Hi Yupette,
The Planning Commission deferred and County Board on September 17th will defer amendments to Zoning Ordinance Sections 19, 26, and 27A regarding limits put on developers who want to build big box retail stores in Arlington. Like a proposed 120,000 square foot WalMart store proposed for the Rosenthal vehicle storage lot at I-395 and Four Mile Run.
Original intent was to limit additional retail development to a maximum of 50,000 square feet and 200 parking spaces. This made the County Board's developer friends and campaign contributors very unhappy.
Consequently, the County Board instructed the County Manager (a Fairfax County resident), Economic Development Director (also a Fairfax County resident), Planning Director (also a Fairfax County resident) and County Planning Staff (almost all live outside Arlington) to come up with revised zoning to enable out-of-state big box retail to build stores in Arlington. Did we mention that attorneys and consultants who aren't Arlington residents are also involved in the closed door negotiations?
So where does that leave Shirlington, Fairlington, Nauck, etc., residents? Totally ignorant of whatever deals are being concocted to benefit everyone but them. Stuck with another mess, on top of previous development messes. When will it end? When there's total gridlock in South Arlington, in about 5 years. At which point the persons responsible will be retired and living on a rancho deluxe in Montana.
15 comments:
Or, a luxury enclave in McLean.
County employees do as they are told. Many if not most can't wait to retire.
For the record - several thousand parking spaces were created in redeveloped Shirlington Village and no affordable housing.
Target is what, a mile away from Shirlington? Costco is 1 1/2 miles away. Sears in Landmark is 2 miles away.
Sears at Landmark, Target at Potomac Yards and Costco in Pentagon City are all targeted for mixed use redevelopments in schemes that dwarf Shirlington Village and will displace those stores. Stark reality is low income households have don't have affordable places to shop in Arlington. Yupette is playing the Dumbette NIMBY yuppie game on this one. It was OK to have Washington Golf but not WalMart.
Nimby? After what the County Board did to Shirlington. YES!!!
Do you know how much traffic smart growth Shirlington puts into the surrounding neighborhoods?
Can we please have ART bus service in Fairlington and the surrounding condo communities, also shuttle bus service to/from Shirlington Village - neighborhood population is 15,000; 9,000 live in Fairlington. Oh, can't do it, there's a synthetic playing field that has to be renovated, costs $800,000. $ignature / $ynetic needs its $89,000 yearly taxpayer stipend
BTW, there is a Target at Skyline, 5 minutes from Shirlington.
Shopping plazas across King Street from the Skyline Target are full of shoppers from moderate-income households. Shopping plaza in Arlington on S. Glebe Road is full of moderate income shoppers.
Our lives are increasingly controlled by greedy non-resident pigs who are out to make as much $$$ as they can, at our expense.
Yes. The greedy pigs who want to totally urbanize Arlington live in Fairfax County, belong to the Washington Golf and County Club, and shop at 55 year old shopping plazas in McLean.
They get together in the McLean Family Restaurant to figure out how much money they are going to make urbanizing Arlington.
ZOCO is meeting about this tonight at 2100 Clarendon Blvd.
At least one Shirlington-area resident has filed a FOIA request with the County demanding to know what all the non-residents involved in this zoning amendment are discussing.
This is Item 28 on the consent agenda for Saturday's County Board meeting. Someone will undoubtedly pull this item off the consent agenda and it will be discussed at next Tuesday's continued County Board meeting.
DC resident Richard Tucker is the Planning Staffer who is the designated Chief Facilitator. He was also Chief Facilitator for the charade East Falls Church planning process.
ZoCo decided to try to attract big Trader Joes type retail and keep WalMarts out of Arlington.
Also decided to go along with Vornado's plans to totally Yuppify Crystal City.
Fairlington's civic association knows nothing about the plans except for what Chief Facilitator Richard Tucker told the editor of its newsletter about the meetings with non-resident developers, lawyers, businesspersons, economic development staff, etc.
President of the Fairlington civic association died suddenly and so there was no meeting this month, their next meeting won't be until mid-October.
BTW, Planning Commissioner Nanny Hunt skipped the ZOCO meeting.
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