ARLINGTON, VA — The Arlington County Board is scheduled to vote Saturday on the county’s Langston Blvd Area Plan, an extensive document that contains a new planning framework for major redevelopment of the street formerly known as Lee Highway that runs from Rosslyn to the Falls Church border.
In its recommendation to the board in favor of approving the plan, Arlington County staff said the plan is intended “to shape the form of new development and other benefits, including diverse housing supply, environmental resiliency, economic sustainability, and safe and equitable access for all users on Langston Boulevard.”
County staff noted it has been engaging neighborhoods along Langston Boulevard through forums, open office hours, workshops, walking tours and presentations.
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While some residents are looking forward to the high-rise buildings that will increase Arlington’s housing supply, others are hoping the plan will turn sections of the street into Arlington’s version of Mount Vernon Avenue in Alexandria’s Del Ray neighborhood, a walkable community with a combination of homes, shops and restaurants.
As for Saturday’s board meeting, opponents of the county’s plan for Langston Boulevard are urging the county board to hold off on approving it.
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In a letter sent to the county on Tuesday, Arlingtonians for our Sustainable Future, an advocacy group formed in 2019, asked the board to “table this plan” until residents can learn more about the effects of “conferring Metro level density on a corridor that lacks Metro.”
“Residents are perhaps most focused on building height caps,” Arlingtonians for our Sustainable Future said in the Nov. 7 letter. “The [Langston Blvd Area Plan] uses the word ‘maximum’ 60 times to refer to what the public, and Board, seem to think is the highest that can be built. Yet the supposed ‘maximums,’ for example, 15 stories or 170 feet at most, or 4 stories by Halls Hill now seem illusory.”
In its report to the board recommending approval of the plan, Arlington County staff explained that several key issues continue to be raised by residents, including building heights in certain locations. Residents who live near the Lyon Village Shopping Center, for example, have expressed concerns about plans for 12 to 15-story buildings at the site.
County staff said the area of Langston Boulevard where the Lyon Village Shopping Center is located “will experience the greatest increase in residents living in a range of building types — including both mid- and high-rise — with ground level shops, services, and other amenities.”
In its report to the board, Arlington County staff also noted that redevelopment that places buildings closer to the street, with parking in the rear of the site or below-grade, “is needed to reduce driveways along Langston Boulevard and create a streetscape that provides space for wider sidewalks, street trees and enhanced bicycle facilities.”
Natalie Roy, a local Realtor and former candidate for Arlington County Board, said in the most recent issue of her EHO Watch newsletter that “perhaps the most troubling element of the entire effort is how it fails to enshrine the specific zoning and land uses upfront.”
The Langston Blvd Area Plan “dangles the new land use and zoning for the developers, but those changes will only be effected upon approval of individual projects/parcels as they are developed,” Roy said
“This is a departure from past practice. Similar to [Expanding Housing Option] zoning, it allows the county to continue indicating zoning and land use at much lower levels of intensity in its General Land Use Plan, while the reality is a different story,” she said. “There is no doubt many residents are not aware of how far-reaching this change will be.”
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