County Board - workshop

This one just came through. The million dollars.

Yes. Yes. Okay, I hope I have... We are ready, right? Okay. Mace, you ready? Good afternoon. We are in the home stretch of the capital improvement plan work. And so now as we engage with our community, we want to engage with our commissions. And the way we will do this is we have a total of seven commissions that have wanted to share their individual thoughts. We've also received written comments from each of the commissions, and some have just said that the written comments were sufficient for them. Others have said they want to come join us. And so in our first, we'll take this in two batches. Some of you have done this before. If you have not, no problem. We'll have, I think William Way may be here virtually. I'm not sure. He leads the Parks and Rec. We'll be speaking on behalf of the Parks and Recreation Commission and leads their effort. And Neighborhood Complete Streets Committee, Catherine Lewis, I believe is here. So we have handy dandy placards. Please come on up, Catherine, if you wanna come up, that'd be great. You are over here. We'll hear your thoughts and then we'll hear Mr. Way, your thoughts. And then Cindy, if you'd come on up for the Climate Change, Energy and Environment Commission. And then David Howell, who will speak on behalf of the Forestry and Natural Resources Commission. David, you have been leading and working in this area for... Maybe a couple years. I don't know the exact number of years. But I was thrilled that each of you are here. What our plan is to give you a full five minutes, each of you, and to hear from all three of you, and then we would go with some discussion and a round of questions. And Mr., so that's the plan. Any questions, things that I'm missing? Seeing no one grab me and say slow down, I'm going to send it to Mr. Way is there virtually. William, thank you so much for joining us. And you can go ahead. I think you're off mute. I think that we can hear you. Go ahead. We're all good. Go ahead.

All right. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the board. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. The PRC has reviewed the proposed CIP and submitted our letter dated June 1, 2026. The PRC is generally supportive of the CIP, and I come to you today to express appreciation for the capital funds dedicated to the natural resiliency and habitat restoration program for large-scale removal of invasive non-native invasive plants and habitat restoration there's time i'd also like to make a comment about virginia highlands park Regarding invasive removal, predictable multi-year funding is a requirement for the Department of Parks and Recreation to implement its four-step invasive removal program. Assess, prioritize, suppress, and maintain. So suppress and maintain, the key parts. The initial suppression stage is higher cost and labor intensive, more so than the follow-on maintenance phase. To illustrate, I like to imagine a checkerboard. The squares represent the land and the county, and each chip is $100,000 of DPR invasive removal funding for that year, which can treat one square on the checkerboard for the suppression phase. So two options. If DPR only gets one chip each year, they can either keep treating that same square for suppression of invasives each year or jump around the checkerboard treating a random square, kind of like a game of whack-a-mole. But the better course of action on the other hand is imagine if DPR gets five chips or $500,000 for invasive removal. In year one, DPR can obviously suppress five squares with the five chips. In year two, they can do more. DPR can do maintenance on five squares for the five squares that were treated in the first year and treat two or three more for suppression as well, because maintenance phase is less costly than suppression. So this is just an illustration, of course, Predictable funding can help with invasive removal and snowball in a positive way. On the other hand, there's snowballing in a negative way if DPR gets unpredictable funding for invasive removal. This is because invasive species do not stop growing during lean budget years. As invasives are ignored and they keep growing, it gets harder and more expensive to suppress them. So why do we even care about invasive species? Well, to point out the dangers of invasive plant species, here are three points from PRC's operating budget letter dated April 1. Point one, a stitch in time saves nine. Removing a small patch of invasive plants and vines today may cost hundreds, but waiting three years until they smother a forest acre costs tens of thousands in professional remediation and tree replacement. Point two, danger to infrastructure and stormwater resilience. Invasive vines add thousands of pounds of weight to trees, causing them to fall on power lines and roads during northern Virginia's frequent storms. Furthermore, invasives often lead to soil erosion that reduces water quality in the Potomac River and clogs the county's culverts and drains. Point three, protecting investment in tree canopy. Arlingtonians spent a lot of time and money toward achieving Arlington's tree canopy goals. Allowing invasives to strangle mature trees destroys our natural capital assets, leading to increased urban heat island effects and higher cooling costs for residents. PRC advocated for up to a million dollars per year for invasive removal, and we urged the board toward that goal. Next, briefly on Virginia Highlands Park. We want to highlight the importance of both Quincy Park and Virginia Highlands Park. Both are located in areas identified as access gap hotspots in the Public Spaces Master Plan. Both parks are heavily used and the populations around them are growing, especially once Riverhouse expansion is built in the vicinity of Virginia Highlands Park. PRC has recently received a letter from the Aurora Hills Civic Association, which they, I believe, also sent to you, which expressed concern that Virginia Highlands Park schedule stays on track. so in conclusion mr chair members of the board we thank you for the capital funds dedicated to natural resiliency and habitat restoration program for large-scale removal of non-native invasive plants and thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you today

Thank you, Mr. Way, for your leadership of this commission and your past leadership and service for the Commission on Aging, if I recall correctly. We may well have questions, but we will go on. And now we'll go to Mr. Lewis. Red is on.

Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. As you can tell, I'm a newbie. Ten years ago, the County Board established the Neighborhood Complete Streets Program to address safety and access problems on local streets through physical improvement projects. I'd like to just briefly describe our process and I'd like to thank Ms. Cunningham for showing up at our funding hearing last June. Our projects begin when community members nominate problem areas. County staff then scores the location to see if it is eligible for the program. If it is, then it moves to round two where it is scored and ranked on objective criteria which was approved by the board. Those locations that rise to the top of the list are reviewed by staff, who then develop and present conceptual ideas for improvements to the Commission for consideration. Should a location be chosen, the proposal goes through a period of public engagement for further comment and refinement. After that engagement, there is a funding hearing at which the Commission votes to recommend projects to the County Board. Currently, the Commission is recommending four new capital projects for funding. We have one project under construction, two projects awaiting construction, and three projects in design. But this still leaves over 85 locations on our list that are eligible for safety improvements. We understand that the budget situation is severely constrained this year, but we believe that the social safety and health benefits delivered by safe neighborhood streets contribute greatly to the value of our community. We would encourage the board to approve the funding levels as proposed by the county manager that will help us to continue our projects through the pipeline. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Ms. Lewis and Ms. Cunningham for being there, the funding. So over next to, and we will, just like Mr. Way, we may have questions, so we hope you'll stick around. And now over to Ms. Lewin for the Climate Change, Energy, and Environment Commission.

Thank you very much, and thank you all for inviting the commissions. We really appreciate this opportunity. I was hearing from Mr. Spain about all the meetings you've had this week alone, and we appreciate that you added this one. CIP, as you know, is incredibly important because it's a 10-year plan. What happens in the next 10 years really determines so much of the direction of where Arlington is going, but no pressure. We sent a huge letter. Keep working.

Yeah.

We sent a huge letter. I see it's six pages. I'm sorry. But I want to give full credit to the Energy Committee of C2E2 because they really took the laboring ore, chaired by Elizabeth Whitney, who wishes she could be here. Actually, she wishes she could be out of the country with her family on vacation, which is where she actually is. But if you guys, I wish I could do justice to their work. If you have more questions that I can't get to, I'm happy to get back to you later. Following what I think we've heard a lot, kudos to the CIP. There's a lot in here that we really, really like, especially I want to shout out to the on-site solar. Of course, the tree canopy and invasive species we just heard about. The one-to-one replacement ratio for battery electric buses, that's something we've talked about for a long time. And of course, stormwater. Our overall goal, if we look at the CIP, is electricity, electricity, electricity. With everything that's happening, as you know, with data centers, with pricing, You know, there's a huge equity component to keeping our electricity affordable, and there's also a huge climate, depending on how we go about it, to dealing with electricity more. And we see in the CIP, we see battery storage, we see on-site generation, we see efficiency. These are all pilots. We hope that the pilots will be successful and we'll be able to continue to invest microgrids, virtual power plants, something we weren't even barely talking about a few years ago. And now I think with the data center plans, that's where we're going to be. So we especially, we have C2E2, especially want to focus on battery storage. If we're going to have solar, if we're going to have geothermal, if we're going to be able to generate, being able to capture that energy and use it when we need it to shave down peak demand, to just make things it's so valuable, it's not just about power outages. But on the other hand, if we're gonna have power outages, the resilience and the work that you've done and are continuing to do on the EV fleet for the county and the battery electric buses, these are roving giant batteries. If we're gonna have community centers or schools or best yet schools that have community centers in them, as are places where people can go when there's flooding, when there's extreme storms, when there's extreme heat, having these kinds of things if we build in that two directional so that these batteries can feed back into our grid, we can really make a difference. So since we're talking, you know, battery storage is not inexpensive. It needs more research, but since we're looking 10 years ahead, it's going to get better and it's going to be super important. One thing that concerns us is that, you know, one thing that doesn't concern us is that half of CIP is, working on maintaining existing assets and that's great. But it's so easy to sub in a gas boiler for another gas boiler and we're particularly concerned at Walter Reed, for example, where that is happening. that we wanna make sure there's a robust, comprehensive look. That's an asset that's probably gonna be there for 20 years or more. Gas to gas is less expensive now, but is it really going to be as the county continues to build in its own generation and its own power? So we have to remember, we're locking in these fossil fuel emissions for all these years, and we just wanna make sure those costs have been considered in that decision, even though we recognize it is more expensive upfront. So again, we're really, really excited about so much that's in here. Thank you for all the work you've done. And yeah, I think we're on our way to being a national leader. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms. Lewin, and for the letter as well from the Energy Ag Committee and the ongoing advocacy. We will come back to you as well. I know there will be questions. Mr. Howell. Nope. Okay.

