Willmore began his career at APS in 1995 as a teacher at the Spanish immersion school Escuela Key. After briefly leaving the school system, he returned in 1999 as a teacher in the Gunston’s immersion program. Willmore became an assistant principal at Wakefield High School in 2002 and eight years later, was named principal.
“I have loved my time at Wakefield and I am very proud of what the Wakefield community has accomplished and what the Wakefield student body and community represents,” Willmore told the School Board during last Thursday’s meeting. “As I hear time and time again, Wakefield is what the world will look like and our students at Wakefield get to experience that now, every day that they come to school.”
In an email to the school community, shared with ARLnow, Willmore said he poured his heart and soul into his work “because I feel strongly that that is the bare minimum of what our incredible students and staff deserve.”
After a 13-year tenure, which he described as an anomaly, he said he asked Superintendent Francisco Durán about changing jobs.
“This was a difficult decision for me to come to, but I feel that this is the right path forward for me and ultimately for Wakefield,” he continued.
The high school experienced difficult times earlier this year after a 14-year-old overdosed in a school bathroom and later died at the hospital, prompting the School Board to act and teachers to voice their fears this could happen again if protocols did not change. In late February, the school launched a confidential online form for people to report unsafe situations concerning a student.
Wiggins, meanwhile, has been with APS since 2012, serving as the principal of Gunston Middle School for the last 11 years.
Before coming to Arlington Public Schools, Wiggins worked in West Virginia as the executive director of the Office of Professional Preparation in the state Department of Education. In West Virginia, she also served as a middle school principal and assistant high school principal. She got her start teaching Spanish in East New York, Brooklyn.
Wiggins earned her bachelor’s degree from Messiah College, her master’s from California State University, Northridge, and her doctorate from West Virginia University.
“I am excited about this opportunity,” she told the School Board. “I’m looking forward to being able to grow, being able to bring lessons learned from my 11 years at Gunston, a passion for school leadership, a relentless drive to improve outcomes… and to work with a community that is highly mission driven.”
A man leaves with a piece of the Broyhill mansion during its ongoing demolition (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Demolition of the Broyhill mansion is underway (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Demolition of the Broyhill mansion is underway (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Demolition of the Broyhill mansion is underway (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Demolition of the Broyhill mansion is underway (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Signage warning of demolition at the Broyhill mansion (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Signage warning of demolition at the Broyhill mansion (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
A man leaves with a piece of the Broyhill mansion during its ongoing demolition (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Demolition began this weekend on the 70-year-old Broyhill mansion in the Donaldson Run neighborhood.
The lengths to which some have gone to oppose it, including allegedly impersonating a photographer and stealing tile today (Monday), has left a bitter taste in the mouths of the owners.
The 10-bedroom home at 2561 N. Vermont, near the Washington Golf and Country Club, went on the market last November for $3.6 million after the previous owner died and the beneficiary, the Catholic Prelature of Opus Dei, decided to sell it to a residential buyer, the Falls Church News-Press reported.
As of January, the only interested buyers were husband-and-wife duo Mustaq Hamza and Amanda Maldonado. They purchased the home — described on Redfin as a “jewel [that] unfolds like a diamond necklace” — f0r more than $1 million under asking price, with the intention of knocking it down and building something more suitable for family life.
“The house was built for entertaining, not for raising a family,” Maldonado told ARLnow this morning.
Some however, are upset to see it go. On Saturday, Hamza said people shouted profanities and walked onto the property and demanded materials be set aside.
“That’s not what we expected when we were trying to plan,” he said, adding that now, he and his wife are doing some “soul-searching.”
“Our intention coming here to build the house for our family seems predicated on the fact that this was a nice neighborhood to raise our children in and stay forever,” he said. “It seems not to be the case, and disappointed as we are, we’re open to having been wrong.”
Unwanted visitors — flouting signs saying “private property” and “danger” — continued on Monday afternoon, when ARLnow photographer Jay Westcott was taking photos of the demolition.
When Westcott arrived, he met a man impersonating a photographer, who announced he was “here to take the pictures.” In addition to a camera, he wore a fluorescent vest, a hard hat and a K95 mask, and left in his red Prius with, Hamza says, historically unremarkable tiles and air filters. He says he is considering filing a police report.
The couple insists that the home is not the historical marvel it has been made out to be. They have preserved items inside and given them away if people requested them, the couple said.
“There’s nothing architecturally stunning about the house — it’s a 1950s replica,” Maldonado said. “There’s nothing in the house that can’t be purchased today. We looked to see if there was anything worth preserving and anything that there was, we saved.”
Northern Virginia home builder Marvin T. Broyhill Sr. built the mansion in 1950 after making his fortune building the classic 3-bedroom brick homes that could be bought for $20,000 during the post-World War II housing boom, according to the neighborhood conservation plan for Donaldson Run.
Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that highlights Arlington-based startups, founders, and local tech news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring 1515 Wilson Blvd in Rosslyn.
