Hi Yupette,
I live in Westover, in one of the few remaining market rate affordable garden apartments in the County that are actually affordable. The guy who owns several garden apartment buildins on 9th Street, 10th Street, 11th Street, and Kensington Street is demolishing the buildings and evicting the elderly, sick, and disabled tenants. The legacy oak trees surrounding the apartment buildings, one of them at least 100 years old, have all been cut down and the roots are being dug up. The tenants who are being and have been evicted are mostly poor and they have few housing options. The County Board has been well aware of the owner's intent to redevelop these properties into expensive townhouses. However the County Board gave the owner the go-ahead early this year and AHC, APAH, VOICE, Arlington Green Party, and the Arlington Democratic Party abided by the County Board's decision.
Independent County Board candidate Audrey Clement, who lives on 9th Street, asked the County Board to directly intervene and arrange a sale of the buildings to AHC, but the County Board refused. Same County Board that approves market rate to AHC-owned conversions in complex deals at almost every County Board meeting, often via the Consent Agenda.
The demolition signals the intent of County Government to redevelop Westover into a neighborhood of McMansions, expensive condominium townhouses, and a redeveloped commercial sector of 6-10 story mixed-use buildings, like those in Clarendon.
I am voting for Audrey Clement in November. In 50 years we've gone from a War on Poverty to a War on the Poor. Thanks for your blog.
Jennifer,
South Kennilworth Street
65 comments:
Yeah, several disabled and elderly residents have been forcibly evicted from their apartments.
County Board need the increased real estate tax revenue for it's laundry list of vanity projects approved every month via the Consent Agenda. This month it's $1,250,000 for a new synthetic surface for a soccer field.
County needs the real estate tax revenue to pay the school system for all the new McMansions owned by families with 3 children in the school system at $19,000 each which pay $10,000 or less in real estate taxes.
Regular Hearing Item 47 - Approval of two AHIF loans totalling $18.4 million to two limited partnerships for the redevelopment of Columbia Heights West.
VOICE -- what a bunch of worthless turkeys
Same for the Green Party.
Smart Growth Developers are Vultures and County Government allows every neighborhood to deteriorate until it become Road Kill.
When does my crumbling street get repaved?
Vultures? Try the bloated Arlington Economic Development and Planning bureaucracies whose employees wouldn't live in Arlington if the County gave them brand new McMansions and paid their real estate taxes.
County just gave them more free parking in the Trades Center.
Victor Hoskins gets a fat kickback from REITs every time an old apartment building gets demolished.
Smart Growth is nothing but more corporate welfare to the REITS which already receive corporate welfare via the Federal Tax Code.
Corporate Welfare? Latest is 'repurposing' Roosevelt Island, a National Presidential Memorial, into a satellite recreation area to remediate the lack of new open space in Vornado's Smart Growth redevelopment of Rosslyn.
Time for everyone involved with development and redevelopment who is employed by Arlington County to file their IRS Form 1040s and Form 1099s, aka Miscellaneous Income from Developers, with the County Manager's Office by May 1st every year.
Starting with Jay Fi$ette and his spouse, Rob Ro$en.
Ho$kins spends most of his time going around the Beltway promoting himself, trying to poach IT start-ups to relocate to Arlington, and offering REITs corporate welfare deals they can't refuse.
Smart Growth sucks. It's all about corporate welfare for REITS, gentrifying everyone who doesn't earn at least $100,000 out, urbanizing neighborhoods, streets, sidewalks, parks, destroying livability and quality of life in historic neighborhoods, jamming thousands more students into already-crowded schools, and never balancing a budget without raising taxes and fees.
Hoskins should return to Baltimore and help the New Urbanists there gentrify Black Lives Matter out, replace them with Millennials, and start a vibrant pub crawl culture.
This is a county that spends millions on trees. How more legacy oak trees in Westover will be destroyed for Smart Growth gentrification?
Hoskins also spends millions subsidizing Arlington's wealthy LGBT performing arts groups.
Second the motion that Victor Hoskins make his 1040 and 1099s public.
Does the tree removal set a new low standard for Smart Growth?
Think things are bad now, wait until Smart Growth America's hand picked sock puppet, Erik Gutshall, joins the County Board.
Check out Agenda Item 47, on the County Board's Regular Hearing agenda -- $88.8 million to build 229 unaffordable affordable apartments on the Pike. Do the math.
Church Elders received their $9 million buyout at today's CB Meeting.
PTL in Arlington among the devout Worshipers at the Altar of New Urbanism = Pass The Loot
APAH is too financially extended building upscale housing for Arlington's yoga instructors, dance therapists, upscale housing consultants, and other essential employees who serve the interests of Arlington's Yuppie Mommies to care about the housing needs of retired working class seniors who are disabled.
Church elders and yoga instructors got the gold mine from the County Board, poor and disabled Westover apartment residents got the homeless shelter.
In the event you haven't figured it out, "affordable housing" is meant to be a subsidy to providers of "essential services" to the upscale Creative Class.
