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Do you have feedback on proposed affordable housing policies and tools?

72 responses on forum


Question: Is the 17.7% target for a sufficient supply of affordable rental housing appropriate?

Response Percent Response Count
Yes, this target is appropriate. 50.0% 36
No, this target is not appropriate. 38.9% 28
I am not sure. 11.1% 8

Comments (optional):

Answered
47
Skipped
25

Question: What are your thoughts regarding the approach to the geographic distribution of committed affordable housing?

Response Percent Response Count
I agree with the proposed policies. 31.9% 23
I agree with the proposed policies, but I would add other considerations (explain below). 34.7% 25
I do not agree with the proposed policies. 33.3% 24

Comments (optional):

Answered
53
Skipped
19

Question: Should Arlington County residents and workers receive a preference for committed affordable housing?

Response Percent Response Count
Yes, I agree that Arlington residents and workers should receive preference. 66.7% 48
I support preference for Arlington residents, but not for workers. 9.7% 7
I support preference for Arlington workers, but not for residents. 4.2% 3
No, I do not support giving preferences. 12.5% 9
I am not sure. 6.9% 5

Comments (optional):

Answered
31
Skipped
41

Question: Is it appropriate for this plan to address middle income ownership housing demands?

Response Percent Response Count
Yes, it is appropriate. 56.9% 41
No, it is not appropriate. 29.2% 21
I am not sure. 13.9% 10

Question: Should we be using public funds for higher-income households?

Response Percent Response Count
Yes, I agree. 15.3% 11
No, I do not agree. 63.9% 46
I am not sure. 20.8% 15

Question: Would it be more appropriate to address this demand through land use provisions rather than financing?

Response Percent Response Count
Yes, that is more appropriate. 46.5% 33
No, that is not more appropriate. 19.7% 14
I am not sure. 33.8% 24

Comments (optional)

Answered
28
Skipped
44

Question: Should opportunities for creating greater flexibility of housing types beyond the urban corridors that support both rental and ownership options be further studied?

Response Percent Response Count
Yes, I agree they should be further studied. 76.4% 55
No, I do not agree they should be further studied. 22.2% 16
I am not sure. 1.4% 1

Comments (optional):

Answered
36
Skipped
36

Additional comments on the Draft Affordable Housing Master Plan & Implementation Framework (optional):

Answered
46
Skipped
26
David Schutz inside Arlington
May 31, 2015, 7:58 AM
  • Question: Is the 17.7% target for a sufficient supply of affordable rental housing appropriate?
    • No, this target is not appropriate.
  • Comments (optional):

    This question is poorly designed, the responder who thinks it ought to be higher and the responder who thinks it ought to be lower will both say 'not appropriate'

  • Question: What are your thoughts regarding the approach to the geographic distribution of committed affordable housing?
    • I do not agree with the proposed policies.
  • Comments (optional):

    One of the most damaging things the County has done on 'preservation of existing' is the great crusade to remake Columbia Pike into an upscale neighborhood. This has had the predictable result of enabling far higher rents.

  • Question: Should Arlington County residents and workers receive a preference for committed affordable housing?
    • No, I do not support giving preferences.
  • Comments (optional):

    I don't understand how a Federal program can justify discrimination against non-County residents

  • Question: Is it appropriate for this plan to address middle income ownership housing demands?
    • Yes, it is appropriate.
  • Question: Should we be using public funds for higher-income households?
    • No, I do not agree.
  • Question: Would it be more appropriate to address this demand through land use provisions rather than financing?
    • Yes, that is more appropriate.
  • Comments (optional)

    Extracting units or money from developers building new projects for CAFs puts a disguised tax on the cost of the market rate units they build, making it more difficult for middle income units to be feasible. So you essentially are using public funds here, just pretending that you are not.

  • Question: Should opportunities for creating greater flexibility of housing types beyond the urban corridors that support both rental and ownership options be further studied?
    • Yes, I agree they should be further studied.
  • Comments (optional):

    Remember the buzz saw of opposition you ran into when the accessory ordinance went into place. 'Context sensitive' is going to be trouble, when you tell neighbors that their street is going to have the cars from a triplex competing with them and their guests for street space.

