but may feel uncomfortable doing so without a housing and medication plan in place, Haywood said.

Throughout this process, members of the 14-person, jail-based forensic diversion team are screening the mental health of defendants to determine what kind of behavioral health interventions they should get — whether in the jail or upon their release.

(more…)

APS middle and high schools to beef up security, attendance with e-hall pass system

By Jo DeVoe
Demo Minga student IDs (via Minga/YouTube)

Next month, Arlington Public Schools is set to roll out a new, electronic campus management platform at a number of middle and high schools.

The goal is to improve building security and provide better oversight of students as they come and go from classrooms.

Kenmore, Dorothy Hamm, Gunston and Thomas Jefferson middle schools, as well as Wakefield, Washington-Liberty and Yorktown high schools, will adopt the app and web-based platform Minga, says APS spokesman Frank Bellavia.

The platform provides hall passes and monitors students coming in and going out of buildings to ensure that only students are in the school, Bellavia said. Schools can limit the number of students in the halls at one time and limit the number of passes per student, per day.

This comes as APS has separately upped its budget for safety and security measures, including school safety coordinators, security cameras and other technological upgrades pertaining to safety. That comes amid reports of student drug use, for which some teachers say skipping class is partly to blame, and nearly a dozen juvenile overdoses in Arlington this year.

Students can download Minga to their smartphone or use it on their laptop or tablet. The platform issues digital IDs with scannable barcodes and digital passes, which would replace physical ID cards and paper passes.

Wakefield High School Principal Peter Balas imported Minga this year from his days leading Alexandria City High School, which has had issues around violence inside and outside of the school.

“I see it as a tool to help me get better safety and security and to help things run more safely and smoothly,” he said. “My experience is that it has been… well-accepted by staff.”

Kenmore piloted an e-pass system last year and, when Balas arrived in Arlington, principals were discussing whether to adopt such a system. That is when he suggested Minga.

Minga notifies teachers of students who are out of class and can ensure certain students are not in the hallways at the same time — if they tend to break school rules when together. It tracks trends over time, such as overall time spent out of class and passes issued or students who spent the most time not in class and where they went.

Balas would like to see students scan their IDs to enter school buildings, too, so staff know who is in the building before they take attendance. He said it also can help staff track down and follow-up with students who arrive at school but ditch class or leave mid-day.

“[But] for me, one of the most important things, from safety standpoint, is that it basically would prevent anyone who doesn’t go to school from trying to get in,” Balas said.

Earlier this year, Wakefield was placed in lockdown after reports of a trespasser, possibly armed with a gun, and a threat against a student.

“Almost every period, we have comings and goings in the school,” he continued. “It will also help us keep track of all that movement and make sure access is secure and legitimate.”

When asked how this might interfere with building-level “Away for the Day” policies — in which phones are required to be off and stored during school hours — Bellavia said students can request passes from their tablets or laptops.

Balas says he does not think this will interfere with Wakefield’s mobile phone policy.

Administrators and security staff are in the first wave of training on the new system and teachers will soon follow.

“I was purposeful not wanting to inundate [teachers] when we aren’t ready to launch yet,” Balas said. “I’m hoping in the next month or so to have it fully up and running but it is something where I have to take the temperature of everyone and make sure it doesn’t overwhelm people.”

Minga will cost around $50,000 to roll out, Bellavia said.

County says it needs new policies to tackle rising office vacancy rates

By Jo DeVoe
A partially vacant office building in Courthouse in December 2022 (via Google Maps)

(Updated at 12 p.m. on 10/19/23) County leaders say Arlington is facing a grim future due to its rising office vacancy rate, which now stands at 21.5%.

Arlington is leading the region with its vacancy rate, which works out to 9 million square feet of empty space, according to Arlington Economic Development Director Ryan Touhill. He predicts the vacancy rate will continue climbing, as AED has determined about one-quarter of office buildings are at risk of sustained vacancies.

Compounding the vacancy issues, many leased buildings have space available for sublease and significantly lower rates of people going into the office, according to Arlington Economic Development Commission.

These conditions are set to have serious impacts on Arlington County’s future budgets, with County Board members and County Manager Mark Schwartz already predicting belt-tightening this budget cycle.

Last week, staff told the Arlington County Board about new strategies and policies they are considering to further combat this issue as part of the ongoing Commercial Market Resiliency Initiative. Yesterday (Tuesday), the county’s Economic Development Commission discussed its own recommendations for dealing with these vacancy rates.

