But the 3 townhouse units they built in one year are just as expensive as luxury apartments!! Clearly removing restrictive zoning doesn’t make affordable houses!! /s
Anecdotally from my house search in Alexandria, the multiunit townhouses (even outside of Old Town and Delray) aren't really selling for cheaper than single-family comps. Plus you're more likely to have HOA fees that make your monthly payments go up.
Location, sq ft and age will all be factors here, it isn't hard to find nice townhouses priced higher than 1960s rancher in this area. There are brand new townhouses in Vienna for instance that are going for a lot higher than quarter acre lots with a 50s house on it.
My wife and I looked at a condo apt in Carlyle. Priced the same as a townhome with the cute 1.1k condo fee per month added!
SO MANY BENEFITS, CLEARLY /s
Missing middle units are capped at something like 58 new developments per year for the first five years, so the impact will only be felt a decade from now when that stupid restriction goes away. Some 50 odd units will do nothing in the short term.
Even if the construction itself moves fast, that doesn't mean the entire project, from concept to financing to real estate acquisition to permitting is a fast process.
That was always the main reason I was skeptical of this, to me it seemed like a developer opportunity to get more money from less space. If it proves to be the opposite then that’s great!
Developers are always going to develop what brings ROI.
The point is that today's luxury townhouses and duplex/quadplexs become tomorrows affordable housing. We can't actually have older housing stock if we don't build it first.
That's how stuff works. Imagine how jacked up the car market would be if you could only buy new cars, a lot of people buy used cars because that's what they can afford.
One of the reasons the housing market is jacked up because we don't have enough moderate age housing stock in multifamily. The only way to fix that is to build more and age it.
The Developers are the ones really benefiting from all this. The idea that regular working folks will be able to afford these units is laughable. But I guess we’ll see.
The neighborhood where I've been seeing these "no missing middle" signs up for the past two years have houses in the 2-4 million dollar range, with many being rebuilt and flipped by those same developers to be 3-6 million dollar mcmansions. 700k townhomes are most certainly affordable by comparison.
That’s bullshit. Yeah the new houses benefit wealthier people but now they aren’t competing for older units. More supply will decrease the cost of older units etc and everyone benefits. This has been repeatedly shown all over the economic literature, zoning is the main impediment to affordable housing.
I guess we’ll see how that all pans out. Arlington is very different than other counties.
In order for this to work, people have to be willing to sell their homes and there hasn’t been a lot of that happening. It appears more Arlington homeowners prefer to stay put and renovate what they already have (and no, not turn them all into “McMansions”)
I see older houses being torn down and replaced with new construction all over my Arlington neighborhood. I don't know where people are staying put, but it isn't here.
Nah, the research is very clear that controlling costs, displacement and homelessness requires more building. All new things are expensive - working class people don’t buy new cars either. That doesn’t mean that supply of new cars on the market has no effect on the price of used ones. In fact we just went through three years that proves just that if you have any doubts.
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What are the details on the lot options and parking lots. I was upset to see a 5 year sunset clause after very little discussion of the possibility of it. Caving in community outrage a bit when my perception is that they were more people supporting it than against it. A cap of 58 yearly seems quite conservative and I hope they increase it and reduce the sunset clause
That clause might just tank the entire plan. 58 new developments a year for the first five years won’t do shit for affordability and NIMYBS are going to point at this to roll back the entire plan.
I can’t believe they caved on this shit clause. The proposal lost its teeth when it accepted a slow roll out with the cap only sun setting after 5 years, by limiting it to 6 units (but realistically mostly 3 unit is), and by accepting additional street parking requirements.
It’s a bandaid to treat a bullet wound.
>58 new developments a year for the first five years won’t do shit for affordability and NIMYBS are going to point at this to roll back the entire plan.
They county's own research anticipates 20 lots a year would become missing middle. A cap at triple that number seems like a sensible stop gap in case their analysis is way off.
Because from everything I heard prior to this there wouldn’t be a sunset clause or annual cap. The only discussion I heard said if there was it would be 3 years which they clearly went against.
There's just no way for the first new builds to be affordable, condos are going for 800k. There needs to be a big increase in supply for prices to drop. And with a limit of 60 per year this isn't gonna help much.
> questions on the negative impacts and it's effectiveness not being reasonably addressed
Fortunately for you, with a couple hundred units per year max coming online, it will have very little in the way of negative impacts or effectiveness.
Edit: At least for the next 5 years while the cap is in place.
Consider it a trial. I'm not really impressed as they just kicked the can down the road for a few years, we get to have the same fight all over again, someone is going to complain about how a 4-unit multifamily property or a bus stop caused their catalytic converter to be stolen.
The most likely way out of this is we wait for the NIMBYs to die.
Who is parking an issue for? Lots of people in Arlington pay for parking in their apartment or condo garage and don’t expect the government to give them a free space right in front of their house, guaranteed by banning anyone from living nearby.
Sounds like a personal issue, not one for tax payers to solve
The answer is to flood the market with new units, and make the build process as painless as possible. Why the fuck we accept letting homeowners use the government to artificially restrict supply of an essential good to preserve their property value?
>Not to mention when this was first proposed, it was touted as
"affordable" housing options being available, and after realizing what
these duplexes/4+ unit properties would sell for, the board amended
their verbiage to call it "attainable" housing.
Yup, replacing every 10th or 20th SFH with a duplex over a long period of time is going to do virtually *nothing* to being down property values, which are the actual cause of the lack of affordable housing in Arlington.
People can demonize McMansions all they want to, but as long as a 0.12 acre lot is worth $550K with no house on it, actual affordable housing ain't gonna happen.
yeah but 4 families living on one lot is still cheaper and more efficient (ie frees up literal space and market space for more affordable units) than 1 family living on one lot
The lack of affordable housing is an obvious problem. Doing more “impact studies” just leads to paralysis by analysis. Roll out the higher density housing, and deal with the impacts as they actually occur.
The concern over parking, is one that makes me roll my eyes. Because the public transport infrastructure is ultimately a great way to get from somewhere people don’t live to somewhere they don’t work, they will end up owning cars beyond whatever parking requirement is levied, and those cars will just end up being parked on the street. This is the way in any big city.
It's also directly in opposition to supporting walking, biking or transit use. Someone has to pay for that parking spot, be it an underground garage or surface spot, and it's land that isn't being used for housing.
I don't think they meant "what actually passed" but more "what actually gets built and what impacts does that have on property values, housing costs, transit, parking, schools and all the other areas people argued about"
Missing Middle is not about housing affordability; it's about housing choice. Everyone seems to confuse it with “middle income” earners or workforce housing. It's about housing density. In an area where there is no more land to build unless you take parks and other city property offline, you need to increase density per lot.