Corporations are increasingly turning to a new type of worker for simplified, elevated internal communications: artificial intelligence.
One local company championing this new teammate is Clarendon-based Axios HQ (3100 Clarendon Blvd). The startup was spun out as a separate company in late 2022 after its parent company, Axios, was bought by Cox Enterprises for $525 million, according to the Washington Business Journal.
The startup uses AI to apply the signature “Smart Brevity” style developed by Axios to internal corporate communications. Some 500 clients use it to improve formatting, wording and readability.
Now, the Wall Street Journal first reported, it has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round, which it will use to hire more data scientists and continue developing its software to do more advanced writing work.
In an interview with ARLnow on Friday, Axios HQ CEO and Axios co-founder and president Roy Schwartz shared more details about what the startup plans to do with the money. Schwartz was a former star of Rosslyn-based Politico.
“We’ve been working on it for 2.5 years and it’s been, at the moment, a fully fledged product and has a ton of capabilities that companies need and utilize right now,” he said. “We help you write, compose, format, review your analytics, but in two years from now, I really think we will have drafted your update for you and you will be editing that update, most will be written by the computer.”
Axios HQ in Clarendon (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
In short, he says, the investment over the next two years will take the AI from providing “augmented writing” to “auto-drafting.” The startup aims to net another 500 clients, which would set it up for another fundraising round in a few years. That will require hiring 20-30 more data scientists and account managers, adding to the more than 100 employees Axios HQ currently has.
“The idea is to go from being a very, very fast-growing startup to being a very successful [software as a service] company with a large client base and a large recurring revenue stream,” he said.
When asked if Axios the media outlet uses the software, Schwartz said it does not. In addition, he stressed the separation between the two companies, noting that they use entirely different systems so clients are not concerned about data being accessed by reporters.
There has been some angst about what AI will mean for writing and, ultimately, journalism as an industry. (ARLnow, for example, uses AI to stay on top of new press releases, summarize stories, automatically evaluate event calendar submissions, and occasionally, make edits.) Schwartz, however, wants to put aside the implications for media and keep the focus of Axios HQ on internal corporate communications.
“A lot of people using the tool are not professional writers,” he said. “What I like to say is that internal communications has been the Wild, Wild West — anyone can send an email to entire company, staff or department and really, hardly anyone is looking at it. The formats are all over the place. What that has meant is inefficient communication at nearly every organization in the world… Things can be shorter, formated much better and understood at a much higher level. That’s what we’re focused on.”
AI would help subject-matter experts who “have a lot of knowledge in their minds but don’t know how to write or format” as well as employees who have “writing that has to be done” — repetitive, weekly sales or marketing updates providing week-over-week changes.
“In that situation, the better use of the human brain is to provide the insight — the why, the trends, explaining the differences versus just taking the data and giving a relatively straightforward update,” Schwartz said. “I would much rather use my brain power to provide insight than write the update… In that situation, you want the computer to be the writer and the human to be the editor.”
Damage to a car during a crash at N. Park Drive and N. George Mason Drive (via David Hartogs/Twitter)
Police on scene of a crash at N. Park Drive and N. George Mason Drive (via David Hartogs/Twitter)
Cars cross the intersection of N. George Mason Drive and N. Park Drive (staff photo)
A car passes the variable 25 mph sign near the intersection of N. George Mason Drive and N. Park Drive (staff photo)
A runner uses a rapid flashing beacon to cross N. Park Drive (staff photo)
Cars parked near the Lubber Run Community Center on N. Park Drive, where there is a variable speed limit of 20 mph (staff photo)
(Updated at 12:20 p.m.) A troubled intersection near Lubber Run Community Center clocked another vehicle crash last week.
The collision at N. George Mason Drive and N. Park Drive last Tuesday happened as neighbors await the installation of street markings and, eventually, signage, alerting drivers to a lower speed limit of 20 mph in the area.
“A Porsche SUV gunned it through a busy intersection and collided with another SUV,” said Phillip Berenbroick, who saw the crash. “[It] happened right as kids and parents are rushing over to Barrett Elementary [School] for 9 a.m. school start.”
And that wasn’t all. While first responders were still on scene, an Audi SUV headed from the Arlington Forest neighborhood toward Ballston on Park Drive sped through the intersection and was pulled over by police, Berenbroick said. He noted that Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons stopping traffic and allowing pedestrians to cross N. Park Drive were flashing.
“It’s super dangerous for pedestrians when cars traveling eastbound on Park Drive out of Arlington Forest try to cross through the intersection and turn northbound on George Mason,” he said. “ACPD pulled the car over and let the driver off with a warning. It was a little surprising since the accident that police and EMTs were responding to was a result of the same type of dangerous driving.”
The collision reignited one neighbor’s push for a traffic signal there, particularly given the presence of Barrett Elementary one block away. Drivers tend to go fast on the four-lane expanse of N. George Mason Drive, leaving few windows for people on N. Park Drive trying to cross or turn left, including those going to and coming from the popular Lubber Run Community Center.
