Arlington losing families
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Anonymous
But they would have stayed if they could have bought or rented in a 2, 3, 4, 6 plex in an urban infill? |
Anonymous
Sorry, people don’t move for better schools? I have a $60k private school bill per year per child calling your bluff |
Anonymous
MM could have been different. It didn't have to allow for 4-6 plexes on relatively small lots. It could have encouraged 3-4 bedroom townhouses and required parking and small yards, the sort of thing young families would choose, but instead we're getting small apartment buildings with insufficient parking. Or focus on houses to have rentable accessory dwellings or basements to allow young families to offset their mortgage, as is often done in Capitol Hill. I'm sure that one poster is going to jump in and say that MM is mostly TH and duplexes, but those are all going to be super small with insufficient parking and no yards. They aren't for families and, as usual, builders always build the absolute biggest thing they are allowed to built to eek out every dollar. |
Anonymous
Yet, you haven’t moved. So you’re contradicting yourself. |
Anonymous
That's how North Arlington has always been. It's full of families, but the young couples who live in apartments and condos are priced out when it is time to buy. There are more than enough young families with money, that those being priced out doesn't affect the neighborhood feel. I think every desirable inner suburb it this way |
Anonymous
| If families move, that reduces the strain on the public schools and there are more dinks. |
Anonymous
Absolutely! We had to make the same choice. |
Anonymous
Same for us - I rarely move my car, and when I do it is to take kids to an activity outside of the neighborhood. My rarely visited office is walking distance, as is a mall, groceries, 2 metro stations, library, gyms, just about every service you need. My middle/HS kids have friends in the neighborhood that they've known since pre-school. The kids have had a good bit of freedom from an early age - to go to the park, library, get a candy bar or slurpee - because the neighborhood is fairly safe and kids travel in packs. Our neighborhood still has a good number of young families, although fewer are moving in due to both low inventory and increased prices of the teardowns/new builds. That being said, the people buying the $2M+ new builds have tended to be families with elementary-aged kids. |
Anonymous
Same. We love being close to everything, especially now that our kids are older. I think it’s great if more people can enjoy this lifestyle via MM. My bigger concern with new construction applies to SFHs too - lot coverage & tree canopy. |
Anonymous
Arlington public schools are fantastic. If you live in-boundary and spend $60K on private schools all I can say is I hope your investment creates smarter kids than their parents... |
Anonymous
You clearly don’t have older kids. Good luck with college admissions |
Anonymous
Needed a good laugh this morning. |
Anonymous
When people say the schools are "fantastic," they're usually referring to about 20% of the Arlington schools, pretty much all of which serve 22207. (For example, they're certainly not referring to anything within the Wakefield pyramid, nor most of what's in the Liberty pyramid.) And even for those 20%, the idea that they're "fantastic" is debatable. |
Anonymous
| A better alternative to MM would be for the county to offer downpayment assistance or low interest loans to county employees making under a certain HHI. This would enable schoolteachers, law enforcement officers, etc. to actually live in Arlington. MM seems more like a boon to developers rather than a targeted path to homeownership for truly middle class folks. |
Anonymous
A low interest loan still isn't going to allow a schoolteacher to afford a 1.5 million house. Get some perspective. |