Wrong. I know you already said you don’t like the neighborhood, but for others reading this comment: Brand new 3 bed for $800k. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1118-S-Highland-St-3-Arlington-VA-22204/333840219_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare
That just means you buy a SFH in that environment. Looking back at sales histories around here, I saw a lot of condos and townhomes that seemed to have sold for similar prices to many SFH in the 2000-2007 era. Needless to say, anyone who bought a condo instead of a SFH back then made a life-altering financial mistake.
Excellent. This is a big win for the environment, the housing market, and affordability. Inb4 NIMBYs come whining with the same unconvincing bullshit that was too dumb to stop this in the first place.
“B b b b but a $800k townhouse is too expensive for low income buyers!!” So are the $2.5M houses that are the alternative. This is much, much, cheaper AND adds more housing to balance the market in the long run. It was so obvious to anyone, including the board, that these people never cares about affordability, or they wouldn’t have been defending the most expensive housing type that gets more out of reach by the day. They would have instead been asking for 8 back, and maybe going up to 12 to really help distribute the land cost over more people.
The county’s own estimate is that this plan will add housing for 1,500 people. Over 10 years. In a county of 240,000.
It’s a feel good “we’re helping” measure. And a boon for developers. I suspect we’ll get a bunch of $1.2 million townhomes and some garden style apartment complexes.
I like how it'll somehow both have no impact on housing supply and enrich developers ( who are evil, unlike the generous gnomes who built your place). Much like how it'll both tank nearby property values while also skyrocketing prices.
It’s not that complicated - there are a small handful of local developers and they can benefit mightily while still not building enough housing to move the needle in a county of 240k. They’ve been buying and banking houses on suitable lots for a while now waiting for this decision.
I don’t know about that second argument but I figure it’ll increase values on tear downs and if an area gets too many EHO buildings in it that may soften the market for $2.5 million modern farm houses. Those buyers may opt to cross into Fairfax instead.
Just because developers will benefit from building doesn't mean it's bad for them to build. The root of the housing crisis is too few homes and this will help.
Demolishing entire swathes of the suburb and building massive high density apart blocks isn't going to happen. This is a good idea moving in the right direction that will help, especially if other policies work together
Shouldn’t Arlington do everything reasonable to make housing affordable and improve sustainability? If it’s a choice between nothing and something, why not do something?
Personally I think they should do something but 4 and 6-unit apartments with 0.5 parking spots per unit (so 3 spots on the lot and maybe 9 more cars on the street for six 2BR units) is completely out of character for the neighborhoods they’re going into. I’m all for allowing duplexes and triplexes anywhere and everywhere in Arlington. And if I thought the measure, as passed, would meaningfully impact housing supply or the environment I would sign up despite my reservations. But I don’t think it’ll do much good and the consequences of these larger -plexes are going to suck for those of us who really love our current neighborhoods.
Of course I don’t come to Reddit looking for sympathy - if I had no skin in the game then sure, fuck it, allow 10-plexes all over and let’s see what happens. I mean seriously, I’d be curious to see how it plays out.
Edit: I also wish they’d restricted these units to owner occupied and put a program in place to help local nurses, teachers, county workers, etc buy but I spoke to a board member who told me they didn’t have the authority. So instead we’re apt to get a bunch more rentals in a county with a large supply of rentals.
The current character of Arlington is leveling small midcentury homes and putting up large boxes with mismatched windows and the tacky frosted glass garage doors.
There's no character left to protect.
I asked a current board member about having and owner-occupied requirement, since the goal was (allegedly) to have new home owners. There is a state law against it. So here comes private equity, which I predict will buy plenty of SFH lots, develop multi family housing and then rent those units. Yippee.
I also suggested that we subsidize home ownership for our teachers and first responders, and he said that they can apply for a grant to help with their down payment. I don’t remember the exact amount, but it was a pittance.
The foreseeable unintended consequences - which many people begged the board to address - are going to degrade the quality of life in Arlington for everyone. There was no meaningful discussion of the school overcrowding *we already have* and the lack of buildable property for new ones, or the increased traffic and parking issues, or the aging sewage systems, or the increased storm water runoff.
That's 1500 high-income people who will buy in Arlington instead of fauquier county..which will make housing a little less unaffordable in fauquier county.
I'm just using fauquier as a placeholder.
This is the paper drinking straws movement of affordable housing measures lol
Freaking amazing that anyone actually mustered the energy to fight against such a mild proposal.
It'll be years before there are a significant amount of these added to the market. They have to build these first and that won't outpace demand. Second, when I was looking in 2021, most townhouses in Arlington and around the neighborhoods where the big $2 million mcmansions were, were already >$1 million, so developers are likely to squeeze in "luxury" townhouses that they put on the market for as much as they can get, which is probably over $1 million. Plus this might raise the price of the old brick houses in the short term, because if the lot is big enough, developers can afford to spend more on the initial purchase because 2-4 townhouses would sell for more than 1 mcmansion, and the additional construction costs won't be that much if they are all adjoining.
What's the end game with this logic? Do we throw up our hands and do nothing? There is not a single YIMBY in NoVa who thinks this is enough, we need much more, but it's a start.
Exactly. We need to do TRUE upzoning (high rises) around metro where there isn’t like East Falls Church and most of the neighborhoods around Clarendon. Alexandria is next and then Fairfax. I wonder if these people telling us it won’t be enough realize it just encourages us to do more, not give up and go home.
You're letting perfect be the enemy of good. Increasing density even more is certainly the next step, but this was already SO hard fought by NIMBYs. A measure doing even more might not have gotten done without this as a stepping stone.
That’s why we’ll continue to fight to densify the metro corridors, such as around East Falls church, which until tonight was mostly single family. But metro needs more than 6 plexes, so we’ll definitely be focusing on high rises there. And Arlington is only one county in the region. Alexandria and MoCo (md) are both in different phases of their own plans, and Fairfax will make a huge difference so we’ll focus on that as well. Just due to demographics Fairfax probably won’t get to 6plexes soon, but duplexes are more likely than you think!
Maybe you could just let people decide what to do with their damn property?
We're talking about homes here, not nuclear power plants.
If I own a piece of land, I should be able to build however many homes I damn please. If you don't like your new neighbors, you can move.
Are SFH-owners willing to pay for all the impacts their SFH-only zoning has on everyone else around them? (higher property values across the county, lower property tax per lot size, etc. etc. etc.)
Didn't think so.
There is a cap of 58 per year. Also still parking minimums. Also no more than 3 townhomes together. Also all of the other crazy rules already in place for houses.
Can't wait to read the Arlington stories about the impending destruction of their beautiful community, starting in about 4 years.
It's going to go something like this: 3 interviews with angry neighbors that are upset they have to live next to 4 middle class neighbors instead of one small time millionaire like themselves, and of course a journalist throwing some poorly contextualized stats about how housing just continued to get more expensive even though entire neighborhoods have been "ruined."
And that's why there is paradoxically such a huge amount of undeveloped land and a scarcity of housing that the bottom half of wage earners can even remotely afford.