Arlington has a county-wide policy setting a permanent 20 mph speed limit on neighborhood streets within 600 feet of a school. Arlington County expects markings alerting drivers will cost $150,000 and will be added over the next 2-3 years.
Another crash and N. Park and N. George Mason, this morning, this time witnessed by kids walking to school and a child was in the car that was struck. Still debating a light @ArlingtonVA or waiting for kids to get injured? @ARLnowDOTcompic.twitter.com/LKc4fn6BzX
Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons, which give pedestrians are more “protected” window to cross the road, were installed at the N. Park Drive intersection in late 2020 as part of a transportation study related to the community center project.
Currently, the speed limit on N. George Mason Drive in the area is 30 mph, reduced to 25 mph when a light near the community center is flashing. Later this spring, speeds on the road will drop another 5 mph — to 20 mph — when lights are flashing, in response to a new county-wide policy.
As part of the updated school zone policy, the speed limit on parts of Park Drive near Barrett will be reduced to 20 mph at all times.
Also this spring, the intersection is expected to get new “SLOW SCHOOL XING” markings after it is repaved, according to Dept. of Environmental Services spokeswoman Claudia Pors.
“The Water Sewer Streets crew is putting together the schedule for what streets are getting repaved this season, so the timing of when the N. George Mason Drive and Park Drive [intersection gets] paved will depend on them,” said Pors.
The intersection of N. George Mason Drive and N. Park Drive will be repaved this paving season (via Arlington County)
In all, there have been 23 crashes at George Mason sand Park since 2017, of which nine occurred in the two years the Lubber Run Community Center has been open, according to data from Arlington County Police Department. Last week’s crash does not register because it does not reporting criteria outlined in state code.
Empty seats during the Arlington County Board tax rate hearing on March 30, 2023 (via Arlington County)
Have you ever showed up to a date and realized you had been stood up?
The Arlington County Board nearly did yesterday (Thursday) during a hearing on the proposed property tax rate.
The county proposes a rate of $1.013 per $100 in assessed value. While flat over last year, the average Arlington homeowner would still see taxes go up $454, owing to rising residential property assessments and other fees.
“Madame Clerk, do we have any speakers this evening?” asked Board Chair Christian Dorsey.
“We do. We have one speaker,” said the clerk.
“Terrific,” he rejoined.
That speaker was Hamilton Humes, the commissioner of the Youth Ultimate League of Arlington, an ultimate frisbee league. Addressing the board in gear suggesting he had just been out slinging a disc — or would be soon — he expressed his thanks for the County Board’s work and approval for the fees levied to maintain local playing fields.
“We appreciate all the effort to provide playing fields,” said Humes. “I speak for all the youth athletic organizations to say that… The only issue, which is not in your purview, is the scheduling between Arlington Public Schools and the Dept. of Parks and Recreation, but you all know that.”
There was no mention of the property tax rate.
Hamilton Humes, commissioner of the Youth Ultimate League of Arlington, addresses the County Board on Thursday, March 20, 2023 (via Arlington County)
The Board took a break to wait for more speakers. Eventually, a man called in to ask why the real estate assessment on a church property he recently purchased along Route 50 had increased by more than 17% — compared to increases of 3.5.-5.5% in previous years.
He prefaced his brief comments by apologizing for possibly bringing this up in the wrong avenue, saying he had never done anything like this before. After he finished speaking he was informed that it was, in fact, the wrong venue for challenging property assessments.
“We have a no wrong door policy,” Dorsey assured him. “We’ll be sure to communicate with you via email about the exact route for [appealing the tax assessment]. We’re happy you joined us however you come to us.”
Last night’s meeting is a far cry from Missing Middle hearings last week, which saw north of 200 speakers, as well as yesteryear’s tax rate hearings. A hearing in 2010 drew 26 speakers, the most of any meeting dating back to 2008 with minutes available on the county website.
In these meetings, people often requested higher taxes to cover school spending or affordable housing, while others have advocated for lower tax rates or holding the current tax rate steady to provide relief to people on fixed incomes and small business owners. Those opposed to tax hikes would often also speak in favor of reducing county spending.
The number of speakers has since declined to seven, four and six speakers in 2020, 2021 and 2022, respectively — years that coincided with introspection and concern about the county’s pathways for citizen engagement, called the “Arlington Way.”
Meeting minutes showed about a half-dozen people who used to speak reliably against increases: In first place, with at least eight appearances, is former independent Congressional candidate Jim Hurysz; in second is former independent County Board candidate Audrey Clement, with at least seven.
Katie Cristol and her young son at Thursday’s County Board tax rate hearing (via Arlington County)
While lacking in speakers passionate about taxes and county finances, the meeting had one memorable moment.
Arlington’s youngest-ever Sergeant-At-Arms — County Board member Katie Cristol’s son — banged the gavel to start the hearing at 7 p.m. As he continued banging the gavel, Cristol intervened.
