Arlington Residents Protest 'Rush' To Approve Missing Middle Housing Zoning Plan

ARLINGTON, VA — Hundreds of people gathered in Arlington Sunday afternoon to protest a Missing Middle housing proposal that opponents complained is "deeply flawed" and is getting rushed through the county’s approval process.

Speakers at the rally, co-sponsored by Arlingtonians for Upzoning Transparency and Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future, said that creating affordable housing is not the primary reason Arlington officials are pushing the Missing Middle housing plan. Instead, Arlington County Board members want to loosen the zoning laws on housing in single-family neighborhoods because greater housing density will lead to more tax revenue for the county, according to the proposal's opponents.

Adopting the major zoning change, they said, also could serve as a political win for members of the county board, who will be able to say they did something about the county's housing crisis.

"Stop the rush" to approve a flawed plan was a common theme among the anti-Missing Middle speakers at the rally, held at Innovation Elementary School on Key Boulevard in the Courthouse area.

Many speakers argued the Missing Middle proposal — which would allow two-to-eight-unit buildings in single-family neighborhoods — will do little to remedy the scarcity of affordable housing in a county where its teachers, first responders and other employees find it extremely difficult to own a home.

“The Missing Middle Plan is the most over-hyped and over-sold scheme since the streetcar fiasco a decade ago,” John Vihstadt, a Republican-turned-independent, who served on the Arlington County Board from 2014 to 2018, told the crowd.

Rather than achieving the county’s goals of adding affordable housing, increasing diversity among county residents and enhancing the environment, the Missing Middle proposal will diminish all three by further inflating land values, spurring the teardown of modest bungalows and ramblers, and reducing the tree canopy in Arlington County, Vihstadt said.

Back in 2014, Vihstadt’s stance against the controversial Columbia Pike streetcar proposal helped him win election to the Arlington County Board. The board voted to cancel the streetcar project later in 2014 soon after he joined the board. Like the anti-Columbia Pike streetcar sentiment, Vihstadt said he hopes the organized opposition to the Missing Middle proposal will spur county officials to think twice before approving the major zoning change.

Similar to his candidacy in 2014, Vihstadt said he is aware of at least one Democrat opposed to the Missing Middle housing proposal who is preparing to announce her candidacy for one of the two county board seats opening on the board. He declined to identify her. Last week, three other Democrats announced their candidacies for the county board.

According to opponents of the plan, Arlington policymakers have abandoned earlier claims that the Missing Middle proposal would yield affordable housing after data came out showing housing costs would not drop far enough to be affordable to those with incomes under the Arlington median income.

The county now estimates the cheapest unit will be 700 square feet, far from Metro, and cost $416,000; the cheapest two-bedroom will cost $571,000; and the cheapest three-bedroom unit will cost more than $1 million, according to Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future.

In 2020, Arlington began its Missing Middle housing study to explore how new housing types could address the county's shortfall in affordable housing. As currently drafted, the Missing Middle housing plan would be the most significant policy change governing land use since the county agreed to plan for transit-oriented growth in the mid-1970s, according to Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future.

In a report submitted to the Arlington County Planning Commission last month, Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future said that some policymakers and activists claim the Missing Middle proposal should be expanded "to address the abhorrent racially- and ethnically-exclusionary zoning policies that were outlawed more than 50 years ago."

"But adopting the County government’s current [Missing Middle] plans will accelerate displacement of minority and low-income groups and raise the cost of Arlington housing," the report said.

Jon Ware, speaking on behalf of Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future, said the county “should look before it leaps” to approve the Missing Middle zoning change.

A few supporters of the county's efforts to allow developers to build multi-unit buildings in single-family neighborhoods also attended Sunday's rally. Adam Theo, who ran for Arlington County Board last November with an "all-of-the-above" approach to the housing crisis, said he attended the rally to hear from the other side.

Theo, who lost to incumbent Arlington County Board member Matt de Ferranti in the election, told Patch he has not ruled out running again for county board.

At Sunday's rally, other supporters of the Missing Middle proposal representing the Arlington Branch of the NAACP held signs that read, "If you care about social justice, you have to care about exclusionary housing," and, "SFH [single-family housing] zoning is exclusionary housing."

They cited a 2022 Brookings Institution report that stated, "Exclusive single-family zoning was adopted to create and maintain racially segregated neighborhoods and concentrate poverty within particular neighborhoods."

Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future counter that any racist single-family zoning laws adopted decades ago do not exist today, and that the current barriers to housing ownership in Arlington are "purely economic." Missing middle "will do nothing to lower that barrier," according to the group.

"The housing under the MM proposal would ALL require incomes to purchase or rent that exceed median Black, Hispanic, or senior household incomes. MM is much more likely to be a gentrifying force," the group said in its report.

Last month, the Arlington Planning Commission voted 7-to-2 to send the Missing Middle housing proposal to the County Board.

The County Board could vote as early as Saturday, Jan. 21 to advertise public hearings to consider the Missing Middle proposal. If the board votes to advertise the proposal, the board’s final vote to approve the plan could come in late March.

Former Arlington Planning Commission Chair Elinor Schwartz, who owns a commercial real estate consulting firm, said at the rally that Arlington is entirely built out and that it is highly unlikely that Missing Middle-style housing that gets built when a home gets torn down will be sold at a below-market price.

“The plan will result in teardowns of relatively more affordable housing that have more bedrooms than the new Missing Middle replacing them,” Schwartz said. "Renters will be displaced as developers build more expensive units."

If the Missing Middle housing proposal is approved, Kathy Rehill, a residential Realtor in Arlington, told the crowd that developers will seek out the least expensive lots, which will result in teardowns of the most affordable single-family homes and replacement with multifamily buildings with four to eight rental units.

She estimates that the new duplexes will get listed in the $1.4 million to $1.8 million range for each unit.

"How do we know? Because in areas where duplexes are allowed now, for example in Halls Hill, we are seeing teardowns of modest single-family homes to build these very expensive duplexes with accompanying gentrification and loss of diversity in Arlington’s historically Black neighborhoods," Rehill said.

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