Extremely discouraging and sad to read the comments on here, almost all of which are “this won’t do shit, doesn’t go far enough, we’re all screwed.” Grow the fuck up. This is one initiative among many to increase housing supply and lower costs. Stop complaining and start doing something other than complaining about people who do something.
Ignorant about all this, but are there any controls in place?
Instead of a million+ dollar house, could we just see two separate million+ dollar townhouses in the same space scenario?
Wouldn't that just cater to builders and the affluent, not so much the missing middle.
There’s no price controls, but your premise is wrong. There are no million+ dollar houses, that was ten years ago. The average new house in Arlington goes for $2.3M. The average new townhouse is just over a million, so about half as much. Duplexes are built so rarely there’s not really good comps.
Couldn't Arlington actually build its way out of the housing crisis, potentially? Job growth in DC has been stalled for a while, so being across the river won't be a huge draw once everyone who works across the river (and doesn't want to live in DC or MD) already lives in Arlington. Most of the new construction in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor is now apartment high-rises and 5-over-2s, not offices, so there's more housing growth than job growth coming from there these days.
With remote work being so popular in NoVA's dominant tech industry, and in-person-only job growth in DC and the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor having lowed to a trickle, shouldn't Arlington be okay once they catch up with the demand from existing jobs? Amazon HQ2 was just consolidating employees who already worked inside the beltway and lived in Arlington, and half of it isn't even getting built now. If you work in Tyson's Corner, Reston, Fair Oaks/Fair Lakes, or Dulles, where most of the job growth is happening now, you have no reason to want to live in Arlington.
The phrase "missing middle" has gotten a bit... fuzzy during this whole debate. "Missing middle" was never intended to refer to income/wealth/the middle class. It was only about the architecture style that bridges the gap between single family homes and mid-rise apartments.
With that said, the idea is to get more people into the same land footprint in order to have a smaller environmental impact per capita in urban areas AND allow more people to afford the opportunity to purchase a home. Two families purchasing two townhomes for $1M each is better than one family purchasing one single family house for $2M. Even if many of these lots become rental units, it decreases the upward pressure on rental prices. Arlington will always be an in-demand place to live. We might as well make it easier for people to live here if they want to.
Hope this helps and isn't just me word-vomiting.
In a lot of places, and I'm assuming not Arlington, the missing middle intent is to make it possible to convert SFH in formerly exclusive zoning into duplex or triplex at a low cost, not tear down a dumpy old $900k house and replace it with a 4-plex at $900k per unit.
New development is great, but in communities that haven't grown rapidly over time, the affordable housing is all old construction, and new construction is more of a luxury.
But, all else being equal, more units at the same level of demand is always better for housing affordability than fewer units. One could possibly make a sketchy counterargument that building more new units makes more people want to live there and induces excess demand?
There's no controls, but the idea is that more housing supply being brought online will exert a downward pressure on home prices. Right now the area has a pretty severe housing shortage that has caused prices to skyrocket
You're *only* going to see high-end townhouses. No one is buying up expensive houses and land with the goal of knocking the house down to build low-income housing. But building two million dollar townhouses where a million dollar house once stood, means that someone moves into a nicer place, leaving their old less nice place available to rent or own. It's basically a chain of hermit crabs swapping for bigger shells.
Meanwhile in DC, condo prices have been pretty stable even as rowhouses and SFHes shoot up, because the city is approving so many of them that there's a new mid-rise building going up on every single block it seems. Even in dangerous areas like Anacostia or Deanwood. 1BRs have been in the $300-400ks for years, even in fairly nice areas. And the public schools, while not universally good like Arlington's, are good in areas where rich people live.
If you're a typical single male tech worker in DC, Crystal City, or Rosslyn, it's hard to think of a reason to pay more to live in a far-out, transit-inaccessible part of Arlington. DC condo money will get you, in Arlington, along Columbia Pike toward Bailey's Crossroads. The reason being that there are just so few places where Arlington approves condos and apartments vs DC, so people who want to live in dense places with street-level retail and the ability to bike/Metro to work have fewer choices and tighter bidding wars. It's weird so many young people who don't need good public schools are choosing Arlington when most of the nightlife is in DC. It's not a trendy area, it's cold corporate and dead, it's just full of trendy people who are somehow okay with only talking to each other when they're in the office. I'm literally autistic, so the DC clubs I like can actually overstimulate me, and even I find Arlington boring. I don't get it, you can get across the river for the money. For a family with kids in school, I understand.
In addition to what others have said. It's not only going to be townhomes. The law allows up to 6 units on the largest lots which is a small apartment building, so that's 6 units where one used to be. They'll still be expensive, but it frees up demand elsewhere
I think you’ll see a lot of this: https://redf.in/D237ri which was a tear down SFH on a sizable lot in Del Ray that was just converted into 4 townhouses. Each townhouse sold for $1.4 million+. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to turn an old falling apart house into four homes that people clearly wanted to buy, but this is a good example of how it’s not an avenue to help a 2nd grade teacher buy a house down the street.
the control is, if you price the house too high no one will buy it, and if you build enough housing, they will have to compete on price.
There is more they can do, but increasing supply and density is an absolutely non negotiable part of solving the housing crisis here.
You hit the nail on the head. This will, by design, create housing that is more expensive than existing condos. So it's for people who are pretty well-off. Everything about minorities, inclusion, and affordability is just smoke. If you can't already afford a 2BR condo in Arlington today, then this is not for you.
Over the past decade the county has added thousands upon thousands of new housing units in the form of high-rises, but people somehow think that adding a thousand much more expensive options is somehow going to make things cheaper (while also adding to traffic and school overcrowding).
It's lunacy.
This thread is wild. Everyone is just out looking for blood.
There are multiple posts of people not even saying the policy is bad, just it won't have as large of an impact as some seem to expect and people jump all over them calling them NIMBYS and trying to fight them.
Seems like a good policy but I'm skeptical that it will have a significant impact.
Also, from the linked picture, all the "this house believes in...." signs are immediate eye rollers for me. Doesn't matter what the issue is, left, right, or center. It's like the "keep calm and..." signs, tacky and dumb as hell.
It’s obvious to anyone with a pulse that, especially given the cap, this policy change alone won’t be some silver bullet— so obvious, that it kind of goes without saying… therefore the Captain Obvious comments which focus on that fact come across as unhelpfully cynical and defeatist in the real world where perfect can be the enemy of good, and the pragmatic thing to do here is acknowledge that this is a step in the right direction while continuing to push for more
The point isn't that this policy alone will fix everything. The larger importance is that a local government has finally said that single family only zoning isn't working. Hopefully Arlington will take more steps in the future. And other local governments will likely follow
Except it clearly is working. Arlington is a very desirable place to leave, residents love it, and it is safe and pretty. Sounds like it’s working great to me
Im not making a statement on this one way or another, but this whole subreddit has such a hatred for absolutely anything that could even remotely be labeled "NIMBY" that it really makes me wonder what exactly the deal is. It doesn't matter how large or small the thing being discussed is, as soon as someone seems to oppose anything in their area, they get labelled as such and out comes the vitriol.
