Arlington Board Approves Affordable Housing Development

The county board met for a recessed session on Tuesday afternoon. This session began with Treasurer Frank O'Leary announcing the winner of the county decal design contest. Four finalists from Arlington high schools received 2,697 votes and the winner was from Wakefield High School student Maya Giacobbe.

Next, Chairman Chris Zimmerman spoke about two upcoming roundtable meetings regarding small business on Mar. 21 at the Central Library and Mar. 31 at Clarendon Ballroom. Jay Fisette spoke about the task force on the Community Energy and Sustainability Plan, including the goal of reducing per capita greenhouse emissions from 13.4 metric tons per year to 3.0 metric tons by 2050.

Zimmerman spoke about the Car-Free Diet Challenge for 2011 and also about new transportation information aids available at http://www.commuterpage.com/mobile/ Zimmerman also spoke about upcoming “Tell Arlington's Story” events and the website. http://arlingtonstory.us/

Barbara Favola spoke about legislative actions in Richmond with an emphasis on the county's legislative priorities. Vice-Chairwoman Mary Hynes, spoke about her work on the Metro board, particularly the $150 million cut in Metro's budget proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Following a few other points of business, the board went into a closed session. The board came back from its closed session to discuss items postponed from Saturday's meeting. The session began with a number of impassioned pleas by residents of Howard Manor Apartments that the board reject a proposed plan by Community Preservation and Development Corporation (CPDC) to purchase the property and turn it into an affordable housing development. The primary argument of these distraught citizens was that the current community was already affordable and many feared that they would lose their homes and be forced to leave Arlington because they could not afford housing elsewhere in the county.

The board heard a presentation from CPDC and followed this with many questions for CPDC and the county manager's staff regarding this project. The Howard Manor Apartments are currently considered “market-rate affordable” because they are nearly 60 years old. The board was disturbed that many of the residents who provided testimony had only learned of the proposal within the past few days; however, this was a condition of the current ownership, which did not want to panic residents by letting them know that the property was for sale. Zimmerman pointed out that by Virginia law, the majority of the rights and privileges rest with the property owner and not the tenants and that the board actually has very little power regarding what an apartment owner does with their property.

This item only came before the board because the new potential owners, CPDC, were asking for Affordable Housing Investment Fund (AHIF) loans. It became apparent during the meeting that the property owner was looking to sell the property and if the board rejected CPDC's request for AHIF funds, that the property owner would look for a new buyer and that buyer could potentially turn the development into luxury apartments with absolutely no say from the county board.

After lengthy debate, and faced with the unpleasant choice between approving the proposal and potentially causing at least some of the current residents to move or rejecting the proposal with the likely prospect that another developer would buy the property and force all of the residents to move, the board approved the CPDC proposal.

The board then turned to other business, including the approval of the installation of 60 kilowatt solar panels on the roof of the Central Library. The next board meeting will be Saturday, Mar. 12.

Board meetings are broadcast on local television and online and are a good way for residents to learn what is going on in the county. Meetings are held at 2100 Clarendon Blvd., Suite 300. Further information on the County Board can be found here:

 http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/countyboard/countyboardmain.aspx