“Okay, you don’t have to keep doing it,” she said.
He happily sat on Cristol’s lap, sipping juice until his father took him home. Board members continued chatting among themselves between the speakers and the adjournment at 8 p.m. sharp.
The Arlington County Board tax rate hearing on March 30, 2023 (via Arlington County)
Men’s restroom sign at Sequoia Plaza (staff photo)
A controversial decision by Arlington Public Schools to change staff bathrooms so they do not lock from the outside has incited backlash from a number of teachers.
APS is embarking on a “lock and key” project to maintain the safety and security of buildings and “improve the key inventory process” at its 42 school buildings, per an email sent from Washington-Liberty High School Principal Antonio Hall to staff, shared with ARLnow.
As part of that work, single-occupancy staff bathrooms would be changed to only lock from the inside, granting access to students and staff who previously could not use these facilities.
Bathrooms within classrooms and clinics would have no locking mechanism at all, and for these facilities, “it is encouraged that signage be created if desired,” per an FAQ document prepared for staff, also shared with ARLnow.
The changes will “ensure all staff including maintenance, bus drivers, etc. have access without access to a key. In addition, this conversion ensures that all students have access to a single use bathroom regardless of the reason,” the document said.
Staff were informed of these changes on Wednesday and told they would be happening over spring break, which starts after school lets out today (Friday), teachers say. APS was not able to return a request for comment before deadline.
Teachers, some of whom shared comments to ARLnow under the condition of anonymity, say they feel disrespected by administrators. They are also frustrated that administrators made the decision without consulting any of the three teacher committees, according to Josh Folb, a leader within the teachers union Arlington Education Association.
The teachers who spoke to ARLnow said a number of staff restrooms have already been converted into single-use restrooms accessible to all students, prompting concerns that this will give students another place to use drugs.
Here is what one high school teacher had to say:
It is dumbfounding that less than two months after the death of a student due to overdose and countless more incidents of drug usage and risk assessments, the school district [is] determined to apply an overwhelming mandate that increases student risk (not safety) without any input, thought of execution, within a minimal timeline, and what would be assumed as an astronomical cost. All of this on top of the fact that it would now wholly remove any location for teachers to access a private restroom consistently during the already limited time that we do have.
My imagination runs wild at this notion considering we find new Instagram accounts every year created by students where pictures of teachers are unknowingly taken and posted on social media. This move would allow students to do so with literally our pants down.
A Washington-Liberty High School teacher with 25 years of experience told the School Board in a letter, shared with ARLnow, that he was “surprised and dismayed” by the decision.
“The currently shared single-use restrooms are already busy, and teachers have limited time for access, mainly between classes,” he said. “This decision represents a major change in my working conditions and environment… As a professional, do I also have reasonable access to a single-use restroom without having to use a group restroom with high school boys?”
During a speech to the School Board last night, Folb said the safe and orderly operation of the schools depends on teachers having a private place to respond to nature’s call and students not having a lockable space to consume drugs.
Tree canopy in Arlington by neighborhood (via Arlington Tree Action Group)
Tree canopy in North Arlington (courtesy of Green Infrastructure Center)
Tree canopy in South Arlington (courtesy of Green Infrastructure Center)
(Updated at 4:35 p.m.)Tree canopy in Arlington County is lower than it was in 2016, according to a new privately-funded study paid for local residents.
The residents, who are involved in Arlington County Civic Federation, Arlington Tree Action Group and EcoAction Arlington, funded the study to how much tree canopy declined since the last county study in 2017.
Based on imaging from 2021, a consultant found that trees cover 33% of land — excluding the Pentagon and Reagan National Airport — down from 41% on the same land six years ago. Coverage ranges by civic association, from 14% in Crystal City to 66% in the county’s northernmost neighborhood of Arlingwood, compared to 26% and 75%, respectively, in 2011.
“It’s really eye-opening,” one of the residents behind the study, Mary Glass, tells ARLnow. “Ideally, the county would have had this, but they didn’t.”
This updates a 2004 Urban Forest Master Plan and a 2010 Natural Resources Management Plan in one document to address climate change, population growth and threats such as diseases and invasive species, says Dept. of Parks and Recreation spokeswoman Jerry Solomon. It has an eye toward racial equity and environmental justice, to make sure all residents benefit physically and mentally from Arlington’s natural resources.
Combining the plans “allows us to consider Arlington’s ecosystem holistically and craft a more comprehensive set of recommendations for conservation and resource management in the future,” Solomon said.
During this process, and during the Missing Middle housing discussions that concluded with zoning updates earlier this month, preserving trees from redevelopment was mentioned as a top priority for many residents. (The zoning changes approved by the County Board specifies requirements for shade trees on properties redeveloped with Missing Middle housing.)
To help, volunteers from Marymount University and EcoAction Arlington have been planting trees in the hotter, less leafy parts of Arlington.