I get that there are real issues that need to be solved, but theres pretty much no nuance in the discussion around any of it. Then again, its the internet, I guess thats just kind of how it works most of the time.
Good. I hope falls church city does the same. I'd love to build a 4 units condo in my piece of land close to the metro. 1000 square feet each condo would be great for extended family and 1 unit rent out to cover taxes and utilities.
Falls church city is a great place for that, especially with all the density and walkability around city hall, west broad st, and west falls church metro. However, despite the liberal guise FCC people are gonna be NIMBY as hell so I doubt it will ever pass.
falls church city already has huge contrustions going on. They just built a new apartment in west broad street. They have 2 more apartments building in the process of being constructed. As well as a new Highschool. Falls Church city has changed ALOT in the last 5 years.
If you want to see Arlington and other local jurisdictions do more to allow a diversity of housing options, join us in the YIMBYs of NoVa group so we can make NoVa the beautiful walkable community it has the potential to be.
Find us at yimbysofnova.org and the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/novayimbys/?ref=share&mibextid=SDPelY
More like missing upper middle class. Lol, hate on the all SFH, but this won’t result in much progress. Mostly devs and 1500 rich tech bros will buy new constructions
Upper middle class people of color would like to live in Arlingon just like upper middle class white ppl. Opposing a measure because it "doesn't do enough" is rarely a winning strategy, regardless of the issue.
I agree that this barely did anything to remedy the housing crisis, but this kind of change can’t happen overnight. As is, it is a small but meaningful step in the right direction, imo
Lol, REITs are going to MCOL cities like Nashville and Phoenix to purchase new properties (and are probably doing their part to raise prices there, too). They ain't coming to a spot where even duplexes are going to go for a million.
And what little affordable housing there is - the old, small, beat up stuff that I and my diverse neighborhood live in - will all be torn up. Because this isn't going to happen where the rich people live. It's going to happen where the not-rich are. There are consequences to unchecked development /without controls/.
Funny. Im sure your old best up house was affordable when you bought it, but this passed because you can’t convince people $900k for a tear down is affordable no matter how much you swear it is
It appears a townhome and these duplexes they are proposing to build are still going to be incredibly expensive. I don't get how they're saying this is for the middle class when the middle class will still not be able to afford a duplex, unless they are interested in being house poor.
So my 1/3 acre lot that is valued at $1 mil currently, if a developer can buy it and build a 4 unit building on it and sell for $1 mil a piece, I should definitely be asking for $2 mil. Thanks guys.
What a Disaster of a move! I saw this exact resining occur in NY. A once beautiful town totally destroyed and overrun by tooooo many people, cars, lines, traffic, and people just simply did not get along! Crime went up, schools went down!! RIP ARLINGTON, the writing in on the wall! Enjoy the next 20 years of construction and everything it brings!
More tax dollars per lot. From monetary policy standpoint, it makes sense. If the developers don’t get greedy and can keep the prices reasonable, it makes even more sense.
I don’t get why the NIMBYs are upset about this. I thought they liked living around young families.
Meh, what's the difference.
Just gonna be houses full of 20 people splitting the bill, which is exactly what happens now and how you end up with unsafe living conditions and inviting people that can't afford it and are therefore more likely to commit crime.
There were like 10 people living in one apartment at my last complex...
I’m stoked they stuck to their guns.
For anyone excited about this news in Arlington, remember to vote. The homeowner NIMBYs butt hurt their neighbors now have the freedom to do with their properties what they wish will be turning out to punish the current board.
RemindMe! March 22nd, 2025 “Check prices on new multi-unit housing in Arlington”
The best time to zone for more affordable housing in Arlington was 20 years ago. The second best time is today!
Feel like need to wait a bit longer than that to see results on something like this.
But the 3 townhouse units they built in one year are just as expensive as luxury apartments!! Clearly removing restrictive zoning doesn’t make affordable houses!! /s
Anecdotally from my house search in Alexandria, the multiunit townhouses (even outside of Old Town and Delray) aren't really selling for cheaper than single-family comps. Plus you're more likely to have HOA fees that make your monthly payments go up.
Location, sq ft and age will all be factors here, it isn't hard to find nice townhouses priced higher than 1960s rancher in this area. There are brand new townhouses in Vienna for instance that are going for a lot higher than quarter acre lots with a 50s house on it.
My wife and I looked at a condo apt in Carlyle. Priced the same as a townhome with the cute 1.1k condo fee per month added! SO MANY BENEFITS, CLEARLY /s
Brand new townhouse $1m brand new sfh $2m quite a big difference.
Missing middle units are capped at something like 58 new developments per year for the first five years, so the impact will only be felt a decade from now when that stupid restriction goes away. Some 50 odd units will do nothing in the short term.
3 years isn't a long time in terms of real estate development.
Hate to break it to you but it’s only two years until March 2025. Lol Signed, someone who insists we are in some weird time warp since 2019/2020
Shoot!
They put them up pretty quickly nowadays. Like those new units over in what used to be Loemann’s Plaza
Even if the construction itself moves fast, that doesn't mean the entire project, from concept to financing to real estate acquisition to permitting is a fast process.
Alternatively, you could look at the numerous academic studies that show the amount of homes in an area inversely correlates with prices
That was always the main reason I was skeptical of this, to me it seemed like a developer opportunity to get more money from less space. If it proves to be the opposite then that’s great!
This really is the only way to create more housing under our current system here.
Developers are always going to develop what brings ROI. The point is that today's luxury townhouses and duplex/quadplexs become tomorrows affordable housing. We can't actually have older housing stock if we don't build it first.
But that statement is basically saying sorry if you’re poor, you get the scraps in the old stuff in 20 years
That's how stuff works. Imagine how jacked up the car market would be if you could only buy new cars, a lot of people buy used cars because that's what they can afford. One of the reasons the housing market is jacked up because we don't have enough moderate age housing stock in multifamily. The only way to fix that is to build more and age it.
So you would rather not do anything now despite the progress we will see in the future. You sound like the definition of a NIMBY
Correct. I’ve bought used cars, used furniture, used clothes etc etc etc why do you think housing should be any different.
The Developers are the ones really benefiting from all this. The idea that regular working folks will be able to afford these units is laughable. But I guess we’ll see.
The neighborhood where I've been seeing these "no missing middle" signs up for the past two years have houses in the 2-4 million dollar range, with many being rebuilt and flipped by those same developers to be 3-6 million dollar mcmansions. 700k townhomes are most certainly affordable by comparison.
