President's Letter

Bill Richardson (bill@drca.org)

February 2023

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We are delighted to have Arlington County Board Chairman Christian Dorsey as our principal speaker at the next DRCA membership meeting on March 1, which will be held as usual at Taylor Elementary School, at 7:30 p.m., with a social half-hour beginning at 7:00.  We hope you can make a special effort to attend to alert Christian to the issues of particular interest to the DRCA neighborhood.  Staff from the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust have also asked to make a brief presentation about their conservation easement program, featured most recently on one of the properties in our neighborhood. 

We will be devoting a portion of Christian’s time to your questions about the “missing middle” proposal advanced in January for a Board vote at its March meeting.  This proposal would eliminate the requirement for single-family homes in the so-called “R” districts (e.g., R-5, R-6, R-8, and R-10) throughout most of the County.  There are very strong views on both sides of this question, and there are a multiplicity of options on the table, which Charlie Henkin has summarized in an article in this newsletter.  Among the issues addressed by these options are:

• whether to permit up to six units in a multifamily development,

• how to handle parking obligations for multifamily developers,

• whether and how to encourage multifamily development closer to Metro or other transit routes,

• whether and at what level to “cap” the total number of multifamily developments in any given year and whether to sunset that cap,

• how to address concerns about tree canopy and lot coverage on such developments,

• whether to require minimum area or maximum floor space for them,

• whether to couple such developments with accessory dwelling unit options, and

• what if any design criteria are appropriate for them.  

We will also make time so that you may ask Christian about any other issues of interest, including the upcoming budget, Plan Langston Boulevard, the Nelly Custis-Military Road traffic circle, other traffic issues, plans for the mulch pile site, enforcement of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act, Gulf Branch Nature Center, airplane noise (see the article in this newsletter), and the Donaldson Run stream restoration project.

Finally, I was glad to have the chance to meet some of you on our trips around the neighborhood in the last couple of months distributing our Neighborhood Conservation survey, prepared by DRCA Board Member Amanda Weaver.  We urge you to complete that survey online or return the completed form to any of the DRCA board members listed on the survey (or to me at 2674 Marcey Road).  It will help us update our Neighborhood Conservation Plan from 2000 to ensure that we can be better informed in telling the County what improvements we would like to see in our area. 

I look forward to seeing you on March 1.    

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