ARLINGTON's
MISSING MIDDLE
HOUSING MYTH
LAUGHABLE ZONING CHANGES
IN THE NAME OF AFFORDABILITY.
COMING TO A NEIGHBORHOOD NEAR YOU!
THE FUTURE of ARLINGTON
IS THIS A COMMUNITY
WHERE YOU
WANT TO LIVE?
The animation shows multiplexes popping up everywhere in the next five years. Under Arlington County's Expanded Housing Option (EHO), the new zoning ordinance allows developers to tear down single-family homes and build six-plexes. Arlington County won't show you their density model because they've never studied Missing Middle's impact.
THE LATEST
MISSING MIDDLE
permits ACCEPTED (again)
Arlington’s Missing Middle zoning ordinance that eliminates single-family nieghborhoods is back on the books – at least for the time being, following a ruling in the Virginia Court of Appeals. In the dramatic legal battle over the county’s Expanded Housing Option (EHO), three appeals court judges issued a ruling that reverses a circuit court decision that voided the zoning change.
STOP PERMITTING NOW
We are awaiting a decision by the Supreme Court of Virginia to hear the case and to immediately stop the County from issuing new permits. A few Missing Middle Housing projects were allowed to proceed including a duplex and six-plex (featured in video). These "real" examples give a true indication of what's happening and the myth of affordability.
FAR FROM AFFORDABLE
ARLINGTON's 1st
EHO DUPLEX
Arlington County is ground zero in the Missing Middle Housing fight with the first duplex built on N. Troy Street. The single-family home sold for $862,500. Each side of the duplex is listed for $1,649,000. It's a developer's dream. Where's the affordability?
OVERHEARD IN THE
NEIGHBORHOOD
Kelly – 7th St. South
The developer in our neighborhood had two of the first permit applications with the county to build two six-plexes side-by-side on a lot that used to have one single-family home. It was going to be 20 bedrooms and 16 trash cans. So we came together as a neighborhood, and what we found was that the county staff was not following their own new zoning rules for Missing Middle. Those rules required a minimum lot size. The lots did not meet the minimum.
David – N. Edison St.
I wish it weren’t so, but Arlington has chosen self-inflicting zoning chaos. Recently, 38 previously voided EHO permits magically flipped from “voided” to “approved,” and the County is accepting new EHO applications. But the EHO zoning case – Nordgren v County Board – sits actively appealed to the Supreme Court of Virginia. Anyone that purchases an EHO property in the meantime will be without notice that at any moment the property can be in violation as a result of a Court ruling. There is little to gain by rushing to resume an EHO process before a final court disposition.
Emmaline – former resident
It was extremely expensive to live in Crystal City – 50 to 60% of my income. So, I had to move to Fairfax County and it was sad to leave Arlington.
Q: Missing Middle was supposed to lead to affordble housing. Did it?
A: It’s laughable; it’s laughable; I can’t stop laughing… If I don’t laugh, I will cry.
Mike – N. 13th St.
Mabel – N. Grenada St.
Chris – N. Troy St.
I've lived here 30 years. I was going to work one morning and a neighbor said, "Did you know that a Missing Middle application was approved behind you for a six-plex?" I said, "No." I had no idea, because there was no notice given. Then I tried to appeal to the Board of Zoning Appeals, and they said I hadn't submitted it properly within the 30-day time frame. That was the argument: Did I submit it in time or not? And I thought I did. But they never really heard my concerns.
Arlington will look very different if we don't put a stop to this. Arlington will be more high rises, more apartments, more condos, and it will truly lose the essence of what is Arlington. The County did not do a good job of thinking it through. And the biggest thing that we can do as residents is fight back, and the only way that we can fight back is to do it through the court system. And unfortunately, that still requires a lot of money, and we still need more funding.
Missing Middle has missed the mark. You see a house being sold for $800,000, and being replaced by a duplex – two homes – for $1.8 million each. That is proof enough that whoever winds up buying those two homes were not the targets of Missing Middle – teachers, police, firefighters – and I have a feeling that's going to be replicated across Arlington County. So, who benefits? Clearly, the developer benefits. And then, conveniently, the county wins. You take one taxpayer account on a home that sold for $800,000, now there's two taxpayer accounts on a purchase price of $1.8 million each. So it's a big win for a County that's facing a deficit and a lot of empty office space.
Ken – N. 14th St.
N. Veitch St.
Amber – N. Veitch St.
N. Vermont St.
Stephanie – N. Vermont St.
Yeah, we've got a six Plex here, where there was a single family home. You're blowing up the land use plan, and it's not going to be affordable housing. It's going to be upper middle-class housing. It's not really going to be places where firemen and policemen and teachers are going to be able to live. We’re still in the middle of the fight. It's still in litigation. The problems that were identified by the people opposing the Missing Middle zoning ordinance are still valid arguments.
Many residents do not want EHO to “go ahead as a test” so we can see later if it succeeded or failed. We want adequate planning and studies done first, so we are not stuck with negative repercussions that cannot be undone. Once a structure is built, there is no going back. You can remove a bus line or change a school boundary; you cannot “un-build” a 4- or 6-unit building on a small interior lot if the impacts turn out to be harmful.
Thanks for alerting me to the EHO permit for 2352 N. Vermont. They were, of course, working under the radar. If it hadn't been for you, we wouldn't have found out and would have just been happy and complacent. We've since met with the lawyer and are hoping to move forward with a cease and desist letter served to the owner. Thanks so much again for your vigilance!