Wow, I live on Kensington Street in one of those "affordable" garden-style apartments. A couple of months ago, I called my landlord to renew my yearly lease, and they told me that it has gone month-to-month, without any option for a one-year lease. That makes much more sense now. Of course, the leasing company wouldn't tell me why... now I know. It's not like our building is very nice - in fact, some might call it a hovel or a slum... but my husband and I put a lot of effort into making our home comfortable, and we can make due without a dishwasher or garbage disposal or a washer/dryer in unit, or central A/C. We've been saving money, but not nearly enough for our own home (who can afford a home that starts at $600,000?). Where are "old Millennials" (30+) supposed to live? We still can't afford those tony "luxury" apartments in the Frathole Corridor, where are we supposed to go now? Where should we settle down and raise our families? Is Arlington trying to drive out the middle class? To say nothing of the elderly and low-income families that live in these buildings... it's all some people can afford...
Check out what Erik Gutshall does for a living.
Audrey Clement is a long time resident of a building on 9th Street that's owned by the same tear-down landlord. She's running for County Board and spoke out against the loss of affordable apartments in her neighborhood at last Saturday's County Board meeting.
The $88.8 million give-away to APAH last Saturday to construct 229 entry-level luxury apartments could have funded the renovation of 8,800 older apartments at $10,000 per renovation.
Blame the Democratic Oligarchy for gentrifying out anyone who doesn't earn at least $100,000 and have $50,000 of disposable income.
It will stop when Audrey Clement is elected to the County Board.
Millennials aren't supposed to grow up. New Urbanism III is re-configuring the County to be Neverland-on-the-Potomac.
Neverland-on-the-Potomac? Check out the video of last Saturday's County Board meeting and the CB's corporate welfare giveaway to the REIT that's massively infilling Rosslyn.
I blame the Democratic Party which has become the Plutocratic Party. No way I will vote for Hillary. I will write-in Bernie Sanders for President and Elizabeth Warren for Vice-President.
The REITs and Developers alredy receive corporate welfare via the U.S. Tax Code.
How many closed meetings did it take for the County Board to approve the demolition of these apartment buildings?
Rosslyn will be Neverland on the Potomac. Plans approved on Saturday by the County Board.
Huge charade at the afternoon County Board meeting yesterfday about trees. How many hundreds more will be cut down as Westover becomes another Clarendon?
I experienced the vibrant pub crawl 'culture' before --- 40 years ago in Georgetown when I attended Georgetown U.
Advice to 30 year old Millennials: Move to a place that's suburban, affordable, and where you can telecommute to work for an organization which holds organizational meetings in Arlington that begin at 11 AM and end at 1 PM. Leave "vibrant' Arlington to the 23-year olds just out of colleges that are run like middle schools and the LGBTs.
LGBTs, especially closeted LGBTs, increasingly control Arlington. They are not family-friendly. Gay Godfather of Arlington is Jay Fisette.
Jay wants to retire and is looking for a openly LGBT to take his place on the CB.
Arlington is a big social and economic bubble that's going to implode within the next 5 years.
Agree. Too many special interest group votes have to be bought with tax dollars. Arlington is too expensive a place to live and do business.
Yes, colleges and universities are becoming like high school and even middle school. And parents constantly visit the campus to ensure the school's administrators are enforcing political correctness.
It's impossible for anyone with a couple of kids and a household income of $100,000 to live in Arlington and save a substantial amount for the kids' future college expenses.
What can you expect when all decisions are made by Smart Growth racists and elitists?
We moved out of Arlington 3 years ago to a neighborhood in Fairfax County that's still suburban. Work for the feds but don't have security clearances. We both spend lots of time teleworking. Why the feds don't mandate telework for federal employees who don't work in 'sensitive' positions is a mystery. Arlington can have the Millennials, please keep them away from my neighborhood.
What can you expect from 23-year old Millennials when their empty-nester helicopter parents visit college campuses every other weekend?
Yes, my divorced Mom was like a diaper when I attended VCU. Always driving down on weekends, always on my ass, and usually full of s***.
UVA is now a middle school offering college courses. Thanks, Rolling Stone.
Where is Erik Gutshall? Oh, he wants to demolish small single family starter homes to build multi-generation condos. Just what I need. My divorced Mom and her three dogs living in the walk-out basement of the two bedroom townhouse condo where Erik and VOICE want me to move to from this still-affordable apartment.
What is it about 50-something divorced women, anyway?. My mother has been divorced for 17 years, she's still looking for Mr. Right, and spends what's left of her leisure time trying to micro-manage me.
Fifty-something? Divorced? Your Mom is a Yupette. First Generation Yups (like America's First Yuppie, our President) turn 55 this year.
I don't live near my daughter. I don't try to manage her life. I visited her about four times in four years when she attended college.
Civfed VIP Martha Moore and her lawyer-to-the-developers advisor, Barnes Lawson, want to tear-down single family homes and replace them with condos with granny flats.
Helicopter parents? It starts at the top. First Yuppies Barack and Michelle won't retire to Hawaii but will live in the DC area until youngest kid graduates from prep school.
CivFed was, is, and always will be an elitist club
When and where was the Arlington Civic Federation given the legal authority to micro-manage our lives?
Difference between Georgetown in 1976 and Clarendon today is there were no organized bar crawls then.
See Whats On The Market in Arlington, VA:
http://www.c21redwood.com/arlington-va-real-estate
Or, read Arlington Magazine for a comprehensive monthly showing of tear-down McMansions.
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