#ArlingtonVA wins at appeal: can eliminate single-family zoning and allow more people to live in the County

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/06/25/arlington-missing-middle-housing-appeals-court-ruling/ #EHO

It will take a little longer for a slightly freer housing market to provide some possibly cheaper new homes in Arlington now that a judge has thrown a stop sign in front of my county’s attempt to allow multiple-family housing on lots formerly reserved for single-family housing.

Retired Fairfax County judge David Schell (picked by Virginia’s Supreme Court after all of Arlington’s active judges recused themselves) ruled Friday that Arlington’s “Expanded Housing Options” liberalization of by-right zoning failed four procedural tests.

Per a recap in a newsletter published by EHO opponents, Schell held that the Arlington County Board did not start the zoning-amendment process correctly, did not analyze possible EHO effects on such local infrastructure as parking spaces and sewer capacity, should have required a County Board approval of each EHO permit, and did not comply with tree-coverage standards in Virginia law.

I would point to Schell’s ruling here, but coverage from ArlNow and the Washington Post indicate that he only read it from the bench and has yet to post a copy of it anywhere. Which, this far into the 21st century, should be an impeachable offense by itself.

The County Board posted a statement Friday that said it was “reviewing the decision and “determining the appropriate next steps to properly adhere to the ruling” and was “exploring potential options moving forward, including appeal.”

(Ritual disclosure: My wife works for Arlington’s government but did not have a say in EHO.)

Absent a PDF from the judge to peruse, I may be missing some nuances of this rebuke of the partial deregulation of what affordable-housing advocates often call “missing middle” housing–because this category of residence falls between standalone houses and apartments. But here’s what I think I know:

• The ticky-tack fouls called here seem curable with further rounds of rulemaking by the County Board. But that work will not be free, which bothers me more than usual given that we pay the second half of our property taxes next month.

• Schell’s ruling does nothing to stop the plague of teardowns that is steadily destroying older, smaller houses and replacing them with gargantuan, $2 million-plus McMansions that only dual-lawyer couples can afford.

• I’ve yet to see EHO/missing-middle opponents offer a serious argument about how they would slow the teardown-to-McMansion epidemic under the older rules that required lawyers-needed site plan permits for duplexes and anything more dense than a single-family home.

• If it’s a problem for speculative developers to build missing-middle housing that they can then rent out–a risk I often see raised on my neighborhood’s mailing list–how is that not an issue for single-family housing?

• Many missing-middle opponents around here keep describing their opposition as total–their yard signs often denounce even legalizing duplexes. That does not strike me, living next door to an older house now rented out as multiple apartments, as reasonable or constructive opposition.

• Here’s why: Arlington, like many other localities, effectively banned duplexes, row houses, and other kinds of missing-middle housing in the 1930s and 1940s for objectively racist reasons.

• It’s a basic free-market principle that if you want to make something cheaper, you make more of it. Why is that so hard for people to understand in the housing market?

https://robpegoraro.com/2024/09/27/dead-ender-litigation-wont-make-housing-more-affordable/

#Arlington #ArlingtonCountyBoard #byRight #duplex #EHO #expandedHousingOptions #missingMiddle #NIMBY #teardown #triplex #YIMBY

E-ho - Znaesh / #BluesRock

https://soundcloud.com/eho2022/znaesh

#eho #Rock #music #ukrainian #UkrainianMusic #fediradio #soundcloud

Requiring people to submit anything other than a background check to verify for no past evictions removes the “equal" part in Equal Housing Opportunity.

TBH, I can see how the current way that property management is handled can contribute to why many people end up staying with abusive partners/family members. Especially when financial abuse is involved.

#landlords #propertymanagement #leasing #renting #EHO #abuse

Climate Change and Health: Local Government Capacity for Health Protection in Australia

https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/3/1750
#PublicHealth #Climate #Preparedness #Resilience #Recovery #EHO #Bellingen