South Arlington and North Arlington Schools

[Anonymous]

But there's really NO WAY the republicans will push for affordable housing that is geographically diverse and pushing up into areas like 22207 and 22213, is there? Conservatives may be less willing to push affordable housing, but I can't believe they'll push for ANY of it to go so far North. Would they really?

I could see Democrats pushing for AH in 22207 etc., but also accepting more AH in general than conservatives.

I dunno, seems like either way, South Arlington will get screwed.

sincerely,
North Arlington parent

[Anonymous]

There aren't any republicans running...

There are two independents.


If these projects don't get funded - they don't happen.

Mcmeniman has my vote.

[Anonymous]

Can someone condense these 20 pages into one or two sentences?

Does it boil down to South Arlington people thinking their schools are crap and wanting to relocate low-income families to North Arlington? Or is it also North Arlington residents arguing you can be totally liberal, but still oppose any affordable housing if it's not within walking distance of a Metro station or a bus line on Columbia Pike?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone condense these 20 pages into one or two sentences?

Does it boil down to South Arlington people thinking their schools are crap and wanting to relocate low-income families to North Arlington? Or is it also North Arlington residents arguing you can be totally liberal, but still oppose any affordable housing if it's not within walking distance of a Metro station or a bus line on Columbia Pike?

I can only speak for myself, but no. It comes down to simply asking our County and their private partners to engage in best practices, as established by the Fair Housing Act and HUD. Meaning, you don't build new committed affordable housing in areas that are already high poverty (by Arlington standards; we know it's not Baltimore or Detroit). People are going to be displaced, like it or not, as South Arlington "gentrifies" because we cannot stop property owners from developing by right. So those who individuals and families who will live in new committed affordable housing are the lucky few who have won the lottery and we should give those kids their best shot at improving their lives. And that means not sending them to schools that are already very high poverty. Yes, the "worst" school in Arlington is still better than the "worst" school in SE DC, but why would we spend our treasure to give them a slightly better shot at escaping poverty rather than the best possible shot we could give them?

As to who to vote for, I don't know that electing a "Republican" will achieve geographic distribution, but it might send a message to the ACDC that they need to course correct before they lose the vote of this ultra-liberal individual and others like me who have been following the national conversation about race, housing, and education, and feel that our elected leaders need to lead and make those tough choices because it is the right thing to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone condense these 20 pages into one or two sentences?

Does it boil down to South Arlington people thinking their schools are crap and wanting to relocate low-income families to North Arlington? Or is it also North Arlington residents arguing you can be totally liberal, but still oppose any affordable housing if it's not within walking distance of a Metro station or a bus line on Columbia Pike?

Pretty much. Arlington is done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone condense these 20 pages into one or two sentences?

Does it boil down to South Arlington people thinking their schools are crap and wanting to relocate low-income families to North Arlington? Or is it also North Arlington residents arguing you can be totally liberal, but still oppose any affordable housing if it's not within walking distance of a Metro station or a bus line on Columbia Pike?

I can only speak for myself, but no. It comes down to simply asking our County and their private partners to engage in best practices, as established by the Fair Housing Act and HUD. Meaning, you don't build new committed affordable housing in areas that are already high poverty (by Arlington standards; we know it's not Baltimore or Detroit). People are going to be displaced, like it or not, as South Arlington "gentrifies" because we cannot stop property owners from developing by right. So those who individuals and families who will live in new committed affordable housing are the lucky few who have won the lottery and we should give those kids their best shot at improving their lives. And that means not sending them to schools that are already very high poverty. Yes, the "worst" school in Arlington is still better than the "worst" school in SE DC, but why would we spend our treasure to give them a slightly better shot at escaping poverty rather than the best possible shot we could give them?

As to who to vote for, I don't know that electing a "Republican" will achieve geographic distribution, but it might send a message to the ACDC that they need to course correct before they lose the vote of this ultra-liberal individual and others like me who have been following the national conversation about race, housing, and education, and feel that our elected leaders need to lead and make those tough choices because it is the right thing to do.

