Opinion

Progressive Voice is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations or ARLnow.com.

By Elaine Furlow

When Dale and Janet Oak shifted into semi-retirement, they got ready to sell their big Arlington home of 25 years and find a space that better suited their needs.

“We looked at condos in Rosslyn, but they did not seem like ‘us,'” Janet Oak recalled.

Nor was the frenetic pace in Clarendon, or the dense cityscape in much of Ballston.

“We didn’t want to put all our equity into the next place, and it was hard to find that middle ground.” The Oaks wound up in a relatively new condo building in an area “that is walkable to shops, quiet and fits our lifestyle,” Janet Oak said.

It’s in Falls Church.

As comfortable middle-class baby boomer homeowners in Arlington get ready for their next stage, many are planning on 20+ years of active living ahead. After hard-charging careers, they have time, talents and money to keep investing in Arlington.

Some may want to downsize their homes, but often, it’s a matter of “right-sizing” — leaving behind aging brick colonials with stairs or 4-bedroom houses with too much upkeep.

Renovating one’s current home to age-in-place is not always feasible, yet options aren’t great. Small, quality houses with one-floor living are scarce. And most townhouses have many stairs, a big minus as boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) think of aging knees and hips down the road.

“I know what’s out there, and it is bleak,” said Karen Close, a long-time real estate agent with Century 21. “Arlington doesn’t have a plan to deal with boomers.”

Arlington should be more alert to this need, so it doesn’t lose these successful contributors to our county. Non-boomers have a stake, too, since new solutions might free up our tight single-family housing stock. Can innovative builders/developers and far-sighted leaders envision a different, more livable type of home?

Older adults planning ahead are looking for one-floor living, a flat outside entry, quality construction, wide doorways, ample storage and features with the future in mind (like a large, walk-in shower with a bench).

Oh, and a reasonable price and attractive exterior.

“Wouldn’t you love something with the look of a townhouse, but built with single levels or with elevators, so you don’t have to do stairs,” Janet Oak said.

Yes, it’s tough to find the land. Yet we could repurpose (and likely rezone) certain commercial space. Imagine that attractive, well-built bank building, now empty, as the centerpiece of a modest-sized, innovative condo development.

Builders and developers could incorporate the desired features without drifting into “senior-only” territory since well-designed small-footprint homes will work for many ages. And most boomers also would like to keep interacting with a mix of neighbors, including school kids.

(more…)

Progressive Voice is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations or ARLnow.com.

By Susan Robinson

After a long and difficult budget process, County and School Board members, staff and citizens heave a sigh of relief and move on. Decision makers balanced demands for services against limited resources. But still, Arlington faces some persistent headwinds:

• High commercial vacancy rates
• Growth in the number of current and projected schoolchildren
• Lack of land for school and county buildings, fields and open space

The county manager warns that population and inflationary pressures will require service modifications, efficiencies and likely increases in taxes and fees next year.

No doubt staff is hard at work looking for better ways of implementing services. Yet with the perspective of a finance professional who knows Arlington civic life well, I offer four suggestions to do things differently and change smartly.

Community Engagement

Public participation in decision-making defines Arlington — but at a cost in dollars, time and focus. The two Boards and their staffs struggle to consider input while managing multiple time-consuming processes. A rumor that developers and contractors add significantly to their cost estimates on Arlington projects to cover the time of rounds of citizen engagement is believable.

The County recently developed a public engagement plan, a good first step. Here are a few additional suggestions.

• Being up front and clear about who is making each decision and when.
• Examine the role and effectiveness of the 50-plus county commissions. Streamline as needed.
• Use new procurement methods authorized by the state to retain the best of citizen engagement without increasing the bureaucracy and cost.
• Fellow citizens: engage without assuming you’ll get your own way but rather that you’ll improve the outcome for all.

Land Acquisition and Reuse

Two Arlington challenges — lack of land and the high commercial vacancy rate — may combine to create an opportunity. The county should be proactively acquiring land. Good examples are the County’s acquisition of Shirlington property and the schools’ purchase of a foreclosed house.

The County is developing a property acquisition policy; APS should do likewise. While most vacant commercial buildings are not appropriate for schools, they could be repurposed for many non-instructional uses.

We must also optimize our current facilities. For instance, before moving more vehicles and operations to new locations, the Trade Center should be redesigned to increase its current capacity.

Achievable Long-Term Plans

The County and APS have a long history of planning for the future. Each plan sets up high expectations. But while schools have a new Strategic Plan and the County has its Comprehensive Plan, all are essentially aspirational. The path to achieve them isn’t clear. Annual prioritized actions are in short supply. And when one goal collides with another, there seems little strategic sense of what takes top place.

Sharper strategic thinking and good implementation results in success. Remember President John Kennedy’s famous call to action in 1961: “This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon.” Many people forget the second part of that, “…and returning him safely to the Earth.”

Arlington needs to think through the entire path of what we are trying to achieve–and then focus more clearly on developing realistic timelines for implementation.

(more…)

Progressive Voice is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations or ARLnow.com.

By Rip Sullivan

Imagine this: a family of three living in Arlington County. The father and mother work hard at hourly wage jobs, cleaning hotel rooms and working at a fast food restaurant to try to make ends meet.

Together they make $18,000 a year — someone needs to be home at all times to watch over their very young daughter. Neither parent receives health insurance from their employer, and unfortunately they make “too much” to qualify for Virginia’s Medicaid program. These parents are stuck in what is known as the “coverage gap.”

Here in Arlington, approximately 7,000 of our citizens — our neighbors — are stuck in the coverage gap, according to the Commonwealth Institute. Virginia is ranked 13^th worst in the country on percentage of population that is uninsured, and 8^th worst in the number of people uninsured.

Having some of the country’s most restrictive Medicaid requirements doesn’t help. For instance, childless adults are not eligible. Neither are elderly or disabled people with incomes above 80 percent of the federal poverty level, or $15,273 for a family of three.

Being insured provides critical benefits not only to the individual with health care coverage, but to society at large. Cash-strapped hospitals save money by reducing the amount of uncompensated care, and individuals get preventive care before requiring expensive trips to the ER.

How can we shrink the number of uninsured in Virginia and help those in the coverage gap? Expand Medicaid now.

Democratic candidates for the House of Delegates in 2017 made Medicaid expansion a major part of our platform in districts across the Commonwealth. In November’s wave election — in which Democrats flipped 15 seats in the House and retained the Governor’s seat — voters made it clear that health care accessibility was a priority.

In a CNBC exit poll, nearly 70 percent of Virginia voters said that health care “was the most important or a very important issue in deciding whom to vote for as governor,” and a Washington Post poll found that health care was the number one priority for 39 percent of voters, the highest of all categories considered. A December 2017 NPR poll found that 70 percent of Virginians support Medicaid expansion.

Virginians are ready for more of their neighbors to get Medicaid coverage. So what’s the hold up?

Last week, the House of Delegates passed — for the second time — a budget that included Medicaid expansion. The breakthrough came from a compromise between House Republicans and Democrats and the governor.

This agreement would include work requirements (with several exceptions that would exempt a large percentage of the affected population), small contributions from enrollees, and permission for the Northam administration to seek a federal waiver to find ways to stabilize and make health insurance exchanges more affordable.

(more…)