Arlington 2050 is an initiative to update Arlington County’s Comprehensive Plan, which will guide the direction of the county’s long-term community and economic development. Updated every five years, this is an opportunity to share your vision for the future of Arlington.
In Phase One of the update, the county is requesting feedback by Nov. 16 on six principles developed by the American Planning Association (APA) that will then be used to create the Guiding Principles in the introductory chapter of the Arlington 2050 Comprehensive Plan. Your feedback is vital to ensuring the resulting principles are reflective of the community’s shared values.
If you would like to promote a vibrant, walkable Arlington that prioritizes opportunity, inclusion, and affordability, we have developed several talking points you can include in your feedback under each county principle:
Livable Built Environment
APA Principle: Livability refers to how well a place meets the needs and improves the quality of life for all its residents, workers, and visitors.
Our feedback:
- An unaffordable Arlington is not a livable one, especially as our teachers, nurses, and firefighters are pushed out of the county and subjected to long commutes to serve our communities.
- The demand to live in the most walkable and well-connected neighborhoods of Arlington, like Clarendon and Ballston, is extremely high. With a shortage of homes to meet this demand, prices for housing have continued to rise.
- We need a range of housing options distributed throughout the county, particularly along transit corridors, to foster vibrant, inclusive communities.
- We must also broaden sustainable transportation options that promote access to opportunities and meet a diversity of needs.
Harmony with Nature
APA Principle: Harmony with nature means growing in a way that protects and maintains the natural systems, so people and the environment thrive together.
Our feedback:
- Maintaining and expanding the accessibility of our neighborhoods through walking, biking, and transit options is essential to fostering healthy environments, improving public health, and enhancing climate resilience.
- Providing more housing options along transit corridors enables residents to maximize the benefits of our world-class transportation system, which lowers household emissions and costs associated with car-dependent living.
- A key piece of this effort is to prioritize people over cars. Eliminating parking requirements would make way for more housing and allow for more greenspace. Converting on-street parking to bus, bike, and pedestrian areas would encourage transit ridership while improving our outdoor spaces.
- To increase our climate resilience, new construction should improve stormwater management systems, particularly in places that currently lack stormwater controls.
- Infill development should be flexible enough to ensure the preservation of mature trees, especially Champion Trees, while promoting the planting of new trees.
- Housing and transit development should be used to further connect residents to parks and green spaces.
Resilient Economy
APA Principle: Economic resilience means building an economy that adapts to challenges and opportunities—whether from market shifts, climate change, or public health emergencies.
Our feedback:
- Increasing housing and transit options bolsters a resilient economy that fosters small business viability and growth. Businesses who can’t afford to rent spaces or retain talent in Arlington are being forced to relocate to areas where their employees and customers are able to afford housing.
- Enabling more households to settle in compact neighborhoods creates business opportunities and diversifies revenues. Redevelopment also creates construction and other related job opportunities that have net benefits for the county.
Interwoven Equity
APA Principle: Equity means ensuring that everyone—regardless of race, income, age, ability, or background—has fair access to opportunities, housing, jobs, transportation, and community resources, and a voice in shaping the future of the community.
Our feedback:
- Allowing a wider variety of housing options near transit and commercial corridors increases the amount of needed housing, helping lower housing prices and creating more equitable access for households of different incomes, ethnicities, ages, and family sizes. Providing these homes with access to multiple transit options allows people to go car-free or car-light, lowering household transportation costs.
- Ensuring equity requires further investments in county efforts that increase housing attainability, like the Affordable Housing Investment Fund (AHIF) and the Affordable Dwelling Unit (ADU) program.
Healthy and Safe Community
APA Principle: Health and safety in planning goes beyond access to healthcare, addressing crime, and emergency preparedness—it means reducing health disparities and supporting physical, mental, and social well-being as well as mitigating flood risks and other climate-related impacts through thoughtful design and services.
Our feedback:
- The social determinants of health have major impacts on health outcomes and health disparities. Access to safe housing, clean air, walkable streets, and parks for a diverse range of residents only comes with affordability.
- Increasing the number and density of housing near transit is essential to reducing costs and providing all residents the opportunity to thrive in one of the safest and healthiest jurisdictions in the country.
- Maintaining safe streets and accessible transit also encourages walking, biking, and riding transit, which are safer and healthier modes of travel than driving.
Responsible Regionalism
APA Principle: Responsible regionalism recognizes that our success depends on collaboration with neighboring jurisdictions in the region.
Our feedback:
- Arlington is a central regional hub with remarkable access to jobs and amenities. Only allowing for low-density development within blocks of major regional transit and commercial hubs does not enable the county to fully leverage its assets for economic or community vitality.
- Promoting transit-oriented development on all regional rail and bus lines by prioritizing high-capacity transit is vital to the county’s future and deepens our connections with our neighbors.
- Clear, objective zoning standards that provide flexibility for housing placement and types will decrease development costs and guide change that is equitable and inclusive.
Be sure to submit your comments here. Thank you for all that you do!