Legality Of 6-Plex Housing Units In Arlington Challenged by Residents<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nDuring the first six months of the new EHO zoning policy, developers submitted 50 applications, while 26 of those applications were approved by Arlington County. Nearly two-thirds of the EHO applications approved have been for 6-plex projects, or buildings that will contain six residences.<\/p>\n
Ware noted that Arlington County said that 6-plexes would be more common on larger lots in Arlington. But the opposite has been true during the first six months of the new zoning policy, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRather than 12,000 square feet, we are seeing 6-plexes approved in 6,000 and 7,000 square feet \u2014 so roughly half the size the county is projecting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Among the smallest of the proposed EHO units, the annual income needed to afford one of them is well above $120,000, far more than the median income of Black, Hispanic and senior residents of Arlington, he added.<\/p>\n
‘Economic Segregation’<\/h3>\n
Representing the pro-Missing Middle side of the debate at the Arlington Committee of 100 panel discussion was Michelle Winters, a developer of EHO-style housing in Arlington.<\/p>\n
Winters said the new townhomes, duplexes and buildings with four to six housing units that are now allowed to be built in neighborhoods formerly zoned for single-family homes in Arlington will address the \u201ceconomic segregation\u201d that still exists in the county.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not segregated by law anymore. It\u2019s segregated by zoning that produces economic segregation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Winters is co-founder of Neighborhood Flats LLC, which has received approval for one of its 4-plex EHO projects at 2100 N. George Mason Drive, near the Halls Hill neighborhood and Virginia Hospital Center.<\/p>\n
Prior to the EHO zoning going into effect on July 1, about 75 percent of the land that was zoned for residential use in Arlington was zoned exclusively for single-family, detached homes, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you don\u2019t allow people of different means, different housing types to live in that 75 percent of the land, then you\u2019re telling the teachers who teach the children in that elementary district that they don\u2019t belong in that elementary district,\u201d Winters, past executive director of the Alliance for Housing Solutions in Arlington and former member and chair of the Arlington Housing Commission, said about school teachers who may not be able to afford to live near the schools where they work in Arlington.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re telling them that they have to go live somewhere else,\u201d she said. \u201cWhy is that fair? You need to be able to allow people of multiple types of means, multiple household types and needs to live in 75 percent of the land that is currently not feasible for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opponents of the EHO zoning policy counter that the people who will be able to afford to buy the new housing types built in the formerly single-family housing areas represent the same demographic of people who live in those areas today.<\/p>\n
Neighborhoods like Green Valley, where a form of Missing Middle has been in place for more than 20 years, have become less diverse, according to Ware.<\/p>\n
\nREAD ALSO: <\/strong>Missing Middle To Help House Hunters With ‘6-Figure Income’: Realtor<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nIn 2000, the Green Valley neighborhood had a population that was 61 percent Black or African American. In the 2020 Census, the percentage of Black or African American residents who live in Green Valley had fallen to 31 percent, Ware said.<\/p>\n
In its analysis of how EHO zoning will impact neighborhoods, Arlington County should be looking at areas of the county like Green Valley where greater housing density has been allowed and its impact on diversity among the county\u2019s population, Ware said.<\/p>\n
Halls Hill, another historically African American community in Arlington, also has seen many of its Black residents move out of the community due to rising housing prices.<\/p>\n
Prior to the Arlington County Board adopting the EHO zoning policy, Kathy Rehill, a residential Realtor in Arlington, said that developers will seek out the least expensive lots, which will result in teardowns of the most affordable single-family homes and replacement with multifamily buildings.<\/p>\n
She estimated that the new duplexes will get listed in the $1.4 million to $1.8 million range for each unit.<\/p>\n
“How do we know? Because in areas where duplexes are allowed now, for example in Halls Hill, we are seeing teardowns of modest single-family homes to build these very expensive duplexes with accompanying gentrification and loss of diversity in Arlington\u2019s historically Black neighborhoods,” Rehill said.<\/p>\n
Missing Middle Lawsuit<\/h3>\n
As for the lawsuit filed by a group of 10 homeowners against Arlington County over its adoption of the new EHO zoning policy, the five-day trial in the case is set to start on July 8. On Thursday, Circuit Court Judge David Schell rejected Arlington County\u2019s motion for an immediate appeal of his decision to let the lawsuit go to trial.<\/p>\n
At Thursday\u2019s hearing, the judge said the plaintiffs would suffer \u201csubstantial harm\u201d from the construction of multifamily buildings if he were to grant the county\u2019s motion, which could delay the trial for two or more years while being heard by Virginia\u2019s appellate courts.<\/p>\n
Schell said it would not be in either party\u2019s interest to delay the trial for years, noting that if the county were to lose at trial, developers might have to tear down the EHO buildings constructed while the case is pending.<\/p>\n
At the Arlington Committee of 100 forum, Winters described the plaintiffs’ case as based on procedural arguments that can easily be remedied if the court rules against Arlington County.<\/p>\n
“You change your process and you re-adopt it. It’s exactly what Fairfax County did,” Winters said.<\/p>\n
Tad Lunger, principal and owner of Arlington Land Use Group PLLC, emphasized that the land use procedures required by Virginia law are in place “to ensure there is adequate public discourse on the impact of what is being proposed.”<\/p>\n
In the case of a major zoning change like EHO, Virginia law requires jurisdictions to study the transportation impacts, discuss the infrastructure costs on county residents of the zoning change and study other issues, according to Lunger.<\/p>\n
“These things weren’t discussed at that level in Arlington,” he said, referring to the process used by Arlington officials in adopting Missing Middle.<\/p>\n
RELATED: <\/strong>Judge Rejects Arlington’s Effort To Stop Missing Middle Zoning Lawsuit<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n
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ARLINGTON, VA \u2014 The debate over Arlington County\u2019s approval of its new Missing Middle zoning policy is continuing, especially as residents await the construction of the first multifamily dwellings to see what impact they will have on utility services, tree canopy, parking, and other county infrastructure and services. The Arlington Committee of 100 held a … <\/p>\n
Read more “Arlington Remains Fractured Over Approval Of Missing Middle Zoning”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}