That follows several zoning changes made in the last 12 months — on a compressed community engagement timeline — to get emerging businesses into older office buildings by allowing them to operate without seeking special permissions. This includes micro-fulfillment centers, urban farms, breweries, dog boarding facilities, pickleball courts and podcast studios.

Board Chair Christian Dorsey said Arlington is facing a different challenge than it has before.

“This is a little bit different than some of the elevated rates of vacancy that we’ve experienced in the past,” Dorsey said last week.

During the Base Realignment and Closure process, for instance, the office vacancy rate peaked at 20.1% in 2015 after major Department of Defense offices decamped from the county, per the Economic Development Commission.

Arlington managed to bounce back by landing deals with Nestle, Boeing and RTX — formerly Raytheon — Amazon and Microsoft, Dorsey said.

“But this is a little bit different because this is in the midst of a paradigm shift in the commercial market,” he said, pointing to the impacts of remote work. “And then, of course, there’s a market which is in turmoil, with incredibly low valuations and commercial space, which impacts lending and trading.”

Rising office vacancy rate (via Arlington County)

With a potentially protracted dip in tax revenue from commercial properties in Arlington, residents will have to pay more for essential services, Touhill said.

“Historically, we’ve had that 50-50 split between our commercial and residential tax base,” he said. “But in recent years, we’ve seen that increase to more of a 55-45 split. And this means that our residents are carrying more of the burden to fund our essential services.”

To weather this storm, the economic development commission, AED and the Dept. of Community Planning, Housing and Development (CPHD) intend to streamline onerous county processes and tackle restrictive ordinances.

‘Work flows’ in the second stage of the Commercial Market Resiliency Initiative (via Arlington County)

One under scrutiny will be the major and minor site plan amendment process, which developers and property owners go through to repurpose or renovate large, existing development projects.

“The site plan process’s length and variability are amongst the biggest impediments to redevelopment,” says the commission, which calls for an expedited process for these types of projects. “As these buildings already exist, all that will change is the building’s use.”

(more…)

Plans stewarding Arlington’s natural and cultural resources teed up for hearings later this year

By Jo DeVoe
1/4

Two significant county plans — one governing stewardship of trees and natural resources and the other historic preservation — are reaching the finish line.

On Saturday, the Arlington County Board set hearings for both plans. Members will vote on adopting the plans at the hearings.

First up will be the Historic and Cultural Resources Plan, set for a Planning Commission hearing on Monday, Oct. 30 and a County Board hearing on Saturday, Nov. 11. The hearings on the plan were approved without further discussion at the start of the meeting over the weekend.

“This is an element of our comprehensive plan but we haven’t updated it since 2006,” Board Chair Christian Dorsey said. “We have been engaged in a multi-year planning process that has resulted in five recommended focus areas: community engagements… incentives, partnerships, regulations, technology, information and tools. This will provide a framework for us to advance the mission and the effectiveness of the county’s Historic Preservation program.”

Next up will be a Planning Commission hearing on Dec. 4, followed by a County Board hearing on Dec. 16, when the Board will consider the new Forestry and Natural Resources Plan.

It “emphasizes equity, a community-wide approach based on education and volunteerism and a focus on reconnecting nature to daily life,” says Dept. of Parks and Recreation Principal Planner Ryan Delaney.

For the first time, he said, Arlington will have a document that views all natural resources “as an interconnected system that covers not only public natural areas and parks but the built environment and private property as well.”

The plan updates and replaces a 2004 plan for urban forests and a 2010 natural resources management plan. It makes several notable recommendations, including the following goals to:

  • reestablish and maintain at least 40% tree canopy
  • ensure 70% of trees are regionally native by 2034
  • direct resources to neighborhoods underserved by tree canopy
  • move from “reactive” to “proactive” maintenance
  • enhance development standards to retain or replace more trees, natural vegetation, permeable surfaces and biophilic elements

The county studied current practices, innovative programs and lessons learned by Fairfax, Albemarle and Prince William counties in Virginia, Montgomery County in Maryland, and Seattle and Richmond, among others, Delaney said.

There is general support for the plan, the DPR planner continued, noting lingering concerns from some about whether the plan treats climate change and tree canopy decline with enough urgency.