I would add that south Arlington schools are often as good or better than the sought after charters in DC and had been trending up. There is some really disgusting " soft racism" that you hear from the ultra liberal, white, retirement age, activists who are involved with VOICE. Many who do in fact own homes in these south Arlington neighborhood school zones. Of course they don't have kids in them and often never sent kids to them. They sent their kids to privates or choice schools. They will argue that concentrating the poor children in these schools is fine and their school performance is ok- since they are poor, they aren't going to achieve as greatly as their wealthy peers anyway. The schools are clearing the lowest bars, so everything is hunky dory. It's unbelievable. There was an email on one of the involved listserves just yesterday saying it was important to build another 100% subsidized high rise on the Pike right now, because we MIGHT lose another market rate complex one day...
But these schools are crowded right now and struggling right now. APS is doing an ok job at the moment, but what are we setting ourselves up for?


This is an important fight and well worth having.
You wanna think Arlington is over? Ok...
But where are you gonna in VA?
Alexandria wishes they had south Arlington's schools. They have accreditation problems! ( of course, with this current policy we are headed right behind them)
Fairfax? Go read some threads about their budget issues. No thanks.
If you have an extra 200,000 laying around - move to north arl. But if you are solidly middle class and worked hard to afford where you live right now- you should start paying attention and getting involved.
CARD- managed to get some changes made, but it's only a start. Be sure to vote. The county needs a more moderate board that is listening to everyone, not just VOICE.

[Anonymous]

Yep. The VOICE position is that these schools are "good enough" for families who reside in affordable housing. Where are they on actually improving those schools and getting them to do something other than get poor, low English proficiency kids up to lowest common denominator SOL standards (something they do pretty well, but don't strive to go beyond)? Nowhere. Poor immigrant kids deserve a chance to excel, not just barely pass SOLS. VOICE is focused on packing as many affordable housing units into a few mile stretch of Columbia Pike. Stable housing is a necessity, there's no doubt. But VOICE seems happy enough to feed these families educational crumbs, not the full Arlington meal.

[Anonymous]

Assume the AH has to go on the Pike or nowhere (I understand this is far from the case, but political obstacles may make this the practical reality). Then the choice is between giving these families a place to live or preserving a lower FARMs rate. I assume the lower income families are ok with schools with higher FARMs rate if the alternative is no housing. For those who can afford a house, they only experience the fluctuation in FARMs rates and don't feel the threat of no housing. In a world of imperfect choices, I can see why voice is prioritizing housing, with the impact on schools being secondary.

[Anonymous]

Doesn't the issue boil down to the fact that Arlington schools are out of room and we keep hearing over and over again that there is no land left to build on? So why would you increase housing density anywhere in Arlington (north or south) until you have figured out how you are going to ensure enough school seats for the new families? I don't oppose AH, but I do think the Board is putting the cart before the horse if they pass that plan before figuring out what they are going to do about the school situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't the issue boil down to the fact that Arlington schools are out of room and we keep hearing over and over again that there is no land left to build on? So why would you increase housing density anywhere in Arlington (north or south) until you have figured out how you are going to ensure enough school seats for the new families? I don't oppose AH, but I do think the Board is putting the cart before the horse if they pass that plan before figuring out what they are going to do about the school situation.

They did pass that plan. The plan was passed on Saturday.

[Anonymous]

Or how about this crazy idea = affordable housing = buying what you can afford.

Curtail our affordable housing budget to maintaining what we CURRENTLY have. Invest the money that would have been spent on new buildings, and attracting NEW Arlington residents, into supporting existing residents and AH occupants.

However, that would never fly with the developer-AH-county board trifecta that is currently distorting county policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Assume the AH has to go on the Pike or nowhere (I understand this is far from the case, but political obstacles may make this the practical reality). Then the choice is between giving these families a place to live or preserving a lower FARMs rate. I assume the lower income families are ok with schools with higher FARMs rate if the alternative is no housing. For those who can afford a house, they only experience the fluctuation in FARMs rates and don't feel the threat of no housing. In a world of imperfect choices, I can see why voice is prioritizing housing, with the impact on schools being secondary.