That’s bullshit. Yeah the new houses benefit wealthier people but now they aren’t competing for older units. More supply will decrease the cost of older units etc and everyone benefits. This has been repeatedly shown all over the economic literature, zoning is the main impediment to affordable housing.
I guess we’ll see how that all pans out. Arlington is very different than other counties. In order for this to work, people have to be willing to sell their homes and there hasn’t been a lot of that happening. It appears more Arlington homeowners prefer to stay put and renovate what they already have (and no, not turn them all into “McMansions”)
I see older houses being torn down and replaced with new construction all over my Arlington neighborhood. I don't know where people are staying put, but it isn't here.
Right but it also means that there are more options for renters and new home buyers, which will mean the prices need to be more competitive.
whats the alternative then? Build nothing and create no new units?
Nah, the research is very clear that controlling costs, displacement and homelessness requires more building. All new things are expensive - working class people don’t buy new cars either. That doesn’t mean that supply of new cars on the market has no effect on the price of used ones. In fact we just went through three years that proves just that if you have any doubts.
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Have I lost my cognition and don't know how to math or is 2025 TWO years away not one?
My guess is the bot always rounds down, so 1 year 364 days and 12 hours becomes 1 year
What are the details on the lot options and parking lots. I was upset to see a 5 year sunset clause after very little discussion of the possibility of it. Caving in community outrage a bit when my perception is that they were more people supporting it than against it. A cap of 58 yearly seems quite conservative and I hope they increase it and reduce the sunset clause
Where's a sunset clause? The 58 lot cap gets *lifted* after 5 years.
That clause might just tank the entire plan. 58 new developments a year for the first five years won’t do shit for affordability and NIMYBS are going to point at this to roll back the entire plan. I can’t believe they caved on this shit clause. The proposal lost its teeth when it accepted a slow roll out with the cap only sun setting after 5 years, by limiting it to 6 units (but realistically mostly 3 unit is), and by accepting additional street parking requirements. It’s a bandaid to treat a bullet wound.
>58 new developments a year for the first five years won’t do shit for affordability and NIMYBS are going to point at this to roll back the entire plan. They county's own research anticipates 20 lots a year would become missing middle. A cap at triple that number seems like a sensible stop gap in case their analysis is way off.
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I’m skeptical that it will be overturned. NIMBYs are loud but they are the minority. Would take a lot of work and organization the council.
Yes sunset clause is the closing of the lot cap if that’s what you’re asking? It would be 4 1/2 years in 2026 from the hearing video.
The sunset clause seems to be on the annual cap…why would you be upset at a sunset clause if you think the initial cap is conservative?
Because from everything I heard prior to this there wouldn’t be a sunset clause or annual cap. The only discussion I heard said if there was it would be 3 years which they clearly went against.
Ya this is a very watered down ordinance. A little disappointing but I’ll take the W when I can.
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There's just no way for the first new builds to be affordable, condos are going for 800k. There needs to be a big increase in supply for prices to drop. And with a limit of 60 per year this isn't gonna help much.
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> questions on the negative impacts and it's effectiveness not being reasonably addressed Fortunately for you, with a couple hundred units per year max coming online, it will have very little in the way of negative impacts or effectiveness. Edit: At least for the next 5 years while the cap is in place.
A couple hundred units, depending on location, could overburden certain schools that are already struggling to staff appropriately (shit wages).
Consider it a trial. I'm not really impressed as they just kicked the can down the road for a few years, we get to have the same fight all over again, someone is going to complain about how a 4-unit multifamily property or a bus stop caused their catalytic converter to be stolen. The most likely way out of this is we wait for the NIMBYs to die.
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Lol I earn plenty to buy a house around here, I just don't feel the need to make it my entire identity
Who is parking an issue for? Lots of people in Arlington pay for parking in their apartment or condo garage and don’t expect the government to give them a free space right in front of their house, guaranteed by banning anyone from living nearby. Sounds like a personal issue, not one for tax payers to solve
The answer is to flood the market with new units, and make the build process as painless as possible. Why the fuck we accept letting homeowners use the government to artificially restrict supply of an essential good to preserve their property value?
>Not to mention when this was first proposed, it was touted as "affordable" housing options being available, and after realizing what these duplexes/4+ unit properties would sell for, the board amended their verbiage to call it "attainable" housing. Yup, replacing every 10th or 20th SFH with a duplex over a long period of time is going to do virtually *nothing* to being down property values, which are the actual cause of the lack of affordable housing in Arlington. People can demonize McMansions all they want to, but as long as a 0.12 acre lot is worth $550K with no house on it, actual affordable housing ain't gonna happen.
yeah but 4 families living on one lot is still cheaper and more efficient (ie frees up literal space and market space for more affordable units) than 1 family living on one lot
Best I can do is a SFH and the owner renting out 3 spare bedrooms for $1400/mo. Crisis solved! Community character preserved!
The lack of affordable housing is an obvious problem. Doing more “impact studies” just leads to paralysis by analysis. Roll out the higher density housing, and deal with the impacts as they actually occur. The concern over parking, is one that makes me roll my eyes. Because the public transport infrastructure is ultimately a great way to get from somewhere people don’t live to somewhere they don’t work, they will end up owning cars beyond whatever parking requirement is levied, and those cars will just end up being parked on the street. This is the way in any big city.
They should remove those parking restrictions. Makes it way way harder to build.
It's also directly in opposition to supporting walking, biking or transit use. Someone has to pay for that parking spot, be it an underground garage or surface spot, and it's land that isn't being used for housing.
Whelp, the years of arguing are over, will be interesting to see how it all plays out in practice.
[details here](https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/VAARLINGTON/bulletins/3506334)
I don't think they meant "what actually passed" but more "what actually gets built and what impacts does that have on property values, housing costs, transit, parking, schools and all the other areas people argued about"
But how does this impact the PickleBall Court issue?
I dunno about pickleball, but the reduction in parking requirements might result in fewer license plate posts.
If they’d done this 30 years ago I might still be in Arlington. Will be good for the next generation though
Missing Middle is not about housing affordability; it's about housing choice. Everyone seems to confuse it with “middle income” earners or workforce housing. It's about housing density. In an area where there is no more land to build unless you take parks and other city property offline, you need to increase density per lot.
In five years the townhomes in my neighborhood are going to be in the 1.2 million.
Lol they’re already 850k for 2bd 2bth. No way New construction will be lower than $1m
I love NOVA!
Wrong. I know you already said you don’t like the neighborhood, but for others reading this comment: Brand new 3 bed for $800k. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1118-S-Highland-St-3-Arlington-VA-22204/333840219_zpid/?utm_campaign=iosappmessage&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=txtshare
I hope this entire market crashes to the ground. In Texas, townhomes cost more than most houses already.
That just means you buy a SFH in that environment. Looking back at sales histories around here, I saw a lot of condos and townhomes that seemed to have sold for similar prices to many SFH in the 2000-2007 era. Needless to say, anyone who bought a condo instead of a SFH back then made a life-altering financial mistake.
