Arlington residents sue county over ‘missing middle’ zoning change
↗ READ THE HOMEOWNERS’ COMPLAINT
A group of Arlington single-family homeowners sued local lawmakers Friday over a controversial zoning change that will allow more “missing middle” housing in the Northern Virginia county, alleging that these elected officials failed to adequately study the impacts of such a policy before approving it last month.
Washington Post headline: Residents sue Arlington County over missing middle zoning change
Washington Post headline: Residents sue Arlington County over missing middle zoning change
By Teo Armus
Ten Arlington homeowners filed a 162-page lawsuit in Arlington County Circuit Court on April 21, 2023, one month after the County Board unanimously approved the Missing Middle zoning change. The suit argues the Board and the Planning Commission broke Virginia law by failing to study how the change would affect the county before the vote.
“They have to do the required studies to make sure the amendments don’t have negative impacts on the county and its residents. … Yet the County Board rushed this to completion,” Gifford R. Hampshire, a lawyer for the homeowners, told the Post.
The suit also claims the Board violated the Virginia Freedom of Information Act by not releasing materials when board members and planning commissioners received them, and it calls the County’s new rules on shade trees an “illusory band aid.”
The County said it could not comment on active litigation. A leader of VOICE, a group that pushed for the zoning change, called the lawsuit “a predictable play out of the NIMBY playbook.”
Read the homeowners’ complaint