Nice work, Vice Chair. Thank you. Yes, I appreciate the opportunity to be here to represent FNRC. I share the enthusiasm of the other representatives here that there's so much to like about this CIP proposal. Certainly in our case, we're very pleased to see the natural resilience and habitat restoration program funded the way it is not only in the amounts that it's funded but also the fact that confidence building decision about the bond source is very important because we do believe that our natural resources are natural capital in a very similar way to other kinds of capital. So I think this is extremely good shift in the way things are done and it certainly supports strategic direction 4.4 and 4.5 in the forestry natural resources plan and taking it in a new direction really not in terms of on the ground but in the way we approach our investments in our natural resources. So that's a very positive thing. I do want to bring up one other thing, and I guess this is perhaps in the form of a question as much as a comment. Some of you may be aware that with regard to the Virginia Hospital Center facility that's being proposed that one of the flashpoints right now is the 83 parking places being requested by the county for that site on the actual footprint of the VHC facility. Why that's necessary is unclear to anyone and It has a big effect on how the facility fits into the nearly ideal urban space that they're being allowed to use. And everyone on our commission agrees this is a wonderful fit for a very, very important facility. needed service and facility and a perfect place to do it because nature is one of the most important things that you can provide to people who would be going to that facility. It's not just in the United States, it's in European facilities as well. The idea of natural space and the ability to have that calming effect is really critical. The question then is what is the purpose for the county asking for these additional parking spaces on the surface, impervious space that surrounds the building? Why is that necessary there and what would it support? And this has been essentially a mystery to everyone except now I see that in the projects list, there's a total of about $6.4 million in 29 and 30 that would be authorized for some kind of development on the remainder of the parcel presumably associated with these 80 parking places, but nobody knows what it's about. And it just seems like that's not the kind of transparency that we would want. People are reacting to the VHC project in part because of things that are unknown. It doesn't mean whatever might be proposed isn't a good idea or that wouldn't be supported. It just means right now it's hard to get settled on what the VHC facility is about when we're making some kind of an anticipated commitment to something that we don't know what it is, and it has a detrimental impact on the siting of the VH facility itself. So this isn't a forum that necessarily I should be asking questions, but I'm putting that on the table as a concern because we've also written a letter about that issue.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Howell. So now is, colleagues, it is our turn, and I typically would mean, that would mean your turns, to ask questions. I will filibuster just enough to make a comment, which is that Mr. Way, your, and several of you have talked about the invasive species point, and I don't know, I'll leave it to history to assess whether I understood from the beginning, but I've been coached by colleagues on the long-term benefit of the short-term investment. And so the way you framed it up was very helpful for me. I think I had it before you started to describe it, but certainly it is an innovative and important reality that we are using bond funding to address invasives. And we can certainly debate vigorously the level of funding. But it was also very helpful for you to tease out the additional costs to stormwater amongst your three reasons that were there. So that was very helpful and may speak to some of the concerns I know C2E2 has. But still, I'll leave it to folks for questions. I do think that we all feel that this is a solid CIP in many ways. The overarching piece perhaps doesn't touch your four commissions as it might some other commissions, which is an eagerness to do other projects, to move forward with Quincy, to move forward with the, you know, Virginia Highlands, the library, Virginia Highlands, you know, that's a concern. But even those of us who are sort of more enthusiastic that all things in the world are gonna turn out all right have to be aware of the moment we're in fiscally with this administration. So there's a lot of uncertainty, and so we have to, grateful to hear when we're doing good things, because we also get to hear when we're doing not so good things. So I don't know if there are any other questions. Mr. Carrington.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, thank you for everybody who has invested a lot of thought and time and talent here to provide us with a lot of thought-provoking elements. I have one question for our Parks and Recs Commissioners first, and this is, you made explicit mention of the Virginia Highlands Park. Yes, sir. And you put it in, you know, to me relatively obvious, you know, you synchronize that with what the commission said about the Quincy Park, which is a similar setting, at least from the point of view of the use of this park. They are both in very densely populated areas and they are very high in high demand. They are differently equipped right now. Can you elaborate a little bit what the vision of the commission is for Virginia Highlands?

Sir, I don't think there's a master plan that's been done yet. So it's in the CIP. But, you know, their population is growing. The space is limited. I believe there are additional acreage, for example, the Dominion Power project. Property that's nearby also potentially. With the development of river house, there may be additional acreage land that's donated. So that there might be a small expansion of Virginia Highlands park, but. The community would like that to happen on schedule. Of course, everyone would be happy if it's done sooner, but they certainly want to keep the schedule. And that's what I see in the current CIP. Everything is still on schedule, but I wanted to underline the community's concern in the note that they sent to us as well as to you.