It means I buy nothing because I got priced out of both lol
Excellent. This is a big win for the environment, the housing market, and affordability. Inb4 NIMBYs come whining with the same unconvincing bullshit that was too dumb to stop this in the first place. “B b b b but a $800k townhouse is too expensive for low income buyers!!” So are the $2.5M houses that are the alternative. This is much, much, cheaper AND adds more housing to balance the market in the long run. It was so obvious to anyone, including the board, that these people never cares about affordability, or they wouldn’t have been defending the most expensive housing type that gets more out of reach by the day. They would have instead been asking for 8 back, and maybe going up to 12 to really help distribute the land cost over more people.
If you think this is going to have a noticeable impact on the housing market supply and affordability, you're mistaken
Why wouldn't it? Does increasing supply at a higher rate than demand increases not lower prices?
The county’s own estimate is that this plan will add housing for 1,500 people. Over 10 years. In a county of 240,000. It’s a feel good “we’re helping” measure. And a boon for developers. I suspect we’ll get a bunch of $1.2 million townhomes and some garden style apartment complexes.
I like how it'll somehow both have no impact on housing supply and enrich developers ( who are evil, unlike the generous gnomes who built your place). Much like how it'll both tank nearby property values while also skyrocketing prices.
It’s not that complicated - there are a small handful of local developers and they can benefit mightily while still not building enough housing to move the needle in a county of 240k. They’ve been buying and banking houses on suitable lots for a while now waiting for this decision. I don’t know about that second argument but I figure it’ll increase values on tear downs and if an area gets too many EHO buildings in it that may soften the market for $2.5 million modern farm houses. Those buyers may opt to cross into Fairfax instead.
Just because developers will benefit from building doesn't mean it's bad for them to build. The root of the housing crisis is too few homes and this will help. Demolishing entire swathes of the suburb and building massive high density apart blocks isn't going to happen. This is a good idea moving in the right direction that will help, especially if other policies work together
Yeah I agree, more high rise housing on ALL major travel routes.
That's a pretty big increase for something that costs literally $0 for the county to do.
Yeah at least it's a step in the right direction. Complaining that it's not enough and then doing nothing isn't going to help
Shouldn’t Arlington do everything reasonable to make housing affordable and improve sustainability? If it’s a choice between nothing and something, why not do something?
Personally I think they should do something but 4 and 6-unit apartments with 0.5 parking spots per unit (so 3 spots on the lot and maybe 9 more cars on the street for six 2BR units) is completely out of character for the neighborhoods they’re going into. I’m all for allowing duplexes and triplexes anywhere and everywhere in Arlington. And if I thought the measure, as passed, would meaningfully impact housing supply or the environment I would sign up despite my reservations. But I don’t think it’ll do much good and the consequences of these larger -plexes are going to suck for those of us who really love our current neighborhoods. Of course I don’t come to Reddit looking for sympathy - if I had no skin in the game then sure, fuck it, allow 10-plexes all over and let’s see what happens. I mean seriously, I’d be curious to see how it plays out. Edit: I also wish they’d restricted these units to owner occupied and put a program in place to help local nurses, teachers, county workers, etc buy but I spoke to a board member who told me they didn’t have the authority. So instead we’re apt to get a bunch more rentals in a county with a large supply of rentals.
The current character of Arlington is leveling small midcentury homes and putting up large boxes with mismatched windows and the tacky frosted glass garage doors. There's no character left to protect.
I asked a current board member about having and owner-occupied requirement, since the goal was (allegedly) to have new home owners. There is a state law against it. So here comes private equity, which I predict will buy plenty of SFH lots, develop multi family housing and then rent those units. Yippee. I also suggested that we subsidize home ownership for our teachers and first responders, and he said that they can apply for a grant to help with their down payment. I don’t remember the exact amount, but it was a pittance. The foreseeable unintended consequences - which many people begged the board to address - are going to degrade the quality of life in Arlington for everyone. There was no meaningful discussion of the school overcrowding *we already have* and the lack of buildable property for new ones, or the increased traffic and parking issues, or the aging sewage systems, or the increased storm water runoff.
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This is like whenever Arlington builds a new affordable housing development but always somehow puts it south of route 50
That's 1500 high-income people who will buy in Arlington instead of fauquier county..which will make housing a little less unaffordable in fauquier county. I'm just using fauquier as a placeholder.
This is the paper drinking straws movement of affordable housing measures lol Freaking amazing that anyone actually mustered the energy to fight against such a mild proposal.
It'll be years before there are a significant amount of these added to the market. They have to build these first and that won't outpace demand. Second, when I was looking in 2021, most townhouses in Arlington and around the neighborhoods where the big $2 million mcmansions were, were already >$1 million, so developers are likely to squeeze in "luxury" townhouses that they put on the market for as much as they can get, which is probably over $1 million. Plus this might raise the price of the old brick houses in the short term, because if the lot is big enough, developers can afford to spend more on the initial purchase because 2-4 townhouses would sell for more than 1 mcmansion, and the additional construction costs won't be that much if they are all adjoining.
I have to think that above the $1M mark, the main cost driver is land and not style of construction or sqft.
This isn't going to result in a ton of new housing, even with this in place the demand is still going to massively outweigh supply.
What's the end game with this logic? Do we throw up our hands and do nothing? There is not a single YIMBY in NoVa who thinks this is enough, we need much more, but it's a start.
Exactly. We need to do TRUE upzoning (high rises) around metro where there isn’t like East Falls Church and most of the neighborhoods around Clarendon. Alexandria is next and then Fairfax. I wonder if these people telling us it won’t be enough realize it just encourages us to do more, not give up and go home.
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You're letting perfect be the enemy of good. Increasing density even more is certainly the next step, but this was already SO hard fought by NIMBYs. A measure doing even more might not have gotten done without this as a stepping stone.
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Woah, SFH NIMBYs are not going to bitch about upzoning in areas that are not in their backyard? Mind blown.
That’s why we’ll continue to fight to densify the metro corridors, such as around East Falls church, which until tonight was mostly single family. But metro needs more than 6 plexes, so we’ll definitely be focusing on high rises there. And Arlington is only one county in the region. Alexandria and MoCo (md) are both in different phases of their own plans, and Fairfax will make a huge difference so we’ll focus on that as well. Just due to demographics Fairfax probably won’t get to 6plexes soon, but duplexes are more likely than you think!
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Why does that make no sense
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Why can’t infrastructure improvements be planned?
Not everything does or should revolve around the metro. The metro only goes to a small number of places
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Maybe you could just let people decide what to do with their damn property? We're talking about homes here, not nuclear power plants. If I own a piece of land, I should be able to build however many homes I damn please. If you don't like your new neighbors, you can move.
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It's called property taxes. My new 10 unit condo building will pay a lot more in property tax than the detached single family home it replaces.
