Arlington weighs it future in 11-month study that aims to guide county planning
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Version 0 of 1. John Milliken, 70, who has been involved in Arlington County’s civic life since the 1970s, doesn’t remember when the issues facing this wealthy, diverse, urbanizing suburb just outside Washington have been so stark. For example: →The scarcity of land for public buildings means more joint use of existing and new structures will be required, as well as building “up, under and over.” →School enrollment is expanding so quickly that some students are housed in trailers. →The “elderly elderly,” a new demographic, is growing rapidly, and the choices of the closely watched “millennial” generation — will its members stay or go? — are likely to have the most significant effects on the county’s future. →The shrinking number of commercial office taxpayers, at least in relation to the number of residential taxpayers, and the changing nature of office work could upset the county’s financial bedrock. →The county government and school district need a system for collaborating and setting priorities, not to mention a new way to include opinions of the residents who don’t have time to spend nights and weekends nudging along Arlington’s incremental planning process. Milliken, chairman of a facilities study committee; Ginger Brown, vice chairman; and more than 250 other Arlington residents have just completed an 11-month study of where and how to place civic facilities — including schools, community centers, housing and parks — in the smallest county, geographically, in the nation. The need for the study became evident last fall, when affordable-housing advocates proposed using county- and school-owned land to build homes for families making less than half of the median income. A “restiveness” arose, Milliken said Residents worried that they would lose their parks and that the crowded schools would lose the attention of lawmakers. Libraries, fire stations, athletic fields and recreation centers are also important, residents said. “The heart of [the study] was to identify the strategy challenge which, if unmet, threatens the sustainability of Arlington,” Milliken said this week before formally presenting the 160-page report to the County Board and school board. “Those are the five things that [leaders] ought to hang up on a whiteboard in their offices.” Milliken and Brown saw their report as standing in the 40-year tradition of the long-range thinking that helped Arlington choose to put the Metro underground and build densely along certain main corridors while preserving its single-family neighborhoods. That planning also helped the county to keep stable the numbers of vehicles on the road, even as the population boomed. [Need for public space puts parks, schools, housing in competition] Milliken, a former County Board member, said that despite the challenges, the “fundamentals” of Arlington remain strong. “We have the blessings of geography, a government system that lends itself to unity, excellent schools and a transportation system that is the envy of the rest of the country,” he said. What’s needed now is a “solid plan and consistent application of principles that underlie that plan for 40 years.” The report is at http://commissions.arlingtonva.us/community-facilities-study. |