This is the deep philosophical divide. It's literally the billion dollar question, because that's what we are talking about.
Yes, if you subscribe to VOICE's thinking housing is the first and foremost. Giving those in need a stable home fixes The other probelms. Those children will perform better in school and that is enough because it's better than nothing.
They aren't really wrong.
However, we can't house every family without means that wants to live in Arlington. How many middle class families would have liked to live in Arlington and couldn't afford to make it work? I'm sure they'd like shorter commutes to their jobs and more time at home with their kids too.
I don't see how having almost 1 in 5 arlingtonians receiving government assistance to live is a realistic goal. The county is choosing winners and losers in these housing lotteries and it's not particularly fair to anyone. If we are going to play that game, why not set the targets a little lower and do a better job. Provide better services and not screw over the people who are footing the bill, because that is what is happening.
The highest percent hike in assessments this last go around was in the 22204 area code. They saw percentage tax increases in the teens and have the worst schools. These younger families didn't pay 125k to move into these neighborhoods. It's hard to hear older neighbor's wax on about the importance of affordabiliy in our neighborhoods and then smugly gloat that their children went to bishop oconnel and their unrenovated home is worth 750k now.
We all know that the cost of living and housing has not kept pace. It's awesome that a GS 12 dad with a sahm could do private schools 30 years ago.... How nice for them.
There has been talk that if the middle class families would only send their kids to the local school and not choice out ( which is getting harder and harder btw) this problem would be solved.
Where would they sit in these schools that are over crowded right now?
APS is playing a shell game as it is trying to shoehorn in these kids. The current planned schools will still be behind once they are completed.

So the question is : what's it worth to you? Is getting more people who need help into our county worth your kid's education? Is it worth your taxes and monthly bill?
For some people the answer is unequivocally yes. I admire those people. I admire them less when they don't have a kid sitting in those classrooms and they didn't get a nosebleed when they took on a present day Arlington mortgage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Assume the AH has to go on the Pike or nowhere (I understand this is far from the case, but political obstacles may make this the practical reality). Then the choice is between giving these families a place to live or preserving a lower FARMs rate. I assume the lower income families are ok with schools with higher FARMs rate if the alternative is no housing. For those who can afford a house, they only experience the fluctuation in FARMs rates and don't feel the threat of no housing. In a world of imperfect choices, I can see why voice is prioritizing housing, with the impact on schools being secondary.

Well, maybe we don't assume that. I mean, Lyon Village tried to stop that church in Clarendon from being turned into AH, and after wasting a ton of money on lawsuits, they lost. And I'm not convinced, other than the threat of lawsuits, what makes it so much cheaper to build AH along the Pike than along Lee Hwy. Commercial real estate is more comparable, unlike residential, between those two areas. All that to say, you are correct that I am not facing the threat of losing my housing, and I have all the choices others do not. I just don't think we've tried very hard to force the issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assume the AH has to go on the Pike or nowhere (I understand this is far from the case, but political obstacles may make this the practical reality). Then the choice is between giving these families a place to live or preserving a lower FARMs rate. I assume the lower income families are ok with schools with higher FARMs rate if the alternative is no housing. For those who can afford a house, they only experience the fluctuation in FARMs rates and don't feel the threat of no housing. In a world of imperfect choices, I can see why voice is prioritizing housing, with the impact on schools being secondary.

Well, maybe we don't assume that. I mean, Lyon Village tried to stop that church in Clarendon from being turned into AH, and after wasting a ton of money on lawsuits, they lost. And I'm not convinced, other than the threat of lawsuits, what makes it so much cheaper to build AH along the Pike than along Lee Hwy. Commercial real estate is more comparable, unlike residential, between those two areas. All that to say, you are correct that I am not facing the threat of losing my housing, and I have all the choices others do not. I just don't think we've tried very hard to force the issue.

I do think the threat of lawsuits makes a difference. Clarendon proved they will make it cost even more - every time they try to place housing there. It's a strategy that works in the business world as well. Super gross - but yeah.

[Anonymous]

14:44, you made a great point that the AH lobby doesn't want anyone to know - the land values for commercial real estate are the same along lee highway and the Pike. The reason the AH lobby doesn't want anyone to know is because that is their excuse to keep the housing along the Pike where VOICE can shame anyone who opposes.