Arlington Preps For Throng Of Missing Middle Speakers At Board Meeting

ARLINGTON, VA — Arlington County has posted the county board agenda for the Saturday, Jan. 21 meeting, where board members are expected to vote on whether to advertise public hearings on the county’s proposed Missing Middle housing zoning code changes.

The proposed zoning changes would allow the construction of duplexes, three-unit townhouses and multifamily buildings with up to six or eight dwellings on lots of up to one acre in Arlington’s lowest-density zoning areas.

The changes under consideration for advertisement are part of the third phase of the county’s Missing Middle Housing Study, a multi-year planning process on how a wider range of housing types could be integrated within areas of Arlington that are currently restricted to single-detached housing.

County board approval of the request to advertise at Saturday’s meeting would allow the Arlington Planning Commission and the county board to hold public hearings in March to consider the proposed zoning changes. The county board could approve the zoning changes as early as late March.

For residents planning to participate in the public comment period at Saturday’s meeting, the board said that if 75 or more speakers sign up to speak on one item, speaking times will be reduced to two minutes for all people and three minutes for all organizations.

The Missing Middle proposal is listed as Regular Agenda Item #33 for Saturday’s meeting. Residents must identify the agenda item when they register to speak at the board meeting.

Groups on all sides of the Missing Middle housing zoning issue are urging their supporters to sign up to speak at Saturday's board meeting.

"This will likely be the day of the 'Request to Advertise' vote, which sets the scope of zoning ordinance changes," YIMBYS of Northern Virginia states on its website. "We need ALL YIMBYS ON DECK."

YIMBYS stands for "Yes In My Backyard," and members and supporters of YIMBYS of Northern Virginia strongly support the Missing Middle housing proposal.

The NAACP Arlington Branch, which also supports the Missing Middle proposal, contends approval of the changes would put "an end to exclusionary zoning in Arlington, the roots of which are founded on racism."

The civil rights group is calling for its members to show up at Saturday's board meeting "to help ensure that the Missing Middle Housing plan passes without delay and without watered down provisions that will limit its effectiveness."

Opponents of the Missing Middle proposal also are urging fellow residents to show up in large numbers at the board meeting.

"Banish thoughts of stage fright by reading our primer on How To Speak to the County Board for Two minutes!" Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future, a group that opposes the proposal, stated in an alert to its supporters.

The public comment period begins at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday in the County Board Meeting Room on the third floor of the Bozman Government Center at 2100 Clarendon Blvd. in Arlington.

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