Missing Middle Opponents Doubt Zoning Change's Impact On NoVA Sprawl

ARLINGTON, VA — Several environmental groups, led by the local chapter of the Sierra Club, were among the strongest supporters of Arlington County’s Missing Middle Housing Plan, arguing that creating higher-density housing in areas of the county zoned for single-family homes would help to reduce suburban sprawl in Northern Virginia.

The Sierra Club joined the YIMBYs of Northern Virginia, Arlington Chamber of Commerce, the Arlington chapter of the NAACP, The Alliance for Housing Solutions, Arlington Young Democrats and other groups to lobby the Arlington County Board to adopt the Missing Middle Housing proposal.

Other groups and local activists, though, disagreed with the Sierra Club's assessment of the Missing Middle Housing plan. Their research showed that greater housing density would not lead to a meaningful drop in housing prices. Plus, they concluded that nonstop development in Arlington would not be beneficial to county residents in terms of combatting air pollution, preserving tree canopy and reducing impervious surfaces.

In March, the Arlington County Board voted unanimously to approve the Missing Middle Housing plan, allowing multifamily structures to be built in neighborhoods that were previously zoned only for single-family detached homes.

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During the county’s consideration of the Missing Middle Housing proposal, the Sierra Club chapter, known as the Sierra Club – Potomac River Group, wrote a letter to the county board, stating that “adding missing middle housing to existing low-density development is an antidote to suburban sprawl.”

Greater housing density in Arlington will result “in far more compact and energy efficient housing located closer to jobs, transit, goods and services,” said the letter, signed by John Bloom, chair of the local Sierra Club chapter and Dean Amel, land use issues chair for the chapter.

The best way to minimize negative environmental effects of population growth is “to build more densely in already developed areas, rather than encourage sprawling, low-density development on undeveloped land.” the Sierra Club said.

Other Arlington residents aren't convinced that greater infill development in the form of duplexes, townhomes and small apartment buildings in Arlington will lead to lower-cost housing in the county or discourage development in places like Prince William County and Loudoun County — whose leaders, in fact, have welcomed the booming population growth and accompanying housing and commercial development.

Margie Bell, an Arlington resident and civic activist, said the idea that "paving and densifying and driving up the cost of living in Arlington will somehow keep development from happening further out is a bit mystifying."

Instead of making housing more attainable for middle class or working class families, the increased density in the inner suburbs like Arlington has led families to seek out less expensive housing, pushing them to live in the outer suburbs where their housing dollars go further, Bell said.

Similar to their parents' generation, many Millennial parents want spacious homes and yards for their children, a dream that is increasingly only attainable in the outer suburbs.

"Suburban sprawl has been a postwar American constant, but the pandemic, which pushed many people into remote work and offered families looking for more space a fresh reason to relocate, supercharged the trend," Bloomberg reported in 2022.

Runaway American Sprawl

The rise of Sterling Park in Loudoun County and Dale City in Prince William County, two of the first big developments in the outer suburbs, occurred in the 1960s when Arlington was still in the middle of its own housing boom, including the construction of condos and office buildings in what became known as Crystal City.

In the 1970s, Arlington County also agreed to a plan for major transit-oriented growth along what would be the Metrorail corridors.

Since 1950, Arlington's housing production has more than kept pace with the population's increase. In 1950, there was 1 housing unit for every 3.3 residents. In 2022, there was 1 housing unit for every 1.9 residents, according to Arlington County data.

This growth in housing in Arlington has not deterred developers from seeking to build on more affordable land in the outer suburbs. "New communities, schools, and work opportunities will be created there," Bell said. "Arlington will become more out of range for young middle class families and become a dense landing spot for the well-to-do until they too move on."

Michael O’Grady, a second-generation Arlingtonian, development economist and current PhD Candidate in Public Policy who previously worked for Arlington Economic Development, contends Arlington will unlikely see enough new housing units built under the Missing Middle zoning to reduce housing prices. These higher prices, according to O'Grady, will contribute to prospective homeowners continuing to look to the outer suburbs to purchase a home.

"For the laws of supply and demand to actually reduce price, there must be a glut of new housing, not a trickle. The scarcity of land [in Arlington] plus the publicly available, real-time data on new-housing construction virtually assure that this will never happen," O'Grady wrote in a 2022 op-ed for the Washington Post.

Assuming the 6-plex units allowed under the Missing Middle Housing plan are priced closer to condominiums in Arlington than single family houses, "we can expect them to be priced at least $100,000 more than older units and double that if they’re near an Orange Line stop — which most Missing Middle/Expanded Housing Option permit applications currently are," O'Grady told Arlington Patch.

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

"All of this will immediately raise average prices county-wide, which will affect everyone’s rent and property taxes and lead to housing displacement," he said.

With the adoption of Missing Middle, O'Grady said it's theoretically possible that, "after setting aside a short-term price shock," Arlington County will see a lower average yearly rate increase by year 30 under the new zoning ordinance.

"But this argument reminds me of the famous John Maynard Keynes quote, 'In the long run the market corrects itself, but in the long run we're all dead men,'" O'Grady said.

With regard to the argument that infill development in Arlington is an antidote to suburban sprawl, O'Grady said he doubts "upzoning in Arlington will do much to reduce sprawl in Loudoun or Prince William — especially with the rise of work from home and the partial de-agglomeration of cities."

The people who prefer condos in Arlington are very different from those who move to new single-family subdivisions near Dulles International Airport, he said.

"In-movers to Arlington now are predominantly either right out of college or empty-nest retirees. People moving to the exurbs tend to differ from this in terms of ages, incomes, family dynamics, housing preferences and amenity choices," O'Grady said. "Thus, I don’t see one affecting the other that much — especially if developers and investors continue to believe massive amounts of money can be made in exurban sprawl."