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Plan Langston Blvd — a sweeping document envisioning a tree-lined, walkable Route 29 with apartments over retail — is gearing up for final discussions and eventual approval.

The newest draft landed last Thursday: two business days before a Planning Commission meeting on whether to advertise hearings on the plan. It contained a slew of changes county staff explain are policy clarifications, responding to recent feedback from citizen commissions, the Arlington County Board and residents.

In a 3-hour meeting Monday, some Planning Commissioners objected to the timing and moved to delay hearings one month, though this failed. They instead unanimously recommended hearings by the commission and the Arlington County Board in November. The deliberations echoed this stage of the Missing Middle hearings, last Thanksgiving, with commissioners noting this step simply sets what can be considered next month.

“I do think that it is an unfortunate timeline,” Planning Commission Vice-Chair Sara Steinberger said. “[This] document would be a struggle for most people to get through in that period of time. And I think that we should aim to do better because I think that’s important for the community to trust the process.”

Steinberger, who made the failed motion to delay hearings on Plan Langston Blvd, or PLB, had backing from Commissioner Nia Bagley.

“[Steinberger] was a little bit more polite than I probably would be,” Bagley said. “I hope we never do this again. I hope we give this more time in the future.”

Commission Chair Devanshi Patel said she understands the concerns of her colleagues but, sometimes, making real-time changes cannot be reconciled with giving ample time for people to review them.

“I think that staff did the best job that they could do by getting a comprehensive plan together with up-to-date information, reconciling the comments that they’ve been hearing from every single meeting of this body and other bodies, and being able to provide it in advance of this meeting as possible,” she said.

Agreeing with Patel, Commissioner Daniel Weir did say he and others have been “harping” on staff to return to the pre-pandemic days when meeting materials were published seven to 10 days before meetings.

But, he continued, “just because this form of the document wasn’t published before a certain day out, I don’t think it follows from that that there hasn’t been a full and robust public process… at least for the purposes of moving forward on the [request to advertise hearings].”

Recalling yet another controversial plan, the Pentagon City Sector Plan, Commissioner Jim Lantelme said changes were made “literally up to the final Board meeting.”

“If we’re not thrilled with something, it’s okay, because the idea is to get everything out there,” he said. “We can cut it back later. We can’t add to it, but we can cut it back later.”

County planner Natasha Alfonso-Ahmed assured commissioners that Monday’s decision still leaves time for them and other residents to review the changes.

That the draft came out on Thursday “doesn’t mean that there isn’t any time to process and to continue to review this draft that’s out before you,” she said. “We have another four weeks or five weeks before this goes to the again to you all for review.”

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