Anonymous
Post 06/10/2016 13:42     Subject: Re:Rudeness on Kojo Nnamdi: Arlington edition
Libby annihilated Gutshall on Kojo today. Libby kept saying she's been in for 20 years, and Gutshall says "but my facts, but my citations, but my numbers, but arlingtonfacts.com" as if that matters

We're flooding the Democrat primary to push Libby over the goal line
Anonymous
Post 06/08/2016 07:55     Subject: Rudeness on Kojo Nnamdi: Arlington edition
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:No, both Garvey and Vihstadt favor AH. But they do not want to concentrate it in the western end of Columbia Pike and ghettoize that area further. I think everyone sees the good in AH but cannot agree on how the burden should be distributed. And it is a burden of affluence.


No one wants to concentrate anything in the western end of Columbia Pike except the laws of supply and demand.

Look at the map of arlington's committed affordable housing units and you can see that no one is concentrating it https://housing.arlingtonva.us/get-help/rental-services/affordable-units/



You are full of shit. Look at a map and you can clearly see the cluster on the western end of the pike, that has no market rate counter balance, because the county works to incentivize the owners of Mark buildings to hold on.
Anonymous
Post 06/08/2016 07:52     Subject: Rudeness on Kojo Nnamdi: Arlington edition
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:No, both Garvey and Vihstadt favor AH. But they do not want to concentrate it in the western end of Columbia Pike and ghettoize that area further. I think everyone sees the good in AH but cannot agree on how the burden should be distributed. And it is a burden of affluence.

|
Where do they want to put it, and how will the reconcile the greater cost of land in other areas with their commitment to holding back spending?



Lee Highway and Columbia pike cost the same


That's a hoot.



That's the truth. Buying a parcel on either Lee highway or Columbia pike costs the same. It's concentrated on the pike, because that is where it was previously and there is way less community push back.
Anonymous
Post 06/03/2016 20:04     Subject: Rudeness on Kojo Nnamdi: Arlington edition
Anonymous wrote:No, both Garvey and Vihstadt favor AH. But they do not want to concentrate it in the western end of Columbia Pike and ghettoize that area further. I think everyone sees the good in AH but cannot agree on how the burden should be distributed. And it is a burden of affluence.


No one wants to concentrate anything in the western end of Columbia Pike except the laws of supply and demand.

Look at the map of arlington's committed affordable housing units and you can see that no one is concentrating it https://housing.arlingtonva.us/get-help/rental-services/affordable-units/
Anonymous
Post 06/03/2016 19:54     Subject: Rudeness on Kojo Nnamdi: Arlington edition
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:No, both Garvey and Vihstadt favor AH. But they do not want to concentrate it in the western end of Columbia Pike and ghettoize that area further. I think everyone sees the good in AH but cannot agree on how the burden should be distributed. And it is a burden of affluence.

|
Where do they want to put it, and how will the reconcile the greater cost of land in other areas with their commitment to holding back spending?



Lee Highway and Columbia pike cost the same


That's a hoot.
Anonymous
Post 06/03/2016 17:59     Subject: Rudeness on Kojo Nnamdi: Arlington edition
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:No, both Garvey and Vihstadt favor AH. But they do not want to concentrate it in the western end of Columbia Pike and ghettoize that area further. I think everyone sees the good in AH but cannot agree on how the burden should be distributed. And it is a burden of affluence.

|
Where do they want to put it, and how will the reconcile the greater cost of land in other areas with their commitment to holding back spending?



Lee Highway and Columbia pike cost the same


???
Anonymous
Post 06/03/2016 17:59     Subject: Rudeness on Kojo Nnamdi: Arlington edition
Arlington County and its surrogates for AH pay a premium no matter where they build.

The County paid $30 million for 6 acres of industrial land across from Washington-Lee High School to park snowplows and school buses. You can imagine what the would pay for a piece of dirt in either north or south Arlington.
Anonymous
Post 06/03/2016 15:59     Subject: Rudeness on Kojo Nnamdi: Arlington edition
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:No, both Garvey and Vihstadt favor AH. But they do not want to concentrate it in the western end of Columbia Pike and ghettoize that area further. I think everyone sees the good in AH but cannot agree on how the burden should be distributed. And it is a burden of affluence.

|
Where do they want to put it, and how will the reconcile the greater cost of land in other areas with their commitment to holding back spending?



Lee Highway and Columbia pike cost the same
Anonymous
Post 06/03/2016 14:01     Subject: Rudeness on Kojo Nnamdi: Arlington edition
Anonymous wrote:No, both Garvey and Vihstadt favor AH. But they do not want to concentrate it in the western end of Columbia Pike and ghettoize that area further. I think everyone sees the good in AH but cannot agree on how the burden should be distributed. And it is a burden of affluence.

|
Where do they want to put it, and how will the reconcile the greater cost of land in other areas with their commitment to holding back spending?
Anonymous
Post 06/03/2016 12:14     Subject: Rudeness on Kojo Nnamdi: Arlington edition
Anonymous wrote:No, both Garvey and Vihstadt favor AH. But they do not want to concentrate it in the western end of Columbia Pike and ghettoize that area further. I think everyone sees the good in AH but cannot agree on how the burden should be distributed. And it is a burden of affluence.


John and Libby are pretty terrific, in that they know how to maneuver reductions in affordable housing by making the conditions less hospitable. That way they don't have to come out against affordable housing, which we all know is a non-starter (in Arlington particularly).

