Meeting Notes – November 8, 2023

Minutes of the November 8, 2023 Yorktown Civic Association General Membership Meeting

On November 8, 2023, the Yorktown Civic Association held a general meeting at Yorktown High School.

Welcome Remarks (Mike Cantwell)

• Thank you for coming
• Introducing two special guests:
  • Gillian Burgess, a member of YIMBYs of Arlington, the County’s Fiscal Affairs Advisory Commission; a Cherrydale resident and active in their civic association; and a bicycle advocate.
  • Charlie Henkin, a member of Arlingtonians for a Sustainable Future (“ASF”); lives near Marymount/Donaldson Run Pool; on the Donaldson Run Executive Committee,

Summarize EHO & LBAP (Mike Cantwell)

• Langston Boulevard background
  • Lee Highway Alliance started a decade ago, and this was the beginning of planning for the now Langston Boulevard Area Plan.
  • LHA/LBA made up of civic associations, businesses, and other groups. Since 2019, they’ve been in the Langston Boulevard planning stage.  County staff have been at work—plan is just that, not an exact blueprint for the future.  Virginia is a very strong property rights state, so many things in the plan are just things that people may decide to do
• MM/EHO Background
  • Many of you have followed this, spoke to county board members, and spoke at county board meetings.
  • Several groups stood up during this period
    • YIMBYs of NOVA
    • Arlingtonians for a Sustainable Future (ASF)
    • Arlingtonians for Upzoning Transparency (“AFUT”)
  • MM/EHO information is available on the county website.
  • On Saturday, Nov. 11, the County Board will listen to public comment and vote on the LBAP. It is likely to pass.
  • The Yorktown Civic Association has been gathering information from residents from 25^th Road N. area, so what we’ve been doing is engaging with the county board members and the county staff members to eliminate that road being depicted in drawings/roads, in favor of a pedestrian/bike path. We don’t know at this point how they’ll vote on that piece but we are cautiously optimistic an amendment to modify the plan will pass