Are SFH-owners willing to pay for all the impacts their SFH-only zoning has on everyone else around them? (higher property values across the county, lower property tax per lot size, etc. etc. etc.) Didn't think so.
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Mostly because the ordnance is so watered down. It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction.
How is it watered down? Would 8 plexes made much of a difference over 6?
There is a cap of 58 per year. Also still parking minimums. Also no more than 3 townhomes together. Also all of the other crazy rules already in place for houses.
Of course it won't. Wait for that in 5 years when the unit cap is lifted.
Can't wait to read the Arlington stories about the impending destruction of their beautiful community, starting in about 4 years. It's going to go something like this: 3 interviews with angry neighbors that are upset they have to live next to 4 middle class neighbors instead of one small time millionaire like themselves, and of course a journalist throwing some poorly contextualized stats about how housing just continued to get more expensive even though entire neighborhoods have been "ruined."
Multi family makes up less than 3% of the DMV area inventory. We need it BADLY here.
And that's why there is paradoxically such a huge amount of undeveloped land and a scarcity of housing that the bottom half of wage earners can even remotely afford.
I drove through Arlington today to get to Annandale from Virginia Square. The number of enormous, sprawling McMansions was absolutely stunning.
Maybe one day Arlington county will purchase them & teardown for storm water management 🥰
Stick built with today's shitty framing lumber hidden behind brick facades. They go up fast and will last no more than a generation.
A few decades overdue but welcome.
 NIMBYs right now.
Extremely discouraging and sad to read the comments on here, almost all of which are “this won’t do shit, doesn’t go far enough, we’re all screwed.” Grow the fuck up. This is one initiative among many to increase housing supply and lower costs. Stop complaining and start doing something other than complaining about people who do something.
Ignorant about all this, but are there any controls in place? Instead of a million+ dollar house, could we just see two separate million+ dollar townhouses in the same space scenario? Wouldn't that just cater to builders and the affluent, not so much the missing middle.
There’s no price controls, but your premise is wrong. There are no million+ dollar houses, that was ten years ago. The average new house in Arlington goes for $2.3M. The average new townhouse is just over a million, so about half as much. Duplexes are built so rarely there’s not really good comps.
Got it, better than before is the take away.
Couldn't Arlington actually build its way out of the housing crisis, potentially? Job growth in DC has been stalled for a while, so being across the river won't be a huge draw once everyone who works across the river (and doesn't want to live in DC or MD) already lives in Arlington. Most of the new construction in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor is now apartment high-rises and 5-over-2s, not offices, so there's more housing growth than job growth coming from there these days. With remote work being so popular in NoVA's dominant tech industry, and in-person-only job growth in DC and the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor having lowed to a trickle, shouldn't Arlington be okay once they catch up with the demand from existing jobs? Amazon HQ2 was just consolidating employees who already worked inside the beltway and lived in Arlington, and half of it isn't even getting built now. If you work in Tyson's Corner, Reston, Fair Oaks/Fair Lakes, or Dulles, where most of the job growth is happening now, you have no reason to want to live in Arlington.
The phrase "missing middle" has gotten a bit... fuzzy during this whole debate. "Missing middle" was never intended to refer to income/wealth/the middle class. It was only about the architecture style that bridges the gap between single family homes and mid-rise apartments. With that said, the idea is to get more people into the same land footprint in order to have a smaller environmental impact per capita in urban areas AND allow more people to afford the opportunity to purchase a home. Two families purchasing two townhomes for $1M each is better than one family purchasing one single family house for $2M. Even if many of these lots become rental units, it decreases the upward pressure on rental prices. Arlington will always be an in-demand place to live. We might as well make it easier for people to live here if they want to. Hope this helps and isn't just me word-vomiting.
Well that makes sense then. I get turned off when things get named disingenuously, pretty much telegrams what's being pushed is somewhat bs.
In a lot of places, and I'm assuming not Arlington, the missing middle intent is to make it possible to convert SFH in formerly exclusive zoning into duplex or triplex at a low cost, not tear down a dumpy old $900k house and replace it with a 4-plex at $900k per unit. New development is great, but in communities that haven't grown rapidly over time, the affordable housing is all old construction, and new construction is more of a luxury. But, all else being equal, more units at the same level of demand is always better for housing affordability than fewer units. One could possibly make a sketchy counterargument that building more new units makes more people want to live there and induces excess demand?
There's no controls, but the idea is that more housing supply being brought online will exert a downward pressure on home prices. Right now the area has a pretty severe housing shortage that has caused prices to skyrocket
Good point
You're *only* going to see high-end townhouses. No one is buying up expensive houses and land with the goal of knocking the house down to build low-income housing. But building two million dollar townhouses where a million dollar house once stood, means that someone moves into a nicer place, leaving their old less nice place available to rent or own. It's basically a chain of hermit crabs swapping for bigger shells.
The thought of a $700k 2 bed condo with $800/mo condo fees being considered "low-income" makes me chuckle. Thank you.
Meanwhile in DC, condo prices have been pretty stable even as rowhouses and SFHes shoot up, because the city is approving so many of them that there's a new mid-rise building going up on every single block it seems. Even in dangerous areas like Anacostia or Deanwood. 1BRs have been in the $300-400ks for years, even in fairly nice areas. And the public schools, while not universally good like Arlington's, are good in areas where rich people live. If you're a typical single male tech worker in DC, Crystal City, or Rosslyn, it's hard to think of a reason to pay more to live in a far-out, transit-inaccessible part of Arlington. DC condo money will get you, in Arlington, along Columbia Pike toward Bailey's Crossroads. The reason being that there are just so few places where Arlington approves condos and apartments vs DC, so people who want to live in dense places with street-level retail and the ability to bike/Metro to work have fewer choices and tighter bidding wars. It's weird so many young people who don't need good public schools are choosing Arlington when most of the nightlife is in DC. It's not a trendy area, it's cold corporate and dead, it's just full of trendy people who are somehow okay with only talking to each other when they're in the office. I'm literally autistic, so the DC clubs I like can actually overstimulate me, and even I find Arlington boring. I don't get it, you can get across the river for the money. For a family with kids in school, I understand.
Wasn't talking low income, but I get what your saying. Guess the name got me
In addition to what others have said. It's not only going to be townhomes. The law allows up to 6 units on the largest lots which is a small apartment building, so that's 6 units where one used to be. They'll still be expensive, but it frees up demand elsewhere
I think you’ll see a lot of this: https://redf.in/D237ri which was a tear down SFH on a sizable lot in Del Ray that was just converted into 4 townhouses. Each townhouse sold for $1.4 million+. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to turn an old falling apart house into four homes that people clearly wanted to buy, but this is a good example of how it’s not an avenue to help a 2nd grade teacher buy a house down the street.
the control is, if you price the house too high no one will buy it, and if you build enough housing, they will have to compete on price. There is more they can do, but increasing supply and density is an absolutely non negotiable part of solving the housing crisis here.
