Candidates Call For Close Monitoring Of Arlington's Missing Middle Upon July 1 Launch

ARLINGTON, VA — Candidates for the two seats opening on the Arlington County Board agree that county officials will need to track how the Missing Middle Housing program is implemented when it launches on July 1.

But the type and level of monitoring of the status of Missing Middle housing permits varies based on where the candidates stand on the county board's adoption of the major rezoning plan.

In March, the county board approved by-right construction of townhouses, duplexes and 4-6 unit buildings on lots previously zoned for single-family homes. For the first five years of the plan, an annual cap of 58 permits for Missing Middle housing units will be in place.

Once the Missing Middle program launches on July 1, the county must monitor the impacts closely, according to Natalie Roy, a local Realtor who is one of six candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for the two seats on the county board.

Roy, who opposed the county board's adoption of the plan, said county officials should create a real-time public dashboard that will show where in the county the permits are being issued, what kind of housing project it is, and the sales prices of the units.

Along with the basic information on a real-time public dashboard, detailed data should be collected and published quarterly, not annually, according to Roy.

“When the new board meets in January 2024, it must evaluate the program, identify any negative and unintended consequences and assess whether it needs to be adjusted or rolled back,” she said in a housing action plan issued by her campaign on Monday.

Maureen Coffey, a policy analyst who works at the Center for American Progress and who supported the Missing Middle plan, said at a candidates forum last week hosted by the Arlington County Democratic Committee, that she is interested in “seeing how it plays out.”

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But Coffey also emphasized that there is no going back from the elimination of single-family housing in Arlington. “We don’t get a do-over,” she said. “There’s only a do-next.”

Julius “J.D.” Spain Sr., former president of the NAACP Arlington Branch, said the impacts of Missing Middle will need to be analyzed over the next year.

But Spain, who also supported the county board's adoption of Missing Middle, said more types of housing need to be built on the 73 percent of the land in Arlington zoned only for single-family housing.

“It is unfortunate that we have divided our community on this one single issue. And there are those here, that’s all they want to focus on,” Spain said at the candidates forum.

In her housing plan, Roy countered that the Missing Middle program is a central issue in the county board race because it cuts across multiple aspects of life and governance in Arlington.

“Far from the isolated issue some claim it to be, Arlington’s current ‘Up-Zoning Everywhere’ approach affects our county’s economy, environment, infrastructure, transit, schools and emergency response,” Roy said in her housing action plan. “The current plan is the antithesis of the smart growth for which Arlington has rightly received national acclaim.”

Susan Cunningham, another candidate who opposed the board's approval of Missing Middle, said the county, in the first few years of the plan, should closely monitor the implementation of Missing Middle to ensure the 58 annual permits are getting distributed fairly and that a diversity of housing types and more affordable housing are getting built.

By the time the two new county board members take office on Jan. 1, the county will have an idea of how the Missing Middle process is going, Cunningham, a management executive, said at last week's forum.

Arlingtonians will have “some inclination of whether there’s a problem, whether it’s exciting and perfect, or some place in between,” said Cunningham.

READ ALSO: Arlington Residents File Lawsuit To Block Missing Middle Housing Plan

In her housing plan, Roy believes the county needs to explore converting parts of the county’s vacant commercial space into new uses, including housing, before deciding to allow private developers to create more housing density across the county.

She also wants the county to review and implement the NAACP Arlington Branch’s March 2022 proposal for a Missing Middle Displacement Prevention and Mitigation Toolkit to “address the unique needs of and the displacement risk experienced by the community in and around site-plan and by-right developments while also helping to address patterns of historical exclusion experienced by members of protected classes.”

Fellow candidate Jonathan Dromgoole agreed that the county needs to “keep a close eye” on Missing Middle’s implementation to ensure new housing options are available across the county, not just in certain areas.

When analyzing the impact of the rezoning plan, Dromgroole explained that 30 Missing Middle units will have to be built to be able to conduct a proper statistical analysis.

In the first six months of the program, local businessman Tony Weaver, who is also seeking the Democratic nomination, said the county will need to “watch carefully” the permits that get pulled to allow the new county board to re-evaluate the program when it convenes in January 2024.

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