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The March 18 Arlington County Board Meeting is your last chance to speak up in opposition to stop these terrible and reckless zoning amendments eliminating single family zoning from being passed.
Sign up here to speak in-person or virtually. (The sign up for the March 18 will be active about a week before the meeting.)
Sample Statement and Additional Talking Points – March 18 County Board Hearing
Good evening everyone,
My name is [INSERT], and I am a concerned citizen speaking out against the Arlington County Board’s proposed Missing Middle plan. While I appreciate the Board’s goal of creating more affordable housing in our community, I believe that this plan has serious flaws.
First and foremost, the Missing Middle plan is not truly affordable. In fact, it will likely only serve to drive up housing costs in our already-expensive area. This is because the plan provides for the construction of new, higher-density housing units, which will be priced at market rates. Accordingly, this plan will not sufficiently incentivize developers to include affordable units and as such these measures will not make a difference by providing for low- and middle-income families.
Furthermore, the Missing Middle plan does not take into account the impact the increased density will have on our community. Arlington is already a densely-populated area, and adding more housing units without also improving our infrastructure and public services will only exacerbate existing problems. We need to prioritize investments in transportation, schools, and other critical services before we can responsibly consider adding more people to our community.
Finally, I am deeply concerned about the environmental impact of the Missing Middle plan. Higher-density housing units will require more resources to build and maintain, and will contribute to increased traffic and air pollution. As a community, we need to be doing everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint and protect our environment for future generations.
For these reasons, I urge the Arlington County Board to act responsibly and reconsider its support for the Missing Middle plan. We need a comprehensive, sustainable approach to affordable housing that takes into account the needs and concerns of all members of our community. Thank you for your attention.
Additional Talking Points By Topic For Personalization/Inclusion:
Lack of Affordability
- Single family zoning in Arlington is not preventing teachers or firefighters or people of color from owning homes in Arlington – it’s the cost.
- Based on the County own statistics, the cheapest EHO unit in a “six-unit building” will require an annual income of at least $174,000. County stats also indicate at the same time median household income for African Americans in Arlington was $58,878, for Hispanics it was $77,743, and for Asian Americans it was $93,660.
- Numbers not conjecture make clear, new types of people will not be moving in – just more of the same high-income folks. So why are we proceeding here? Stop and develop a plan that makes sense.
More Affordability Talking Points
- According to an August 2019 survey (Redfin) of U.S. residents thinking of buying or selling a home, nearly 90% would prefer a single-family home.
- This EHO plan will make that dream impossible in Arlington for all but the very wealthiest among us. Developers have already begun incorporating new companies to gobble up the most affordable single-family homes and will be leaving nothing but multi-million-dollar single family homes as they seek windfalls from developing even more units affordable only to high income households.
- MMH/EHO will ensure the ladder is pulled up for families on single family home buying in Arlington. Let’s not go down this destructive path.
Schools
- Arlington schools are already overcrowded and resource challenged. This plan assures more trailer classrooms to the already existing 123 trailer classrooms today
- It also ensures increases the percentage of Arlington schools – elementary, middle and high schools – at or above capacity – currently that number is already 45%.
- And with out those 123 relocatable trailers – which have become a permanent fixture in Arlington schools – virtually every school in the system would be overenrolled.
- More density, more trailers, more overcapacity schools, more boundary fights, less resources.
- Is this the future we want for kids in Arlington’s schools?
Trees and Environment
- The County now admits, despite previously suggesting virtually no decline, from 2016 until 2021 we have seen a drastic decline in tree canopy – from 41% to 33% and this MMH plan promises to pour lighter fluid on this trend.
- While the County refused to study the impact on the environment and tree canopy because it knows the answers would not be good, experts have stepped in to the work.
- This plan promises to:
- Cut tree canopy standard in half for 97% of rezoned areas
- Cut at least 34,000 trees – 4.5% of Arlington’s total –eliminating greater than 9 Pentagon parking lots of trees
- Increases storm runoff by at least 480,000 cubic feet per year
- Increases carbon emissions by 99 tons per year
- How can the County say the environment is an important issue to them when they do not care – as evidenced by the lack of study – what impacts plans like this have on our already fragile environment?
Infrastructure
- This plan will have drastic negative consequence on the already outdated infrastructure we all rely on, but again the County has refused to study or plan how it will implement its bumper-sticker plan.
- The County’s refusal to plan in advance—before approving significant land-use changes has brought us:
- an antiquated water distribution and sanitary sewer system springing frequent leaks and barely meeting today’s needs,
- an electric grid that’s on life support and prone to outages and fires,
- an antiquated stormwater management system unable to cope with growing storm runoff fueled by increasing areas of impervious surfaces and loss of tree canopy;
- decreasing levels of service at major (and minor) intersections, leading to increasing gridlock and pollution;
- no longer navigable or safe streets for our kids (or other pedestrians) to cross due to overparked cars on streets not designed to accommodate this level of car volume; and
- a police and fire emergency response system already stressed and understaffed to deal with resident needs. (They are more than happy to tell you themselves they are under-resourced already next time you speak with them.)