Libby did so during the budget closeout process last fall, as this clip indicates. The budget closeout allocates leftover County funds from unspent appropriations. Rather than attack a project that's gone through the citizen hearing and commission process, she raised a motion to unchain $8.2 million from unspent appropriations that had been linked to Arlington's Affordable Housing Investment Fund (AHIF). Then the money would be set into the general pot to meet whatever whims came up later.

True, the AHIF is a revolving fund--developers pay back loans that come from it. But to keep up with market and land costs, you need to make infusions into it each year so it maintains the same impact. It's like a bank that had $1 million in 1930, but needs say $300 million today to have the same impact.

If you can starve the revolving AHIF of additional funds, you can get rid of the liquidity that lets the County take advantage of opportunities. Take VPoint in Clarendon, the stupid First Baptist Church project that brought on the Presbyterian nonsense on Columbia Pike). That was able to move forward and withstand the lawsuits because there was enough in the AHIF to keep things liquid. The financing was close to falling apart as the lawsuits dragged things out. If Libby had been on the Board and had managed to cut the allocation of closeout money to AHIF year after year, there might not have been enough in AHIF to keep things liquid until the project broke ground.

That's however many kids who aren't heading out of vPoint to Taylor or Arlington Science Focus and sitting with your kids.

As for John Vihstadt, his expertise has really helped. If you didn't know, John is a partner at well-respected boutique firm Krooth and Altman. He specializes in representing the lenders in market-rate and affordable multifamily and health facility projects--ones that draw upon HUD, FHA and Ginnie Mae resources (h/t http://www.krooth.com/attorneys/john-e-vihstadt/). He's been around the block, and it shows.

Take the Columbia Hills project on Columbia Pike in February 2015. That thing had gone through County Staff and all Commission vetting, a straightforward process since it was under the form-based code governing the look of new construction on Columbia Pike. The issue was whether or not to let AHIF funds be used to support the production of 229 units of so-called "committed affordable housing".

Yet late in that Tuesday night recess meeting, John introduced a substitute motion that would take out language building to the form-based code's "maximum building footprint", and instead make the maximum 250,000 square feet. This was incredibly smart. By shrinking the footprint, it messed up the financing that's assumed with the Columbia Pike form-based code. It appeared to be a bone thrown to the neighbors, but in reality it was a motion to destroy the project altogether! There was NO WAY that financing could be reconstructed, with tax credits due to expire, when the project had to take a haircut from the straightforward form-based code!

Libby joined John on this, but unfortunately the other three on the board realized that this wouldn't just be a symbolic shrinking but a de facto "no" on the entire project. But that's the type of thinking you need, to attack a project not directly but via small tweaks that can have a huge impact.

That's why I'm supporting Libby. She says the things she needs to running in a Democrat primary. But she's already established a brand as a maverick, and now she has an ally who's a tactical genius. When she wins, she'll convince at least one of the two new Democrats on the Board that the voters want retrenchment. That's 3 out of 5, and we'll finally start seeing tax cuts instead of housing these people.

Finally.
Anonymous
Post 06/03/2016 10:55     Subject: Rudeness on Kojo Nnamdi: Arlington edition
No, both Garvey and Vihstadt favor AH. But they do not want to concentrate it in the western end of Columbia Pike and ghettoize that area further. I think everyone sees the good in AH but cannot agree on how the burden should be distributed. And it is a burden of affluence.
Anonymous
Post 06/03/2016 10:43     Subject: Re:Rudeness on Kojo Nnamdi: Arlington edition
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
If Garvey is re-elected, she and Vihstadt will continue to address issues related to schools and move away from the big push for affordable housing.


Have either of them said one word against AH programs?
Anonymous
Post 06/03/2016 09:39     Subject: Re:Rudeness on Kojo Nnamdi: Arlington edition
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Few things in life are as insignificant as a local Arlington election.


If Arlington fails, where will DC families move when their kids hit Kindergarten?


along with families from Alexandria.

If the schools go, Arlington becomes another post WWII ugly suburb with a split of old red brick ramblers, colonials, splits and assorted shitshacks and dubious McMansions built in the last 10 years to house the asylum seekers from DC and Alexandria.
Clarendon with its bro culture will survive, along with Ballston, now the end place of the downsizers.


Anonymous
Post 06/02/2016 23:37     Subject: Re:Rudeness on Kojo Nnamdi: Arlington edition
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Few things in life are as insignificant as a local Arlington election.


Actually this is a very big deal election. Gutshall needs the council member job because he has failed at everything else he has tried. He is the new Walter Tejada.
If Garvey is re-elected, she and Vihstadt will continue to address issues related to schools and move away from the big push for affordable housing. It is almost a generational war between the people who have bought expensive real estate in Arlington since the turn of the century with the vision of a nice suburban way of living. Now their children are in overcrowded schools, including those recently expanded and renovated. On the other side are the hippies who bought cheap housing in Arlington in the 1970s, the more middle class who bought in the 1980s and 1990s who vaunt "The Arlington Way." Their kids are through the schools and they are sitting on fat nest eggs in their houses. They can afford to be compassionate because it really doesn't affect them. They also hate and resent the new more affluent younger people and want to get revenge by rubbing their faces in overcrowded schools and affordable housing.



I test drove the new Walter Tejada and was quite impressed with its sumptuous leather interior and state of the art NAV system.
Anonymous
Post 06/02/2016 23:35     Subject: Re:Rudeness on Kojo Nnamdi: Arlington edition
Anonymous wrote:Few things in life are as insignificant as a local Arlington election.


If Arlington fails, where will DC families move when their kids hit Kindergarten?