How should we plan for the future?

Your neighborhood or civic association:

Which Arlington community facilities or services did you or a member of your household use in the last week? (choose all that apply)

• Public school
• School bus
• County park
• Bike facility or Capital Bikeshare
• Public parking garage or meter
• Public safety (police, fire, etc.)
• County trash and recycling

Other:

Streets and bike path

How would you prefer to participate or engage in decision-making?

Open Arlington

How do you prefer to receive information from the County and APS about new community facilities? (choose all that apply)

• County/APS website

Specify which lists, newsletters, newspapers, stations, social media channels or other outlets you prefer:

arlingtonva.us

Other:

More than the usual constituents need to be engaged. The Community Facilities Study public input appears to be just more of the Arlington Way group think. All of the presentations and background was in only the language of the same people that have pushed out the rest of the community out of the discussion. Printing a flyer but no other material in Spanish is demeaning and dismissive; it would have been better not to have produced that flyer.

A strategy for reaching the under-represented part of the community is needed and needs to be implemented immediately. A sufficient amount of the most important material must be translated by native speakers into a form that is digestible to the intended audiences.

Material must be published for people without advanced degrees and who work multiple jobs. These people need to be engaged.

Meetings that are welcoming for people who do not normally participate in the Arlington Way need to be held and advertised on sports fields, south Arlington schools, libraries, playgrounds, bus stops, churches, and community centers as well as in APAH housing facilities.

Presentations must be in more than one language and must be accessible by people with low vision, hearing, or mobility. The presentation at the June 2 Open House was none of those things.

The Community Facilities Study Committee is developing a list of challenges facing Arlington and alternative strategies to address them. What considerations or challenges are important to you?

1) Arlington civic engagement is too cliquish. This is as much a problem for the Community Facilities Study as it is for other studies. 2) Arlington needs to use its airspace. No new public facilities should be under three stories tall. 3) Too much land is used for single purposes, including surface level outdoor tennis and basketball courts, parking lots, and playgrounds, all of which should be indoors in three- or more story buildings that can be utilized at nights and in the winter, especially in areas with other two-story and higher structures. 4) The first guideline developed by the Thomas Jefferson Working Group, which is to improve open and green space as part of the project and which received a united recommendation, should be applied to all future projects. 5) Walkable communities must be increased, including more neighborhood grocery stores, cleaners, parks, banks, eating and drinking establishments, and health facilities. 6) The planning process is too long and costly while still being exclusive. Government decision making is stagnating and wasting time and money on excessive analysis, such as the Community Facilities Study which will only produce more guidelines and no recommendations that can be acted upon. This study was useful, but it is taking too much time to allow Arlington Public Schools to incorporate it in the decision that it must make in December on the south Arlington elementary school in order to provide enough capacity for students that are coming. 7) All of this is taking away from important issues like I-66 widening, retail space vacancy rates, and APS instruction (technology and performance gaps).

How did you hear about our virtual forum?