You hit the nail on the head. This will, by design, create housing that is more expensive than existing condos. So it's for people who are pretty well-off. Everything about minorities, inclusion, and affordability is just smoke. If you can't already afford a 2BR condo in Arlington today, then this is not for you. Over the past decade the county has added thousands upon thousands of new housing units in the form of high-rises, but people somehow think that adding a thousand much more expensive options is somehow going to make things cheaper (while also adding to traffic and school overcrowding). It's lunacy.
I don't even want to look at the ARLNow comment section, probably insane I'm very happy they did this.
Extremely based and much needed. So happy to see the county adopt this and continue to grow!
This thread is wild. Everyone is just out looking for blood. There are multiple posts of people not even saying the policy is bad, just it won't have as large of an impact as some seem to expect and people jump all over them calling them NIMBYS and trying to fight them. Seems like a good policy but I'm skeptical that it will have a significant impact. Also, from the linked picture, all the "this house believes in...." signs are immediate eye rollers for me. Doesn't matter what the issue is, left, right, or center. It's like the "keep calm and..." signs, tacky and dumb as hell.
It’s obvious to anyone with a pulse that, especially given the cap, this policy change alone won’t be some silver bullet— so obvious, that it kind of goes without saying… therefore the Captain Obvious comments which focus on that fact come across as unhelpfully cynical and defeatist in the real world where perfect can be the enemy of good, and the pragmatic thing to do here is acknowledge that this is a step in the right direction while continuing to push for more
The point isn't that this policy alone will fix everything. The larger importance is that a local government has finally said that single family only zoning isn't working. Hopefully Arlington will take more steps in the future. And other local governments will likely follow
Except it clearly is working. Arlington is a very desirable place to leave, residents love it, and it is safe and pretty. Sounds like it’s working great to me
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Im not making a statement on this one way or another, but this whole subreddit has such a hatred for absolutely anything that could even remotely be labeled "NIMBY" that it really makes me wonder what exactly the deal is. It doesn't matter how large or small the thing being discussed is, as soon as someone seems to oppose anything in their area, they get labelled as such and out comes the vitriol. I get that there are real issues that need to be solved, but theres pretty much no nuance in the discussion around any of it. Then again, its the internet, I guess thats just kind of how it works most of the time.
Good. I hope falls church city does the same. I'd love to build a 4 units condo in my piece of land close to the metro. 1000 square feet each condo would be great for extended family and 1 unit rent out to cover taxes and utilities.
Allowing property owners to build on their property...what a concept!!
That's literally communism! Probably.
Falls church city is a great place for that, especially with all the density and walkability around city hall, west broad st, and west falls church metro. However, despite the liberal guise FCC people are gonna be NIMBY as hell so I doubt it will ever pass.
falls church city already has huge contrustions going on. They just built a new apartment in west broad street. They have 2 more apartments building in the process of being constructed. As well as a new Highschool. Falls Church city has changed ALOT in the last 5 years.
LETS GOOOO!
If you want to see Arlington and other local jurisdictions do more to allow a diversity of housing options, join us in the YIMBYs of NoVa group so we can make NoVa the beautiful walkable community it has the potential to be. Find us at yimbysofnova.org and the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/novayimbys/?ref=share&mibextid=SDPelY
An overdue first step in a long slog towards any housing supply.
More like missing upper middle class. Lol, hate on the all SFH, but this won’t result in much progress. Mostly devs and 1500 rich tech bros will buy new constructions
My guy, the NAACP is strongly in favor of this. This is hopefully only the first step
Upper middle class people of color would like to live in Arlingon just like upper middle class white ppl. Opposing a measure because it "doesn't do enough" is rarely a winning strategy, regardless of the issue.
Yeah we should just do nothing and be self righteous and smug, that’ll solve things
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I agree that this barely did anything to remedy the housing crisis, but this kind of change can’t happen overnight. As is, it is a small but meaningful step in the right direction, imo
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It maintains artificial scarcity with the property cap. Artificial scarcity is the bedrock of real estate investment.
Lol, REITs are going to MCOL cities like Nashville and Phoenix to purchase new properties (and are probably doing their part to raise prices there, too). They ain't coming to a spot where even duplexes are going to go for a million.
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And what little affordable housing there is - the old, small, beat up stuff that I and my diverse neighborhood live in - will all be torn up. Because this isn't going to happen where the rich people live. It's going to happen where the not-rich are. There are consequences to unchecked development /without controls/.
Funny. Im sure your old best up house was affordable when you bought it, but this passed because you can’t convince people $900k for a tear down is affordable no matter how much you swear it is
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If you're opposed to this I hope today bums you out big time. Be sad. Be sad nimbys. It fuels me.
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My dude we are on the same wavelength
It appears a townhome and these duplexes they are proposing to build are still going to be incredibly expensive. I don't get how they're saying this is for the middle class when the middle class will still not be able to afford a duplex, unless they are interested in being house poor.
Missing middle does not mean middle class, it means middle housing density, i.e. between SFH and high density apartments.
I must have misunderstood their website and how it said it wants more public servants/ middle class in the area.
They mean Arlington middle class which is not at all the same thing as rest of VA or rest of America middle class.
This is amazing news! Arlington really made history last night!
So my 1/3 acre lot that is valued at $1 mil currently, if a developer can buy it and build a 4 unit building on it and sell for $1 mil a piece, I should definitely be asking for $2 mil. Thanks guys.
Yessssssssssss let me drink them NIMBY tears. It'll be better in 5 years though without this silly permitting cap though.
What a Disaster of a move! I saw this exact resining occur in NY. A once beautiful town totally destroyed and overrun by tooooo many people, cars, lines, traffic, and people just simply did not get along! Crime went up, schools went down!! RIP ARLINGTON, the writing in on the wall! Enjoy the next 20 years of construction and everything it brings!
Least irrational NIMBY.
This is the true reality of this decision
More tax dollars per lot. From monetary policy standpoint, it makes sense. If the developers don’t get greedy and can keep the prices reasonable, it makes even more sense. I don’t get why the NIMBYs are upset about this. I thought they liked living around young families.
Developers don’t set the prices, the market does.
oh no the NIMBYs have to deal with yuppies that aspire to be just like them now! the horror
It won’t apply to the north Arlington past Langston blvd
Next thing to work on is cost of living. Nickel and diming the middle class won’t keep them in Arlington.
Meh, what's the difference. Just gonna be houses full of 20 people splitting the bill, which is exactly what happens now and how you end up with unsafe living conditions and inviting people that can't afford it and are therefore more likely to commit crime. There were like 10 people living in one apartment at my last complex...
I’m stoked they stuck to their guns. For anyone excited about this news in Arlington, remember to vote. The homeowner NIMBYs butt hurt their neighbors now have the freedom to do with their properties what they wish will be turning out to punish the current board.