Arlington Tree Action Group representative Mary Glass is one such critic. She was the last forestry plan speaker standing after four others did not outlast the lengthy Plan Langston Blvd discussion.

She says the county could “restore trust” with the community if it used newer data on tree canopy levels and adopted more aggressive tree canopy policies.

Glass says the forthcoming plan references a 2016 assessment that found tree canopy levels were at 40%, when a citizen-commissioned study from this year, using 2021 data, found the rate is lower, at 33%, and the situation more dire.

“The important takeaway is, based on these new numbers, which are very accurate, between 2008 and 2021, we lost nearly a quarter of our tree canopy,” Glass said. “It’s a bigger problem than how it may appear reading the plan.”

Caroline Haynes, a member of the Arlington County Forestry and Natural Resources Commission, said people can argue for more tweaks but a plan has to be adopted sometime soon.

“We’ve spent a lot of time developing these policy guidelines and we can always quibble about is it perfect or not but it’s time… we all feel it’s really urgent to get on with this and we really want to move forward on getting toward implementation,” she said.

(more…)

Arlington County Board sets hearings for next month on Langston Blvd plan

By Jo DeVoe
The Arlington County Board during its Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023 meeting (via Arlington County)

A document envisioning the long-term development of most of Langston Blvd is one step closer to adoption.

On Saturday, the Arlington County Board set public hearings by the Planning Commission on Monday, Oct. 30 and the Board on Saturday, Nov. 11, when members will hear from the community and deliberate the document, dubbed Plan Langston Blvd. The Board will ultimately decide whether to adopt it.

Board members unanimously approved the request to advertise hearings next month after nearly 50 people spoke and the Board asked questions for about an hour and a half.

Renderings of Cherry Hill Road in front of the Lee Heights Shops in the draft Plan Langston Blvd document (via Arlington County)

Board member Matt de Ferranti proposed and received majority support for two revisions before the final document was passed. One is intended to hasten a review of planning for the East Falls Church and Cherrydale neighborhoods and the other removes language calling for the consolidation of community centers.

East Falls Church and Cherrydale were excluded from Plan Langston Blvd because they already have neighborhood plans that have yet to be fully realized. Since this decision was made, however, some community members, Planning Commissioners and County Board members have stressed these communities need a second look — sooner rather than later — as they can help the plan meet its own affordable housing goals.

“This is a burning priority for me and so, this almost rises to level of office vacancy rate for me,” de Ferranti said, acknowledging that in the case of East Falls Church the county will have to keep applying pressure to VDOT and Metro while relying on private developers, too.

“What you see here is an attempt to signal to the community that these two parts of the plan should be considered sooner,” de Ferranti said.

County Manager Mark Schwartz said he will “never say no to the Board” on a request like this but it will require them to reconsider how county staffers prioritize their work.

“I’m working right now on [a budget]… that’s going to have cuts in it. I’m not going to have additional resources available. The team available here, once they finish up with this, they have two to three things to turn their attention to,” he said. “If you want to find additional resources, absolutely, we will move it higher up on the list, but that means something has to move lower on the list.”

The plan’s most recent iteration said community centers should be consolidated to better address the needs of a growing population, a goal espoused in the county’s Public Spaces Master Plan.

De Ferranti, however, argued that the goal is not in the county’s best interest because of the expected population increase. The lone dissenter to de Ferranti’s motion, Board Chair Christian Dorsey, countered that consolidation will not mean a reduction in services.

Much of the Board’s discussion this weekend, like previous discussions by the Board and the Planning Commission, as well as some community advocacy, centered on affordable housing.

The corridor currently has 1,936 market-rate and committed affordable units, said county planner Natasha Alfonso-Ahmed. That includes 1,088 that are affordable to people earning 80% of the area median income (AMI) and 900 are affordable at 60% AMI.

The plan aims to increase the number of affordable units to 3,200-3,800 units by 2075, focusing especially on units affordable up to 60% AMI. Some argue the county does not have the tools to get there nor does this plan consider people who earn 30% AMI or less.

“Many of these low-income residents provide our community with essential services — child and health care, restaurants and retail, maintenance and construction and more,” wrote Anne Vor der Bruegge, the director of grants and initiatives at the nonprofit Arlington Community Foundation, which has also advocated for deeper affordable housing elsewhere in the county.

