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[quote=Anonymous]https://patch.com/virginia/arlington-va/missing-middle-plan-stirs-lenghty-debate-arlington-board-meeting

It's probably too late to save Arlington from its fate, but MOCO can still take control of the "feel good do something even if it's totally wrong" YIMBY narrative if it can build upon some of the realities being introduced below.

[i]Brian Casabianca, speaking on behalf of a group of Ph.D. economists who live in Arlington, told the board that "no serious economic analysis" has been conducted about the Missing Middle housing proposal.

"The few premises put forward do not stand up to scrutiny," Casabianca said. "The plan should be called an increased density plan, not a plan to improve affordability, equity, or inclusion. ... Developers will seek to maximize profit. The result: The prices for existing homes will be more out of reach for those who could have previously afforded them."

Terri Armao, speaking to the board, said the citizens of Arlington County were misled to believe that Missing Middle would provide homeownership opportunities for middle income earners and would retain and increase diversity."

"We were expecting this plan but didn't get it," Armao said. "Instead, diversity means the type of housing and not actual people."

Missing Middle and Climate Change
Another speaker, Mete Uz, argued the county should take a more gradual approach, perhaps by initially allowing by-right construction of townhouses and multifamily dwellings only in single-family zoned neighborhoods near Metro stations in the county.

"My concern is if we do this all at once for everywhere, that is going to be a policy we can never change, and then we might see unintended consequences, like buyers of a small property having to compete with builders who can pay higher prices because they can spread the costs of those higher prices over multiple units," said Uz, who works on climate change issues as a federal government scientist.

"So it might actually end up hurting the buyers we want to incentivize rather than helping them," he added.[/i][/quote]

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