Marymount University volunteers plant trees in Arlington (courtesy Gaston Araoz)
Now, Glass says, she hopes people will use the new data when the next Forestry Natural Resource Plan draft is published and ready for community input.
“This information is going to be right there so when the next draft comes out, in the next month or so, we’ll be able to make specific comments and recommendations based on the information we have,” Glass said.
The draft could be ready for community feedback this spring or early summer, Solomon said. The parks department spokesperson added that staff have seen the new study and “are excited about the community’s enthusiasm for our urban forests.”
However, she added, “we have not seen the underlying data and don’t have a full understanding of the methodology. As a result, we cannot speak to any discrepancies without adequately assessing it for accuracy, margin of error, or underlying assumptions.”
The department said it felt comfortable starting the plan update based on the overall downward trends in the previous tree canopy studies. Solomon said the current draft acknowledges and has recommendations for reversing the decline in tree canopy.
Despite marginal fluctuations, from a high of 43% in 2008 to a low of 40% in 2011 and a slight uptick to 41% in 2017, the county says tree coverage in parks is offsetting declining tree coverage on residential properties.
“Knowing this, we decided to prioritize the update of the FNRP in order to identify strategies to reverse that trend and address other environmental challenges sooner rather than later,” she said. (more…)
Interpretive exhibit at Fort Ethan Allen Park (via Arlington County)
Before and after photos of a street improvement Neighborhood Conservation project on 7th Street South (via Arlington County)
Before and after photos of a street improvement Neighborhood Conservation project on 23rd Street S. (via Arlington County)
(Updated at 1:25 p.m.) An Arlington County program for neighborhood improvements may be trending towards smaller-scale projects.
After getting a new name and developing new equity criteria, the Arlington Neighborhood Program is taking more steps to reimagine how it supports community projects identified by residents.
A new survey is being conducted — it’s open through next Wednesday, April 5 — asking residents what kinds of projects they would like to see the Arlington Neighborhoods Program, formerly the Arlington Neighborhood Conservation Program, approve.
“Work with churches to reforest their large grounds, which are now typically in lawn grass,” one person said.
“Bird and bat boxes!” suggested another. “Bats eat mosquitoes and finding some places to put bat boxes would benefit the overall population.”
Another popular suggestion included drop-off points for canned food and other basics in partnership with restaurants, supermarkets, food banks, shelters and faith-based groups.
Possibly dovetailing off the humorous bulletin board in Penrose Park, one user suggested more neighborhood bulletin boards for posting announcements, offers to share surplus garden produce and other free stuff. Others suggested more shade and water features in parks for hot days, community murals and sidewalk art.
Some suggested larger-scale safety improvement projects, such as traffic calming measures, pedestrian bridges over Route 50 and better walking conditions, including more trees and smoother sidewalks, between Columbia Pike and Pentagon City.
The pivot is one fruit of soul-searching by a work group, which began in 2019, to figure out how the program could better serve residents, resulting in a report published in 2021.
At the time, ANP was supporting fewer, more expensive projects, which were causing participation rates to decline. The Fort Ethan Allen interpretive project, pictured above, cost nearly $500,000, and the four most recently approved projects, including street lights and new sidewalks, cost between $268,700-$985,000.
“The Program spent four times more in the last ten years than it did in the 1990s, yet it produced fewer than half the number of projects due to substantially higher median project costs,” the report said, noting that funding for the program has not kept up with the increased cost of delivering infrastructure.
It also faced accusations of inefficiency and bias toward wealthier, predominantly white neighborhoods.
“This disparity exists despite very few projects proposed from several neighborhoods in the northernmost reaches of the County with predominantly White households and where a few of these neighborhoods do not participate,” the report says. (more…)
An existing traffic circle at 7th Street N. and N. Highland Street in 2014 (via Google Maps)
N. Livingston Street in 2019 (via Google Maps)
S. Ives Street in 2014 (via Google Maps)
10th Street N. and Washington Blvd in 2022 (via Google Maps)
N. Sycamore Street and 19th Street N. in 2022 (via Google Maps)
N. Quaker Lane in 2022 (via Google Maps)
N. Stafford Street and 13th Street N. in 2021 (via Google Maps)
N. George Mason Drive in 2021 (via Google Maps)
N. George Mason Drive in 2021 (via Google Maps)
N. Kensington Street (via Google Maps)
S. Joyce Street in 2021 (via Google Maps)
Little Falls Road and 33rd Road N. in 2022 (via Google Maps)
(Updated at 10:55 a.m.) The cherry blossoms have passed their peak and the days are getting warmer and longer. That means all signs point to the start of street paving season.
Every year, in March, the Dept. of Environmental Services embarks on its seasonal effort to repave some of its 1,061 lane miles of roadway. After stepping up repaving after years of anemic paving rates, the county has sharpened its focus on streets in poor condition and those that have a lot of traffic.