“If we want to create a truly equitable Langston Boulevard corridor for the future, we need to proactively support creating and preserving homes that serve the lowest income residents,” she said.

(more…)

County buys another home for flood mitigation as first purchase is teed up for demolition

By Jo DeVoe
4434 19th Street N. in the Waverly Hills neighborhood (via Google Maps)

This weekend, the Arlington County Board approved $1.6 million to buy its next property for flood mitigation.

The property is located at 4434 19th Street N. in the Waverly Hills neighborhood, where the county has already purchased three homes this past year.

This happens to be the most expensive purchase thus far. The other homes in Waverly Hills sold for $969,200-$1.3 million, with one in Westover selling for $1.5 million.

Arlington County has told residents of the flood-prone Spout Run Watershed that it is willing to buy their homes. The county plans to tear down the homes on the properties it buys and re-landscape the vacant lots to prevent erosion.

These lots will provide “overland relief” during floods — that is, a safe path for flood waters to flow to get to the nearest stream or storm drain during a large storm event. They act as backup when existing stormwater systems and public space cannot handle floods, like those seen in 2019.

Arlington will be responsible for maintaining these properties and possibly developing long-term stormwater plans for some sites.

As it buys its next property, the county is gearing up to demolish the first home it acquired, this March, located at 4437 18th Street N.

This property “is projected to begin demolition before the end of the year,” says Dept. of Environmental Services spokeswoman Katie O’Brien, adding that a public meeting about the work is scheduled for next Thursday, Oct. 26.

“A schedule has not been finalized for the other properties,” she said. “The County will notify the community prior to any work beginning.”

Several steps have to take place after the property is acquired to get to the demolition stage and this generally takes about six months, O’Brien said. This includes work such as disconnecting utilities and assessing any hazardous materials that require removal.

Demolition schedules depend on when a contractor is available as well as site-specific details and designs. Getting the necessary permits requires about two months and nailing down contractor price quotes and issuing purchase orders requires about one month.

While the immediate plan for each site — to demolish and replant it — is the same, eventually, some properties could serve other functions, too. This depends on how big the property is and if it abuts other properties acquired by the county, among other factors.

Some properties could get additional stormwater infrastructure, including detention vaults, co-located with water quality and stormwater capacity projects.

Others could be used to provide county access to existing stormwater infrastructure. Not having the proper easements has previously stymied county efforts to stabilize part of Donaldson Run and provide flooding relief to residents of a nearby townhome association.

Arlington teachers decry impending healthcare changes as a ‘catastrophe’

By Jo DeVoe
1/8

Over the course of an hour last night, Arlington Public Schools teachers excoriated the School Board and central administration for how they are handling what some call a healthcare catastrophe.

On Dec. 31, APS staff will lose the healthcare they receive from Kaiser Permanente and Cigna through APS, to be replaced in January by CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield.

Many current and retired staff say this change will upend the Kaiser healthcare teams they have built for themselves and their families over several years and in some cases, decades.

APS says it solicited bids from healthcare vendors and received four proposals, including CareFirst, the vendor it ultimately selected — but not Kaiser.

The school system first announced the change on Sept. 20 and the response was swift. Teachers spoke up at the subsequent September School Board meeting and ARLnow received at least a dozen emails from staff who were upset and confused by the change.

These feelings reached a boiling point on Thursday despite efforts from APS to smooth things over. APS held a “resource fair” with CareFirst representatives and Human Resources staff to help understand their benefits and enroll but according to the teachers union, the Arlington Education Association, this did not ease the anxiety of the nearly 400 people who showed up — some of whom were turned away.

“This disrespectful treatment of staff, lack of response and inappropriate responses from HR and lack of transparency on issues that not only affect staff but students and families, is disheartening,” says teacher Tricia Zipfel.

When teacher Marnie Lewis took the microphone at the School Board meeting, she began crying but eventually rallied to encouragement from colleagues in attendance.

“This [change] really took me to my knees,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m here. I’m here because this is how upset I am. I used to love working here, I was proud to work here and I’m not feeling that anymore… I would just like it if someone could answer my emails and questions. That would be great.”

Teacher Heidi Haretos, who recently moved from North Carolina to Arlington, asked central office and the School Board: “If your wife, daughter, husband or son had a serious health condition, and had a trusted medical team supporting them through Kaiser, would you have made this decision?”
(more…)

View More Stories