North Fairlington Residents Fear Massive Adjacent In-Fill Redevelopment

 Hello,

Over the past few weeks several meetings were held that indicate the quality of life in North Fairlington will suffer serious negative impacts from three large projects being planned on adjacent sites.

It appears from APS CIP meetings that Abingdon Elementary School will receive a $29 million makeover and expansion to provide capacity for 750 students. Closed-door meetings between  APS and the Arlington Parks and Recreation indicate that both indoor and outdoor space at the renovated school will serve South Arlington as a sports, recreation, and activity center after school hours.

The secret deal the County Board (Favola, Fisette, Hynes, Tejada, and Zimmerman) made with the owner of Park Shirlington in 2011 to triple the on-site density and parking is going forward. Site is currently zoned for about 330 units. The first site plan review committee meeting will be held on May 19th at Abingdon School. Same old crowd of arrogant ACDC ward heelers / facilitators is expected to rubber-stamp the deal despite serious traffic and quality-of-life problems the redevelopment would generate for North Fairlington residents. Aided and abetted by ACDC's Fairlington facilitators and ward heelers.

Finally, the owner of the old Jefferson Hospital site across King Street from North Fairlington revealed plans for a massive supermarket-hotel-residental-office complex on the 4 acre site. How massive? The site will generate about 11,000 vehicle trips per day according to Alexandria Planning Staff.

Effects on North Fairlington? A big traffic mess in a quiet residential community. Re-purposing of North Fairlington's streets, sidewalks, public areas to be multi-event outdoor activity space is in the works by Parks and Recreation.

Brought to us by the New Urbanists who see every residential neighborhood as a Smart Growth redevelopment opportunity for out-of-state REITs, and planners, attorneys, consultants, architects, developers, and County Planning Staff who don't live in Arlington.

Cindy

Cost of Pike Parking Lot Increases to $358 million

Hey Yupette,

What a difference a year makes. Projected cost of the Pike $treetcar $ystem has increased from $310 million to $358 million. Arlington's 'contribution' will be $287 million. Another $227 million would be squandered on a Crystal City $treetcar $ystem funded from local revenue sources, meaning the County Manager raids the General Fund and transit funding sources. So, what will the projected cost be next year?

We've seen this before, a decade ago, when the Chamber of Commerce boosters (who are  major proponents of an Arlington $treetcar $ystem) pushed for a major league baseball stadium in Arlington. Was only supposed to cost a couple hundred million. Turned out costing DC taxpayers more than $650 million.

Enough of this. Stop any more spending on what's going to be a Pike parking lot. Same County Board majority that wants everyone on a car-free diet voted to construct or re-purpose between 13,000 and 14,000 parking spaces since January 2012.

Pike Rider

County Board Passes New Noise Ordinance in Garvey's Absence

Hey Yupette,

Too bad Libby Garvey fell off her bicycle and missed yesterday's County Board meeting. County Board ended up adopting the County Manager / County Staff recommended noise ordinance that's not going to do much to reduce noise before 1 AM in the so-called "Mixed-Use Districts" aka Party Zones drawn by County Staff who don't live in Arlington. Thanks to J.Walter "Nada" Tejada and "Gourmet" Jay Fisette, who live in Dominion Hills and Ashton Heights respectively, the noise from pub crawlers and partiers won't subside until 2 AM when the bars close. If Libby had been able to attend yesterday's County Board meeting, she, Mary Hynes, and John Vihstadt would have likely voted to start shutting down the noise at 11 PM on weekends, and earlier on weekdays. The new ordinance regulates yelling, wailing, shouting, or screaming, but not loud conversations among hundreds to thousands involved in pub crawls. That's what we hear in my Clarendon neighborhood of single family homes.

Ted - 22201