Anonymous wrote:Pausing to note upside of this thread: It's constructive! No one is salivating at the idea of another school's demise like the MONAs are on the other one. Damn.

Just name calling, threats, fighting about house values, which school should get which neighborhood... let’s not pat ourselves on our backs too hard.

Anonymous wrote:That area was Vietnamese at the time I think. It became Latino immigrants became mostly Latino.
There are also more working/lower class whites living in south Arlington.
They have been mostly gentrified out.

I looked up the numbers for the 1980 census, for census tract 1027 (western Douglas park, including Barcroft apts.) There were 16 people of Vietnamese descent living in that tract in 1980.
85% white, 10% black, 4% "Spanish origin." My hunch is that it was largely populated by singles, since less than 8% of the population was elementary school aged.
Anyway, not to be a Pollyanna, but it's hard to predict what the area will look like in 20 years, or who will live there and why, if they'll have children, etc.

Pausing to note upside of this thread: It's constructive! No one is salivating at the idea of another school's demise like the MONAs are on the other one. Damn.

That area was Vietnamese at the time I think. It became Latino immigrants became mostly Latino.
There are also more working/lower class whites living in south Arlington.
They have been mostly gentrified out.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is all directly related to schools. If these areas get more and better retail, local homes increase in value and wealthier families move in. And, maybe someday, pretty please, the slumlords that own barcroft apartments and other low income apartments along the central and western pike will sell and someone will bring higher end residences. Please!!!! We need some income diversity along the Pike.

I’m sorry, but my home’s value is quite high thank you very much.
Old ( partially renovated) homes in my neighborhood sell for over 800k.
That’s plenty wealthy.
It doesn’t matter.
Every SFH in Alcova, Douglas Park, Nauck, etc could be sold for 2 million tomorrow. It wouldn’t matter.
Every single home would have to have multiple children going to elementary school.
Then, in 4-5 years, it wouldn’t matter. The turn over at Barcroft Apartments is monthly. It’s a revolving door of poverty.
3000 low income units to 800 single family homes.
There willl never be a good balance in some of these schools.

I'd be interested to hear some historical perspective on the Barcroft Apartments. It was not always home to a largely Latino immigrant community. I'm not sure if it was always zoned to Randolph, or Barcroft, but I've seen APS stats showing Randolph was only 10% Hispanic in the early 1980s, and 50% white.
Either Barcroft apts was home to a lot of white students who went to Randolph, or it wasn't home to many students at all and the SFH zoned to the school actually attended it (option schools did not yet exist).

It also seems that they try to label Barcroft both ways.
They call it commited when then they talk about the loss of market rate housing.
They call it market rate when they count caf’s.
Either way they are making 1000’s of unit’s disappear,To help make the case for more low income housing.

Anonymous wrote:The Barcroft Apartments are never going to be townhomes or homes. They are considered "Essential Resource on the County’s Historic Resources Inventory" andeligible for the
National Register of Historic Places.

True. So the lie that's being told--that they are going to disappear is just that: a lie. Preserve what we have, no need to build any more. It's enough. The school system can't handle more than a third of its students being below the poverty line without major cuts, and the county can't afford the associated cost of wrap-around services for the families who'd live in 10,000 more units.

Ps- it means Delashmutt has already cashed out on Barcroft. THe ship has sailed.

Anonymous wrote:I do understand, believe me. But surely the Delashmutt family will sell one of these days and make even more money.

Tell me more though about the transfer of development rights. What does that mean exactly?

Transfer of development rights.
Basically they sold their air to another developer elsewhere.
It’s a total bullshit political made up thing.
They had a developer ( probably in r-b corridor) give delashmutt a bunch of money. Now delashmutt can’t develope Barcroft into high rises, and that other developer can add density somewhere else.
It’s ridiculous, and shouldn’t be a thing.
But it’s a thing.

The Barcroft Apartments are never going to be townhomes or homes. They are considered "Essential Resource on the County’s Historic Resources Inventory" andeligible for the
National Register of Historic Places.

I do understand, believe me. But surely the Delashmutt family will sell one of these days and make even more money.

Tell me more though about the transfer of development rights. What does that mean exactly?

Anonymous wrote:Agree PP, but the point is that if enough wealth and retail comes to the area, the owners of the local "slums" like Barcroft Apartments will perhaps see an incentive to sell out. Maybe their taxes will get too high. Or they realize that poorer folks don't want to live in an area where things are too expensive for them an they have too many vacancies. Isn't that what gentrification is all about - and supporters of keeping the Pike poor care about - catering to the lower income residents? Gentrification is what raised rents and values in North Arlington that led to so few MARKS in North Arlington. If landlords can get more money for newer nicer places, they will.

The metro gentrified north arlington.
You don’t understand. Delashmutt owns Barcroft, and aside from making the family a fortune as it is today, they’ve sold/transferred their development rights. Add to that the county putting every barrier possible in place for something like townhomes to be built on the site of current garden apartments? It doesn’t make sense to do anything else, aside from continuing as it is now.
I suppose they could renovate and turn them into condos ( like west village).
But understand the county has worked tirelessly to lock in that housing.
Losing Barcroft Apartments is not acceptable to AH policy in Arlington.
You aren’t understanding that county is actively preventing the market from gentrification.

Agree PP, but the point is that if enough wealth and retail comes to the area, the owners of the local "slums" like Barcroft Apartments will perhaps see an incentive to sell out. Maybe their taxes will get too high. Or they realize that poorer folks don't want to live in an area where things are too expensive for them an they have too many vacancies. Isn't that what gentrification is all about - and supporters of keeping the Pike poor care about - catering to the lower income residents? Gentrification is what raised rents and values in North Arlington that led to so few MARKS in North Arlington. If landlords can get more money for newer nicer places, they will.

Anonymous wrote:This is all directly related to schools. If these areas get more and better retail, local homes increase in value and wealthier families move in. And, maybe someday, pretty please, the slumlords that own barcroft apartments and other low income apartments along the central and western pike will sell and someone will bring higher end residences. Please!!!! We need some income diversity along the Pike.

I’m sorry, but my home’s value is quite high thank you very much.
Old ( partially renovated) homes in my neighborhood sell for over 800k.
That’s plenty wealthy.
It doesn’t matter.
Every SFH in Alcova, Douglas Park, Nauck, etc could be sold for 2 million tomorrow. It wouldn’t matter.
Every single home would have to have multiple children going to elementary school.
Then, in 4-5 years, it wouldn’t matter. The turn over at Barcroft Apartments is monthly. It’s a revolving door of poverty.
3000 low income units to 800 single family homes.
There willl never be a good balance in some of these schools.

Anonymous wrote:This is all directly related to schools. If these areas get more and better retail, local homes increase in value and wealthier families move in. And, maybe someday, pretty please, the slumlords that own barcroft apartments and other low income apartments along the central and western pike will sell and someone will bring higher end residences. Please!!!! We need some income diversity along the Pike.

Maybe in another 30 years. Maybe.
The county has gone to extreme lengths to lock this housing in place.