This year, nearly 58 lane miles are slated for repaving, says Dept. of Environmental Services spokesman Peter Golkin. That is down from 74 lane miles last year and below the county’s typical target of 72 miles per year.
“That’s a bit lower than previous years but it takes into account the milder winter allowing for more maintenance,” he said.
More maintenance throughout the winter resulted in fewer road segments with cracking and potholes — two of the metrics the county uses for ranking streets from “poor” to “excellent.”
“Also factored in: avoiding conflicts with current and upcoming projects by other County departments and Washington Gas,” he said.
A new map, released Tuesday, shows which streets the county will pave and repair.
“Paving season kicked off this week along S. Grant Street between 23rd and 24th Street S. with full depth paving,” Golkin said. “The more familiar mill and overlay work is starting somewhat later than usual, mid-April, to allow for public engagement regarding pavement markings and related safety features. Also, a new concrete maintenance contractor is getting a jump on some work pre-paving.”
As part of the repaving project, some existing traffic-calming features will be repaved, including a traffic circle at N. Highland Street and 7th Street N. in Lyon Park and speed “cushions” on N. Livingston Street in the Boulevard Manor neighborhood, near the county line.
Over the last nine years, the county has worked to bring up the “pavement condition index” on its roads from an overall score of 67 (out of 100), which is considered “fair,” to 82.4, which is considered “good,” in 2021, according to the proposed Fiscal Year 2024 budget.
“With the improvement in average PCI to 82.4, the County will be placing more emphasis on re-builds for streets with low PCI and/or with high traffic impacts,” per the budget. “Arterials are repaved more often due to the traffic volumes and type of vehicles using them, while neighborhood streets get slurry seal treatment every seven to ten years to extend their life rather than re-paving them as often.”
Arlington County plans to spend $10.3 million on paving in the FY 2024 budget, compared to $11.5 million in FY 2023, according to budget documents.
The county, meanwhile, is also attending to potholes that may have formed during the winter months. So far in 2023, Arlington had some 260 potholes, compared to 663 for the first three months of 2022, Golkin says.
“Less freezing and less need for road salt during winter obviously helps keep road surfaces in better shape,” he said.
For the eighth year in a row, the D.C. area had a relatively mild winter. The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang declared the end of the season last week, noting winter hardly showed up.
Duplexes along Washington Blvd in Westover (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
An anti-Missing Middle sign in front of a house in Westover (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
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Last week, the Arlington County Board voted unanimously to allow homeowners, builders and developers to convert or build new 2-6 unit homes throughout the county.
Those changes will not go into effect until July 1 and it will be even longer before such buildings actually spring up.
“Nothing will be built a year from now. It may be permitted, but it won’t be built,” Arlington County Board Chair Christian Dorsey predicted to ARLnow after the vote last Wednesday. “We’re really going to have to wait, I think, 18 months before we actually have anything we can sink our teeth into.”
Dorsey seemed confident that county staff have sufficient direction to prepare for the first “Missing Middle” housing applications.
“[Staff] are already going to work on ‘What are we going to do with permitting? What are we doing to set up a structure?’ but then, also, ‘What are the technical, advisory resources that we’re going to make available to allow people to navigate through it?'” he said.
For staff and for builders, the county is entering uncharted waters.
“It’s really new,” Dorsey said. “The existing duplexes, triplexes and townhouses are fairly matured in this county, but the other forms, we haven’t really seen them in recent history,” he said.
While it will be at least a year and a half before there is anything to see, behind the scenes, activity is already humming.
County staff are working on educational materials and getting Permit Arlington, the county’s online permitting system, ready. A few local developers have put out feelers regarding where to build townhomes. County Board members are already directing planning staff to study other aspects of the zoning code to see how standards can be strengthened to prevent tree canopy loss.
Staff gets to work
The next three months will be busy for county staff.
Staff will put out educational materials for property owners and building industry professionals explaining possibilities and requirements.
County planners will study up for meetings with people who want to build EHO units — Arlington’s term of art for what it just allowed is “Expanded Housing Options” — which are being encouraging so people can go over code requirements and their applications with staff before submitting them. Lastly, they will add a zoning permit application for EHO development to Permit Arlington.
ARLnow recently reported on issues with the online permitting system. Builders and architects blame these issues, along with the need for pre-construction meetings, for construction delays and more expensive projects. They tell us that the staffing level dedicated to reviewing applications will determine how successful Arlington is in encouraging EHO construction.
“Having a consistent plan review process would be the most helpful way that the county could support this new type of initiative,” David Tracy, the president of local home-building company Classic Cottages, tells ARLnow. “The permitting piece in Arlington is rigorous already [for single-family detached homes]. This is supposed to go through more or less the same process and that is a months-long process.”
What will be built and where?
While 2-6 unit buildings are broadly allowed in all districts previously zoned only for single-family detached dwellings, some lots will be too small for certain kinds of projects and others are ineligible because the county says they could be assembled with other properties for bigger development projects.
