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For Immediate Release: March 9, 2023
ARLINGTON PLANNING COMMISSION FAILS TO PLAN BY RECOMMENDING MOST EXTREME MISSING MIDDLE OPTIONS; 8-0 VOTE GUARANTEES COMMUNITY WILL CONTINUE TO BE TORN APART
Last night, the Arlington County Planning Commission rushed through an 8-0 vote with 2 abstentions to recommend to the County Board the most far-reaching Missing Middle Housing (MMH) Plan options. During their discussion, commissioners made it clear that overall, only the testimony of MMH proponents was influencing their decisions. Before voting, they cited that testimony calling for the densest and most disruptive upzoning while ignoring pleas from residents concerned about the impacts greater density will have on neighborhoods.
The County Board will hold its last public hearing on MMH on March 18, and the final vote on the MMH Plan is expected at the Board’s March 21 meeting.
Residents from across Arlington expressed concern that the County has failed to properly study the impacts of its sweeping amendments to the Zoning Ordinance and General Land Use Plan that eliminate single-family zoning.
The County has conducted no analyses or studies on the impacts MMH will have on dislocation/displacement of existing low-, middle- and fixed-income residents, water distribution and sanitary sewer systems, stormwater management system and flood risk, loss of existing tree canopy, traffic and parking, existing electrical grid, neighborhood streets and minor arterials, first-due coverage area on fire/EMS response times or public schools.
Assessing the impacts is vital because builders and developers will contribute no additional infrastructure or community benefits beyond what is required by permit for the site itself.
Even Planning Commissioner Leonardo Sarli said last night, “I really ask the County Board to avoid a similar process in the future and not put the cart in front of the horse ….”
Residents have continued to ask the County to delay approving density and upzoning until meaningful planning is done. Jumping into the void have been local experts – economists and real estate, urban planning, mortgage banking and other professionals — who have concluded that more work needs to be done to determine the true community impacts. They have said the proposed plan would fail to achieve its own changing goals, no less meet the real affordable housing needs of Arlington.
“There is no broad-based consensus in our community for this policy, and in fact, concerns and opposition continues to grow,” said AfUT member David Gerk. “The Planning Commission had an opportunity to bring our community together by forging a middle path on MMH and conducting actual planning and impact analyses. Instead, it imposed on us a top-down directive that confirms to many that our political process is broken. Unless the County Board moderates this MMH Plan, we will be left with a dramatically divided community and a damaged political process.”
After abstaining from the final vote to approve the overall plan, Sarli stated, “I have been critical along the way and continue to be critical not so much from the perspective that I disagree with what you guys are doing so much as I think we can do better. And this is not just staff, this is us as a community and this is the Board. I think there are some unforced errors along the way that we could have avoided and I really ask the County Board to avoid a similar process in the future…We had several years of hypothetical planning and arrived to a five-week process once we actually got to the substance of the issue.”
Within that five-week period, residents were expected to read and digest hundreds of pages of complicated, never-before seen planning documents and provide meaningful input on the upzoning decision.
At the Planning Commission public hearing, civic association presidents and others stated that the County’s own studies show that the proposed housing will not promote home ownership nor be affordable to low- and moderate-income households. They shared concerns that the costs of greater density and more demands on infrastructure, services and schools will be borne by residents in the form of higher taxes.
Media Contact:afut.upzoningtransparency@gmail.com
Arlingtonians for Upzoning Transparency (AFUT.ORG) believes that developing housing that is more affordable, encouraging diversity and righting imbalances that have led to housing inequalities in Arlington is something we all want: But, upzoning won’t achieve these goals.
Instead, it will cause irreparable harm to many of our neighborhoods.
Look for us on Twitter: @_AFUT
