Friends,
As we shift from Christmas and Hannakah and the winter holidays to New Year's Eve, I write to wish you and your family happiness, report on the Arlington County Board's December meetings, and share with you my work over the past month. Below is a picture that I hope captures the spirit of the season--volunteering to get out food to our neighbors in need.
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Board Member Katie Cristol, Brooke Tansill, and I volunteering at the Arlington Food Assistance Center last Saturday.
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Much of my energy leading up to the Saturday, December 14th Board Meeting was on the site plans for two buildings Amazon will build in Pentagon City. The site plan includes community benefits of $20 million in affordable housing, an expanded park, construction to a LEED Platinum energy efficiency standard, new bike lanes, and agreement from Amazon to step forward and lead on renewable energy and in preventing wage theft and misclassification for those who work on the site. I spent perhaps the most time working with labor and the carpenters. Not perfect, but I worked hard and felt progress. I am looking forward to enrolling in the work to come on this.
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Housing was the biggest theme of the remainder of our actions. In addition to the $20 million, which was for the site plan and not all of Amazon's work on housing in total, the Board acquired land in Crystal City that we will use to build affordable units over the coming years. The land was part of a Crystal House site plan that included approval of additional housing units beyond the land we receive. The added supply will help slow increased in market prices over time, though there is more work to do.
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A second action on housing: review of the missing middle housing type study on Tuesday, December 16th. Affordable homeownership depends on our developing different types of housing such as additional town homes, stacked flats, and other types of units, so I am very pleased this is moving forward. There will be much more work to do next year, but this kickoff is progress.
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Third, the Board took action to make senior housing easier to develop. We are behind where we need to be on the number of housing units available for seniors who want to age in our community. We acted to allow housing for seniors in 18 additional zoning districts, moving us toward meeting a higher standard. For those who think zoning changes signify the end of Arlington as we know it, I would note that this is a change that virtually all stakeholders agree on.
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We also took action in December that I am very proud of on the areas outside the Ballston Metro, which need to be improved to better welcome businesses and nonprofits. Other action at the Board Meeting included adding a minimum wage increase to our legislative package in Richmond.
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The picture of those who stood up for our campaign last year. A clear, visual reminder:
our work is shared and you are at the heart of it.
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Last, I want to warn you that the year to come will include traffic challenges on the West End of Columbia Pike that are necessary, though not pleasant. For more information on that, please go here: https://projects.arlingtonva.us/projects/columbia-pike-improvements-county-line-four-mile-run/
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for 2019--we made significant promises on the priorities we care about. And we flipped the Virginia Legislature in work that will help the County better live our ideals in 2020.
With deep gratitude, I look forward to what we will do together in 2020 as we turn our New Year's Eve wishes for change and progress into reality,
Matt
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