A cap of 58 approved projects per year for five years, distributed geographically, will to some degree dictate where these buildings go.
Some in the home-design and building industry predict that despite the nearly blanket allowance, EHO homes will likely be concentrated around walkable amenities.
“My own personal view is that there need to be walkable amenities around in order for people to want to live in this type of house,” Tracy said. “If there’s a condo building in the western part of the county where the zoning is R-10 and R-20, the head-scratcher is why would you buy a condo or townhome, which I associate… with a more urban existence.”
Tracy said the cap has benefit and trade-offs. It might help regulate the review process but it could create a “false scarcity” that dissuades people from undertaking EHO projects.
“The worst thing you can do for a builder is create uncertainty,” he said, adding that they cannot afford to wait a year if the cap is hit and their project misses the boat. “You’re going to distort the market.”
County Board member Katie Cristol tried to make that point during the rezoning approval, arguing that uncertainty will keep Missing Middle units from being built, but her motion to double the cap was voted down.
County Board Vice-Chair Libby Garvey told supporters in an email this week that she pushed for these two measures.
“I have consistently worked to make these changes more of a pilot than sweeping changes,” said Garvey, who for a while led the charge against the never-built Columbia Pike streetcar. “While the final adoption is not quite as limited or as dispersed as I would like, I think it will allow us to see how this works out over time and over different portions of the County.”
Architect Ethan Marsh expects Missing Middle-type homes will pop up near transit, such as in Lyon Village and Lyon Park, which flank the Clarendon and Courthouse neighborhoods along the Orange and Silver lines.
But the building might extend to neighborhoods a bit further afield from transit, like Marsh’s former neighborhood of Penrose.
“In those areas, you can walk to Columbia Pike and catch a bus, which I did often, or get to Clarendon on a scooter,” he said. “Those areas lend themselves better to Missing Middle because you can increase density without increasing parking, because you have walkability… This area sort of markets itself.”
It seemingly already has. In a conversation in a local neighborhood email listserv, shared with ARLnow, someone who owns a property in Lyon Village explained how he would make more money replacing his $1.2 million house with a 3-unit townhouse, with each unit listed around $1.5 million, over one large, $2.7 million single-family home. Citing concerns of overcrowding in the neighborhood school his kids attend, the individual said he would not build a 6-plex.
Meanwhile, a speculative development brochure shared with ARLnow seeks investors for a similar development planned for a single-family colonial home, built in 1947, in Lyon Park.
The home, described as “in disrepair” and on an “under-utilized” site, was sold for around $950,000 this February to a registered LLC named for the home’s address, according to county property records. The investment pitch proposes envisions building three townhouses, which would sell for just over $1.22 million each, which would still be less expensive than many older single-family homes in the area.
A page from a brochure seeking investors for a planned townhouse development in Lyon Park (courtesy anonymous)
Over the last couple of years, people have debated how attainable these units would be, particularly to people making less than $100,000 per year. ARLnow asked a few local nonprofit affordable housing providers if they would be building Missing Middle-type homes to provide homeownership opportunities to lower-income residents.
Two said they would not be, but they support the changes because of how they will expand housing. The local Habitat for Humanity chapter, however, indicated interest.
“This change opens up large portions of the County where we were effectively priced out before, and we will be working hard to make the new policy a successful reality,” Director of Donor Engagement & Communications Liz Salter told ARLnow.
She said Habitat has “considerable experience” building stacked flats, two-over-twos and smaller multifamily structures in D.C. for homeownership units.
“And we have successfully built 3+ bedroom units within the smaller envelopes that would be characteristic of an [EHO] multiplex,” she said.
Planning for growth
Missing Middle critics often predicted overcrowding at schools, some of which already have not-so-temporary trailers offsetting enrollment increases.
For the part of Arlington Public Schools, it says the rezoning adoption will have impacts small enough not to significantly affect enrollment planning in the near term. APS believes Missing Middle will add roughly nine to 13 students per year, spread across elementary, middle and high schools.
“The Missing Middle housing growth should be similar to what to the growth in accessory dwellings, which were approved in 2017,” APS spokesman Frank Bellavia says, noting that 99 parcels across Arlington have ADUs.
He did say that the annual cap on projects would be beneficial.
“The caps established for the first five years of the MM makes it more manageable for APS to absorb any increase in new students,” he said. “APS closely collaborates with Arlington County staff on projections and any changes to the pace of development will be on our radar.”
Addressing overcrowding, Bellavia said APS has a few planning processes through which it can address growth by expanding existing schools, repurposing current space or collaborating with the county on other types of expansions.
“The most recent APS Capital Improvement Plan and bond is investing in a new facility that will expand the number of students served by the Arlington Career Center,” he said. “The next CIP will also include a schedule and funds to begin renovating and modernizing existing APS facilities. We believe that the combined initiatives will help absorb any increases in enrollment due to Missing Middle.”
Meanwhile, those who like crunching numbers can eventually expect a lot of data tracking growth related to Missing Middle.
