Clement Favors Public Hearing In Early 2024 To Review Missing Middle

ARLINGTON, VA — The Arlington County Board's unanimous approval of the Missing Middle Housing plan in March was one of the main topics of discussion at the first candidates' forum for the two seats opening on the county board.

Hosted by the Arlington County Civic Federation, the Sept. 5 forum gave the four candidates on the November ballot for county board many opportunities to express their views on the county’s new zoning policy that allows by-right development of duplexes, townhomes and multifamily dwellings with up to six units in areas of Arlington that were previously zoned only for single-family housing.

The most direct question about Missing Middle came from an audience member, who stated the first couple dozen Missing Middle Housing permit applications under review by the county are already showing the potential drawbacks of the policy highlighted by its opponents.

After examining the details of the permit applications, the audience member, Rick Epstein of the Arlington Forest neighborhood, said several of the Missing Middle, or Expanding Housing Option, applications submitted so far will likely cause the loss of moderately priced family homes, six-unit buildings getting shoehorned into narrow streets with related parking, traffic and safety problems, and a loss of tree canopy.

If elected to the Arlington County Board, Epstein asked the candidates if they would support the county board holding a public hearing in early 2024 to review the Expanding Housing Option program and consider making adjustments to it.

Audrey Clement, an independent candidate for Arlington County Board, was the first to answer and the only candidate to directly respond to the question.

“Yes, a forum next year to discuss alternative solutions to Missing Middle would be on the top of my agenda if elected,” Clement said.

RELATED: 6-Plexes, Townhomes Among 1st Missing Middle Applications In Arlington

In response to proponents of the Missing Middle Housing plan, including the YIMBYs of Northern Virginia, Clement explained her campaign is not saying “no” to a new housing policy for the county. “I’m saying that yes, affordable housing is a crisis and yes, there are reasonable solutions and I want to hear about them,” she said.

If elected to the county board, though, Clement said she would urge the board to scrap the Missing Middle Housing ordinance. She described the zoning reform as a policy that will not redress the effects of exclusionary zoning based on race and will not provide starter homes for moderate income residents.

“Missing Middle will inflate land value and real estate taxes, drive out existing minority residents, accelerate gentrification of Arlington neighborhoods, increase school overcrowding and exacerbate flooding and tree canopy loss,” she argued.

Since July 1, when it started accepting Missing Middle applications, the county has received permit applications seeking to build 27 multifamily buildings totaling 106 units on what are now single-family lots.

These include nine 6-plexes, one 5-plex, three 4-plexes, seven 3-plexes, and seven duplexes. The nine permit applications in the R-5 zones already exceeds the annual allotment of seven EHO permits.

An annual cap of up to 58 permits for Missing Middle housing, spread out by zoning district across Arlington, is calendar year-based and will get reset at the end of 2023.

Juan Carlos Fierro, a Republican nominee for one of the two seats opening on the board, did not say whether he would support a public hearing in early 2024.

At the candidates' forum, Fierro did say he opposed the county's approval of Missing Middle and said the county needs more data on the impacts of the new zoning policy. He also emphasized that Missing Middle doesn’t have anything to do with affordable housing.

The two Democratic nominees for county board — Maureen Coffey and Susan Cunningham — did not say whether they would support the county board holding a public hearing in early 2024.

Cunningham, who ran as an anti-Missing Middle candidate during the Democratic primary for county board in June, said monitoring the effects of Missing Middle housing will need to be a multiyear effort as the permit applications get approved and construction begins. The county will then need to study at what price point people buy the new units.

READ ALSO: Fairfax Co. Candidate Vows To Keep Out Arlington-Style Missing Middle

If elected to the board, Cunningham called for a “bigger conversation” about Missing Middle.

The issue of lot coverage limits, which got skipped over during the county’s passage of Missing Middle, is one issue that should be looked at closely in early 2024, Cunningham added.

Coffey, who won the Democratic primary with strong backing from the YIMBYs of Northern Virginia and other pro-Missing Middle groups, said she would be open to a “public conversation” about Expanded Housing Options and in which zoning districts developers are seeking to build them.

“I don’t think this is something that anyone, even the best policy minds of our day and age, can get right on the first go,” Coffey said about the end to single-family zoning in Arlington.

While she did not express support for a public hearing, Coffey said the county needs to be "open to feedback and criticism … because I think this is going to be an ongoing conversation."

The four candidates are running to fill two seats. Both Arlington County Board Chair Christian Dorsey and former board member Katie Cristol, strong supporters of the Missing Middle Housing plan, chose not to run for re-election in 2023. Cristol left the county board in early July 2023 to take a job heading a new public-private partnership in the Tysons area.

The first day of in-person early voting in the general election is Sept. 22. On Tuesday, Nov. 7, Election Day, all Arlington polling places will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.

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