  • Additional comments on the Draft Affordable Housing Master Plan & Implementation Framework (optional):

    The draft housing strategy calls for continuing to apply the same mechanisms Arlington has been using to address affordability of housing for poor and disabled people for years and years. These mechanisms are working less and less well - in large part because Arlington has been so successful at making itself into the New Bethesda, costs have skyrocketed and a dollar applied to housing subsidy buys less and less housing by the year. We are putting staggering amounts of money into programs which enable a few lucky winners to live well here, some of it is disguised expenditure because we extract it from developers, and we are failing to account for the quality-of-life disbenefits we are imposing on all Arlington residents by building more housing than the public infrastructure should be asked to support.

    The reader of this response should read two really splendid posts by Cheryl Cort from the GreaterGreaterWashington web site: http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/25760/why-the-right-is-wrong-about-affordable-housing/ and http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/25509/why-the-left-is-wrong-about-affordable-housing/ and a Feb 25 SunGazette letter to the editor from John Reeder: http://www.insidenova.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/letter-affordable-housing-proposal-will-benefit-developer-not-public/article_e221160e-bc26-11e4-a844-7f57310a793a.html

    Reeder talks about the staggering costs of Arlington’s housing subsidies, on a per-unit basis. Cort talks about why this cannot be repaired - Arlington may well, as Reeder suggests, be doing a worse job than other jurisdictions, but even a good job would create only a few units which can be occupied by rare lucky winners, will not adequately address the problem. We are spending huge money for not much return. We are extracting most of the money for provision of a very few affordable housing units from the builders of new apartments, they are of course tacking that cost onto the price of their market rate units, which become far too costly for actual middle class people. This pushes us towards the hollowing-out of the middle here in Arlington. Inclusive-zoning and housing support funds in the beginning had costs which were modest and there were good effects, with time costs have risen and good effects have decreased. But why not keep doing it? There are at least some winners, after all.

    If we don’t build new schools and parks, the quality of life here goes down as our numbers go up. If we just build housing willy-nilly, the result is crowding for everyone. We are all getting crowded: my kids’ high school is going to have three lunch periods next year, up from two. The remarkably gifted Felicia Russo was principal of my kids’ five hundred child elementary school and she recognized and had some understanding of every single one of her students. I can’t imagine that even she will maintain this level if the school goes to 750. Planners at the County seem to see every bit of hard won green space here as an opportunity for some other public use. Our kid sports teams are already locked into a death struggle for fields, with girls softball sniping at soccer sniping at ultimate frisbie.

    We should shift our focus away from helping a very few people live in half million dollar subsidized housing units in Arlington and consider whether we do more for low income and middle income people in the metro area by, for example, improving the commute from less central areas, where existing housing is less expensive and where new housing can be built far more cheaply than here in the center. One of the worst things which has happened for middle- and low- income commuters recently is the degradation of Blue Line service after the Silver Line opened - we can consider separating the Blue Line tracks from the Orange and Silver at Rosslyn, with a walking transfer between lines, this would allow many more Blue trains/hour. Better still, run that track under the river and give Blue Line commuters better access to the Foggy Bottom and Georgetown areas. Now that the Columbia Pike Trolley is no longer being considered, look at enhanced bus service out through the underserved Columbia Pike corridor all the way out to Annandale, again with improved access to central city jobs for those who live there - and better access to GMU for students living in Arlington.

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Question 1 of 5: SUPPLY OF RENTAL HOUSING

Objective: Produce and preserve a sufficient supply of affordable rental housing to meet current and future needs. Preserve the economic and social diversity of our community.

Proposed Target: By 2040, have 17.7% of the housing supply affordable to households earning below 60% AMI. 

Background: Preserving the economic and social diversity that Arlington currently has is important for the long-term sustainability of our community. Current gaps in affordable housing needs and supply threaten our community’s ability to maintain our diversity.

Based on the study’s housing needs analysis, the greatest area of unmet need was rental housing for households with incomes below 60% of the Area Median Income (AMI). 60% AMI is equal to a family of four with income up to $65,520 or a single-person household with income up to $45,900.

Today, 17,000 households (16.4% of Arlington) are renters with incomes at or below 60% AMI. There are only 9,500 apartments affordable to that income group. By 2040, forecasts show 17.7% of households in Arlington will be renters at or below 60% AMI. The Plan proposes to close this affordability gap and meet the forecasted need.

Current Affordability GapProposed Target

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How many units is that? Forecasts show that 17.7% of the housing supply will be equal to 22,800 units in 2040. To meet the proposed target, the share of housing considered affordable includes both market rate apartments and committed affordable units (CAFs). If the private market does not provide units at this affordability level, these households will depend on the County’s CAFs. Today there are approximately 7,000 CAFs in the County.

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