Permit applications and approvals will be published in real-time and likely added to interactive map promoted through newsletters. Annual reports will include data on:
EHO types, unit numbers and locations
New construction vs. renovations
Owner and renter-occupation rates
Lot size and coverage and impervious surface coverage
Tree planting and retention
Parking spaces provided per unit
Number and location of requested and approved parking reductions
Demographics of residents living in EHO development, if possible
APS student generation
In the cases where new EHO construction replaces a dwelling, for interest, the county is also interested in tracking whether the owner or renters live inside.
The data would provide a clearer picture of whether predictions from critics are coming to pass, including one that the changes will yield more 1-2 bedroom rentals than family-sized, 3-4 bedroom units for sale.
The future of McMansions
The foil to EHO development has long been the so-called McMansion, a pejorative for new single-family homes derided by critics as oversized, cookie cutter and cheaply built.
Some proponents have reasoned that if the zoning code can allow for these buildings housing one family, it should allow structures with the same footprint to house multiple families. Now, the question is whether large single-family homes might see additional county scrutiny.
The Arlington County Board has encouraged staff to prioritize studying lot coverage and building placement standards to find ways to preserve trees from being cut down. The new zoning code requires between four and eight trees per unit on properties developed with EHOs.
Members and Planning Commissioners are also interested in adding to the zoning code a standard for floor area ratio, or the ratio of a building’s base to the size of the lot it is built on.
“We’re hearing a lot about this, I’d love to move it forward faster,” Garvey said during a budget work session with the Department of Community Planning, Housing and Development.
Planning Director Anthony Fusarelli responded that staff may be overextended and that work could not begin until other studies wrapped up in 2024.
Cristol recommended implementing “quick-strike” rule changes for lot coverage that could come out of an update to Arlington’s Forestry and Natural Resources Plan, a final draft of which is expected to be ready this spring or summer.
This will, she said, “really serve this strongly held desire to protect trees in development of low-density properties.”
She warned that without determining community priorities for lot coverage, the county could end up in another contentious policy debate.
“I’m very eager to take up this conversation and I think there are a lot of interesting ideas,” she said. “I hope we can find a little capacity to pursue that goal overall.”
“So many of the challenges we face as we emerge from this pandemic center around student wellbeing. Especially given the scale of this moment, we need this generation of youth at the table in school policymaking,” says Cocchiaro in a recent statement published on his website. “Arlington should be leading the way on this, especially as we emerge as one of the ‘trendiest Gen Z hubs‘ in the country.”
The issue has come up in previous School Board candidate forums and second-time candidate Miranda Turner told ARLnow she generally is in favor of the addition. She and Cocchiaro are vying for the endorsement of the Arlington County Democratic Committee this May to determine who will run as the defacto Democratic candidate in the November general election. (There are no partisan primaries for School Board elections, but parties can endorse candidates.)
“I’d start with seeking feedback from districts that have already implemented it both from the student and board perspective, and with feedback from students currently serving on our SAB as to whether that provides an effective and meaningful way to advance that student perspective,” Turner told ARLnow, shortly after publication.
In Virginia, having a student representative is left to local practice, similar to 30 other states, according to a 2020 survey by the National School Boards Association. A study it published in 2021 found 14% of the 495 largest school districts in the U.S. have at least one student member.
This past legislative session, Del. Alfonso Lopez introducing a bill that would have made a student representative to school boards a requirement in the Commonwealth, an idea he said came from student political advocacy groups Coalition for Virginia’s Future and the Virginia chapter of Voters of Tomorrow.
This was his first pass at such legislation and it failed in committee, despite, he says, the bill providing deferrance to localities for deciding if students would vote and how they are selected.
“Localities and their advocacy organizations expressed concerns about mandating the participation of a student representative, even with all of the flexibility we included in the legislation,” Lopez tells ARLnow. “Localities preferred to have the option to manage student input however they wished.”
The School Board has never had a non-voting student representative but, for 40 years, has solicited feedback from students through the Student Advisory Board (SAB), says Frank Bellavia, spokesman for Arlington Public Schools.
This is made of eight students from every high school, including H-B Woodlawn sophomore Naya Chopra. She says the SAB also meets with APS staff and other advisory councils to provide feedback on their priorities, such as screen time.
Students decide their top issues and form subcommittees annually that dig into these topics, such as the budget, mental health and sexual assault and harassment, and make recommendations to the School Board at the end of each school year. They do branch out to other topics, recently meeting about drug use, Chopra says.
“We have a direct line of communication and can give feedback on and discuss issues that affect us, and while I can’t speak for the School Board, the hope is that our advice is taken into account as at the end of the day, we are the ones who are directly impacted by the Board’s decisions,” she said.
Chopra says there would be interest in a non-voting position on the board, because “there are still some topics that we have no say in, and are not offered to give our input.”
The current School Board and a former member, however, say the SAB is sufficient.
