Each January, Arlington County Board Members set the tone for the coming year through their New Years’ addresses. These speeches convey the members’ priorities and gives a glimpse into the specific policies they’ll be pursuing throughout the year.
This year’s addresses held several common threads—and one of them is affordable housing. Each of the five board members mentioned it in some capacity. Here you can read a summary of their remarks as they relate to this topic. You can find the full transcripts of their speeches linked in the official press release.
“We need to change a paradigm: The paradigm that the most vulnerable in a society are the first to suffer from change and the last to gain from it.”
Libby Garvey
We need to change a paradigm: The paradigm that the most vulnerable in a society are the first to suffer from change and the last to gain from it—if they ever gain at all. Economic change tends not to be equitable. That’s the old paradigm. We want a new one.
More and more the big systemic challenges we face will require innovation and cross jurisdictional cooperation. That’s why we held a rare joint meeting with Alexandria last year and agreed to work together on affordable housing, workforce development and supporting small businesses, especially those owned by women and minorities.
“The next level of managed growth will require new tools and a modernized zoning ordinance to expand our housing supply in a way that enhances the livability of our existing neighborhoods.”
Erik Gutshall
Amazon’s arrival has leveled up our focus on how we grow. How we grow matters and our next level of managed growth will focus beyond first order urban design principles of sidewalk widths, building heights, and traffic circulation, and instead level up to an essential focus on equity, infrastructure like schools and storm water, and a broader definition of quality of life and livability.
How we grow matters. The next level of managed growth will require new tools and a modernized zoning ordinance to expand our housing supply in a way that enhances the livability of our existing neighborhoods.
“Reconnecting our built environment with nature is a new paradigm that will redefine the future of city life. ”
Richard Tucker and his team are already bringing new energy, creativity, and partnerships and resources to bear on the urgent need for housing. Grounded in policies that promote equity, opportunity, stability and adaptability, we will continue to leverage new sources of AHIF for lower income households and use the market to deliver new housing types for the missing middle. We’ve already begun the community conversation that will determine what the right housing mix for Arlington is. I commend the neighborhoods surrounding National Landing for the extensive citizen-led work to craft a Livability Action Plan for a collaborative approach to planning a highly livable community.
… Reconnecting our built environment with nature is a new paradigm that will redefine the future of city life. More than just adding greenery, biophilic design incorporates patterns of nature into both private and public realms bestowing the benefits of beauty, stress reduction, higher productivity, better health, and greater resiliency.
“By developing the capacity to recognize the barriers that marginalized and vulnerable populations face in trying to thrive, we can deliver public policy that is responsive to all”
Christian Dorsey
We must come together, as a community, to plan for change and growth and to shape it so that the Arlington we’ve built can evolve to better serve both the long-tenured and newcomer alike.
By developing the capacity to recognize the barriers that marginalized and vulnerable populations face in trying to thrive, we can deliver public policy that is responsive to all, and not only to those with power and influence.
I am excited about what we are doing right here in Arlington, but my aspirations in housing, transportation connectivity, sustainability, resilience, and human development exceed our ability to achieve needed results alone. I will look to multiply our efforts through collaboration with our fellow Northern Virginia jurisdictions, our neighbors in the national capital region, and with our state government.
“We have been too slow to confront the role that our own zoning ordinance plays in keeping our housing stock homogeneous and unaffordable in too many corners of the County. ”
Katie Cristol
Since the 2015 adoption of the Affordable Housing Master Plan, we have been tackling our community’s deep need for committed affordable rental housing with an energy and dedication befitting the emergency that it is—an urgency that we must maintain. Yet we have been painfully slow to address the evolution of many of our low-density neighborhoods into expensive enclaves out of reach for all but the wealthiest homebuyers.
We have been too slow to confront the role that our own zoning ordinance plays in keeping our housing stock homogeneous and unaffordable in too many corners of the County.
This may be my fourth year in a row of calling for legalization of the “missing middle” of moderate density ownership housing forms in Arlington, but with our study kick-off set for this spring, I’m encouraged that action will finally be upon us in 2020.
Arlington does have room to grow, and we are constrained less by our 26 square miles than we are by our own imaginations.
“We will also need to be creative. … This means partnering with nonprofit partners such as the Arlington Community Foundation and looking for innovative solutions with the Alliance for Housing Solutions and partners in the field. ”
Matt de Ferranti
We made significant progress on housing affordability last year via additional resources (the Crystal House parcel and well over $24 million in Affordable Housing Investment Fund (AHIF) contributions from the community benefits associated with site plans), and targeted changes to our zoning ordinance (removal of caps on bonus community benefit for housing in the corridors and changes to senior housing).
Our progress, however, comes in a housing market that is making renting and home ownership in Arlington more and more expensive. This year offers a new opportunity to rise to the challenge—and we will need to step up with commitment and creativity that meet the moment.
The commitment we made in our Guidance to the Manager on the FY 2021 Budget to the data we need on those living below 30percentof Area Median Income—more than, 26,000 people living in households with income of less than $36,000—will be key.
So will, in my view, providing the $9 million in additional AHIF funding or as close to it as possible. I am mindful that we will have other needs in the budget, but I believe AHIF funding addresses the four questions from our equity framework very well.
We will also need to be creative. On the rental side, this means partnering with nonprofit partners such as the Arlington Community Foundation and looking for innovative solutions with the Alliance for Housing Solutions and partners in the field.
With respect to home ownership, the missing middle housing-type study is set to be completed this summer: Thanks to the Manager and staff for this work as part of Housing Arlington. I look forward to the results and to engaging with the community to develop targeted tools and solutions to help make home ownership possible for more Arlingtonians.