EHO/LBAP Debate between Gillian Burgess and Charlie Henkin

• Charlie Henkin: Thank you Mike and Gillian. Yorktown is equally my favorite place to be besides Donaldson Run.
  • I am largely negative on the current LBAP.
  • From 10,000 feet, it seeks to inject a metro type corridor into a car-type corridor. It relies on private investment for many parts of the plan, without increased county expenditures. Further, it’s going to result in small rental units—2 bedrooms or smaller.  The CAF (ph) assume 800 square foot apartments; that differs from the Plan (p. 60) which says there should be a focus on other types of units.
  • With respect to affordable housing, they’re rather anemic numbers. According to the plan, the county will not meet its affordable housing goals until 2070
  • By 2040, the drop in % in affordable housing is 40% compared to today.
  • There will be economic gentrification.
  • And Mike Cantwell already mentioned the cut-throughs (a reference to 25^th Road N.), which we’re opposed to.
  • Quality of life will also be impacted. A loss of human scale, parks would be crowded and unpleasant, “canyonization,” traffic jams during rush hour, loss of auto access to shopping. Lots of underground parking—who enjoys parking at the Clarendon Trader Joe’s garage?
  • Also, private investment for what should be public—stormwater management, for example. Same with parking.  Example of Lyon Village.
  • The county should implement stormwater remediation rather than put it on private landowners
  • Charlie stated that he lives pedestrian/bicycle options, but bicycle along all 6 miles is silly, no need to push out cars.
• Gillian Burgess: Thank you.
  • Going without notes—I love the civic associations and talk with neighbors. That’s why I support LBAP—it’s something we’ve been talking about for years, first from the Cherrydale Civic Association and then I got involved with LHA/LBA.
  • Why did we push so hard on this? Without it, what we saw, is that private development will be coming in without an overall vision for what the vision should look like.
  • Take, for example, Bergmann’s Cleaners—what is now Mom’s—leaders before me saw that this was on its way. In Cherrydale, we’ve seen the benefits from our plan.  Take the area by the Safeway in Cherrydale with apartments and townhouses.  Those areas showed people what development can look like versus the Bergmann’s Cleaners site which is a bit of a mess.  Lots of feelings and uncivil meetings. This issue ultimately led to people coming together and coming up with a vision.
  • LHA realized if it was volunteer-based, it wasn’t going to get the attention of the county. If county staff was involved, they can do it the right way.   There were charettes, meetings, workshops, very hands-on things.  We looked at individual intersections and businesses.  We did neighborhood walk-throughs.  It’s very exciting for those of us who were in those meetings.  I don’t support everything in the plan, but it’s a compromise from what they’ve heard from so many people.
  • And, yes, they’re larger buildings but like we’re seeing Cherrydale. It’s reallocating the workspace.  And they don’t propose putting bicycle lanes on the whole length.
  • We do need housing that’s affordable for everyone but fits in between what people can buy new today and people who are low/moderate income persons. We just need more stock.
  • It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s a step in the right direction and it’s a compromise.
  • On the 25^th Road N. – take a look at 12^th Road South – a lot of discussion in getting motorists out of there.
  • Rebutting Charlie: he is correct that this doesn’t have enough affordable units. But when you talk with staff about why there’s not enough affordable housing, it’s because of heights.  They could subsidize rent, but a lot of people are not comfortable with, and Arlington doesn’t do much of this. Or they could incentivize developers to build more—let them build more, enough so where the math has to work out for them.  To get more affordable units, we have to build taller.  Some people wanted more height.  I think this plan is a fair compromise.  Some people didn’t want more than 7 or 10 stories; lots of complications on where it’s higher or lower.
• Charlie’s Rebuttal
  • With respect to the process and incorporation of various charettes, etc. LHA was very modest when it first started then what it ended up with.  I happen to disagree with the vision that was arrived at because it was taking that Metro corridor with lots of height and imposing it here.
  • Regarding biking, in general, having local bike access to the activity nodes is terrific. Taking Kirkwood to Veitch and taking 6 lanes to 4 lanes without a traffic study is stupid and that would be a mess.    I know we’re going to lose some bicycle advantage—too bad, that’s our position.
  • In terms of fitting into Missing Middle, this idea is that these rental units would be rental units. So if you want to have a bunch of rental people coming in, that’s fine but it’s not an ownership benefit.
  • In terms of heights, the height increased between June and September. The developers will want more height to do anything.

DEBATE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

• Renee: I’m not sure which group is focused on MM, because you both alluded to affordable housing. Some people just want to rent because of whatever reason; that said, I’d like your opinion on MM.  The question is about the developers who want to come into the neighborhoods and build mixed-use units in the middle of a neighborhood; to me, that’s bigger of an issue in terms of looking like parking, sewers, runoff, etc. [Mike summary: what do you think of MM?] Which side is pro-MM and why?
• Gillian: I’m here with YIMBYs—we support EHO. Why?  Because it provides a diversity of housing options.  I live literally in the middle of a bunch of sorts of housing, especially north of Langston Blvd.  Lots of townhomes, duplexes, etc.  We’ve had teachers, nurses, military.  When I go into the neighborhoods, it’s older people who bought a long time ago OR people in high-paying private sector jobs.  So, I’d like more diversity of housing stock, because north of Langston there aren’t more corridors.  And it’s more sustainable to live in a denser way.
• Charlie
  • ASF’s position is that Missing Middle was the wrong approach. It was a county-wide exception to single-family homes.
  • It’s throwing the door open to developers to may or may not achieve the objectives that were proposed—equity, at one point, more people of color, but that went away.
  • Be careful of the consequences of what they asked for. As you know on July 1, it will go year by year, 58 lots per year.  In the first fourth months, we’ve had 24-25 projects, none of them are on the larger blocs that was the intent of the County Board.  At least half of them are sixplexes located on those smaller lots, R-5/R-6.
• James Churbuck: Do you know how many units will be zoned for high-rises? How many will be inside the zone or bordering it?
  • Charlie: I don’t know—my impression is that the effect upon people on single-family homes that will be taken over by highrises, I don’t think that will be dominant effect. I think the effect will be commercial.  The dominant effect will be transitions from these commercial high-rises proposed to the low-density single-family homes
  • Gillian: I don’t know the number either, but my lot is in the Cherrydale district. There’s no zoning change, to be very clear.  If you own a lot that happens to be in the Plan, what happens is that you won’t be able to build EHO on it.  So you still own it, unless the County claims eminent domain (very unlikely, but they could).  If a developer wants to build on it, they will probably reward you handsomely.
  • Charlie: My impression—if you own a SFH and it’s within an area that would be part of a highrise, that can be a MM home
  • Gillian: Disagree, this was our situation.
• Mehul Vora: If there’s one thing about the change, what would you change?
  • Gillian: Everyone I talk to agrees: this Plan has the opportunity to double the width of the Custis Trail. And without any more pavement.  We can continue widened length from Oak to Veitch Street.  Also, we do know the traffic counts on Langston.
  • Charlie:
    • We don’t know the most recent traffic counts as compared to I-66.
    • I would change—I would adopt the position of the Langston Citizens’ Association at 4-5 stories and work around that. But don’t make it a canyon.
• Christine Purka: If the Plan passes, how do the developers…what’s the process?  What is a developer to do to make sure that vision is holistic?
  • Gillian: If a developer comes along and comes along with something aligning with the plan, they get an easier route through the site plan process. Recently, with the Marriott, it took very long and it was a very hard process.  So this Plan makes it easier and more predictable.  It’s what we’ve seen with Columbia Pike.
  • Charlie
    • The inverse of that is that it makes it more difficult for citizens to engage. Already today with the limitations in existence, and with the facilitations under the Plan, the ability for citizens to object will decrease because the presumption will be that it will pass.
    • The other thing, there is a concern that the county staff has not been able to answer to us yet. We have Site Plan A, B, C, D, and pretty soon you get eaten up with these little pieces without looking at the overarching plan.
  • Gillian: The public comment process still exists. It is defined by statute.  There will still be a lot of opportunities for public comment.
• Man in Back[1]: What’s going on with Johnny’s?
  • Mike Cantwell: The Garden City Shopping Center is within the LBAP, but it’s all up to the individual owners of that site and from what I know, there are 13 individual owners of the GCSC
  • Man in Back: It’s an eyesore. Can anyone explain to me? Langston Boulevard is for cars.  I’ve walked it a few times.  I’m in favor of lower speeds.  I’m not hearing about how to get from one bus stop to another across Langston.  The crosswalks – I call them “sarcastic design.”  What can we do to improve it?
  • Gillian: There’s a number of committees who work to improve these things.
• Kurt [not sure last name]: I have a question about the road. How much pull does the county have on a state road?  What happens if that devolves?
  • • Charlie: VDOT owns the road. The county staff say they’re working with them…but that’s a bunch of fluff.  The expert working with us, says there’s too much traffic, emergency evacuation issue, so the obstacles to adopting the changes that I don’t think are advisable are substantial.  I suspect the county’s vision won’t be working for them in this respect.
    • Gillian: We’ve found that VDOT has deferred to the county; at National Landing, for example. VDOT has studied this and has a plan about bringing down to 25 MPH.

Arlington Neighborhood Plan Project (Dave Haring)

• [Provides handout]
• Two years ago, the civic association voted to affirm its support for advancing a sidewalk project east of George Mason on 25^th Place, Emerson Street, and 25^th The staff has been working on it for two years—lots of turnover—we’ve done the surveys, measuring, these detailed things, and we think we know what we can do.  60% of the homeowners within the project area have to approve the plan and the civic association has to affirm its support.  Then the Arlington Neighborhood Program has to approve the project and the County Board has to approve.  So we put in a big scope—several blocks—and the staff and has said it’s too big, too expensive, and the first petition drops off as you go east of Emerson on 25^th Road toward Columbus.  We wanted this scope because this would complete the entire sidewalk network, which would affirm a county’s policy to have a sidewalk on at least one side of the street.
• Basically, we’re informing the civic association that the staff says this project is too large, and we basically have to narrow its scope. David and Leslie Hume are the longstanding block captains and they have to start again.
• Basically, the scope has narrowed. No action tonight.  I don’t think the civic association is going to be asked again.  But when the formal survey process is started again, there will be a process to vote again by certified mail.
• Question from unidentified attendee: How is this done?
  • David Haring:
    • We’ve done this before through this program; 27^th Street west of George Mason, for example. County really doesn’t get into the property line, but it does get into the street.  They’re typically 5 feet for ADA purposes.
    • Greenbrier St. near football field, it took 15 years and was very expensive, but the result was great.
    • This particular project will be at least $1 million, but that includes issues with stormwater and underground utilities.
  • Man in Back: [Offers suggestions how to figure out which sidewalks are best used].

Membership (Caryn Wagner)

• We’re trying to reconcile our lists and figure out who our annual members and lifetime members. All of this is part of a project to increase our membership.
• We have around 1,050 properties and only about 8% are members of the civic association in good standing at this moment. There’s another 6-7% have been members but are no longer current or haven’t updated their membership.
• I’ve also been trying to capture email information.
• Ideally, the reason we want membership is to better underwrite our efforts to reach out to you.
• $20 annual/$100 lifetime – go to yorktowncivic.org. In the old days, you’d have to mail us a check, but there’s now a PayPal link.  There is also a Facebook page and there’s a Nextdoor presence.
• Newsletter interest – ideas for stories, filling content, and increasing membership will be one way to get that done.
• Mike Cantwell: Another way to offset the costs of the newsletter is by selling ads to appear in the newsletter.
• Renee: I get where the dues will pay for things like the website, etc. – what’s the value proposition for joining?
  • Mike: Another thing we hope to get revived, our fall festival, our spring festival. The YCA budget will help to support these events. Communicating with the community is what we do, interfacing with the county board and the county staff, that’s all very time-intensive.  We are in a negative cash flow situation.  And not everyone is on Facebook or Nextdoor.
  • Caryn: Voting is only available for members in good standing.

Goals for 2024 (Mike Cantwell)

• Updating our bylaws. We have to advertise them at the meeting and then vote on the new bylaws.
• Neighborhood plan. It’s basically our vision for the community and having an updated neighborhood plan gives us extra points for these neighborhood projects.  Some of you may have received surveys on this.

New Business (All)

• James: Reminded everyone that Virginia changed its law. Previously, vehicles were required to yield to pedestrians in cross walks.  Now they have to stop for pedestrians.  If you are a person walking across an intersection, people are supposed to stop for you.  If you are driving, you have to stop for them.  Whatever side of the equation you’re on, make eye contact.
  • Mike: I take a lot of walks and live on George Mason and was walking through Rock Spring Park and I had to cross a total of four crosswalks. I was in the middle of a crosswalk and a car went right by me.
  • James: Let’s call these near-hits, not near-misses.
  • Mehul: We had two hits on my block—two cars at Jefferson & 26^th and then a car ran into a lawn service trailer while driving into the sun.
  • Man in Back: These pedestrian crosswalks aren’t always reliable. On Little Falls between Harrison and another street, 2500 cars.  And then someone quipped “we didn’t used to put paint on the road in Arlington.”  As part of new business, I am anxious backing out of my drive when school is in session.  I reached out to various people and they weren’t very helpful.
  • Mike Cantwell speaks with Mr. Boswell and the Boswell family about proposed sidewalk project near his house. He informs Boswell family that this topic will be taken up at next meeting.

[1] An attendee declined to give his name and this notetaker has attempted to capture the essence of his questions.  He is identified here as “Man in Back.”