So do I hear some advocacy here for synchronizing or bringing the master planning processes closer to today instead of pushing them to the out years?

Not explicitly. We would be very happy if that happens. But I know that the plans are in place. And I think there's more concern that they not be pushed farther back.

Thank you. I don't know, Mr. Chair, I have two short questions. So for our friends from, you know, from the E2C2 Commission, you, thank you, first of all, for a structured and lengthy but well-designed structured presentation. Question, you ask, if I'm not mistaken, you ask for trying to configure the reporting system of our stormwater management acquisitions and investments and link them to some sort of measuring the outcome, like say how much we are contributing to storm management and how we do that. So we have a level of reporting today that shows over time how the different investments are accruing and how we're doing that. It's not very easy, and it's not an exact science, as you know. I mean, sometimes we use volts, other times we use a combination of pervious surface and volts and storm source, et cetera. Is that a call for a different type of reporting, or what is exactly the desired outcome there?

I think the desired outcome is just more, more of the same, more better. Stormwater is getting to be a bigger and bigger issue. We love the ramp. We had a presentation on the ramp. It's beautiful. But this is such a challenging area. And as storms are increasing, as we've all seen, we just are looking to make sure that we're using the county, we're looking like you are, to make sure that the county resources are being used as best as they can.

So it's basically saying that we really need to have some sort of a reporting base where there's a bank for the buck here, right?

Yes.

Okay. I yield, Mr. Chair, for now.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Vice Chair Coffey.

Yeah, thank you. And thank you to everyone for saying that we're mostly in the right direction. I think that's always reassuring. And I won't spend too much time on the natural capital side of things, because I think others have covered it. But I do think it's one of the cool things that we have managed to include in here. I think it's one of those things that I wouldn't have come up with. And when someone said it to me, I was like, oh, it does make a lot of sense. Because all of these things really are certainly longer than 10-year investments. Our natural environment sticks around much longer than that, fortunately. I think my only real question for Ms. Liu and C2E2 is really thinking about some of these I don't want to say pioneering. I feel like that's a little too pie in the sky. But some of these more cutting-edge innovative investments, thinking about battery storage and how it interacts with solar and our other investments, knowing how rapidly the technology continues to evolve, I do feel like there's a little bit of a trade-off in my mind of if we jump now with the level of upfront cost that some of these investments are going to have, but we know in five years the technology could be three times as good for the same price, how do you weigh kind of that, we want to make sure we get it done and we don't wait forever, but also knowing the rate of development right now, it sometimes feels like jumping being the pioneer and jumping too soon is almost a mistake.

Right. We don't want to be on the bleeding edge. And we've wrestled with that too. I think that we, yeah, I think it's a really good point. And we, I know that one of our commissioners has taken it on himself to do a lot of research on this right now. He's actually meeting with some staff experts like at APS. They're looking at different sites. And then he's going to try to price them and try to get a sense because That is a big project, and they aren't, you know, they are coming down. The technology is changing. I think you raise a really good point. I don't think tomorrow we should cover the whole county in batteries, you know, in batteries, but I think picking one that we could really learn from. And even if the technology changes, I think we'll have, you know, it's not like that one won't work anymore. So we just have to get our feet wet, but I think it's a fair point.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, I think it's just helpful to understand how, from your commission's perspective, since this is like what you're tasked with focusing on, like just even thinking through the philosophy of it and what the trade-offs are is really helpful. So I appreciate that.

Great. Thank you. Mr. Spain. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'm going to direct my question to Ms. Lewis. Thank you very much. Neighborhood Complete Streets, a commission which I am the liaison to. Just can you talk a little bit about You know, one, there's 85 projects out there that are locations at least, which are eligible, which we're probably not going to get to anytime soon. But in this, you know, this six-stage approach, just some plans for a few areas. Can you talk a little bit about where we are right now and some of those new projects that are coming up for this year?

So we have, as I said, we have four projects that we have put forward to you. Some of our projects have been a little bit behind in construction due to I guess, contracts expiring with people who were on call to do certain work for us. So, you know, what happens, and I think Ms. Cunningham heard about this at a meeting she was at in Blumont, People, as time goes on and we're designing and these things, you have these hiccups, they forget. And then they're saying, well, wait, we never heard about this project. And so you want to respond quickly, but you also, once you've talked to people about it and gotten them excited about it, you don't want to suddenly have them forget about it and not respond. not be accepting of it. So that's one thing. And so what we are trying to do is look at all our projects in the three steps to try and keep a pipeline going through of projects to try and address as many as we can. I don't know if I fully answered your question.

Yeah, it does. But in your letter, you also mentioned that you're exploring, like, four new projects, and there's a public engagement phase that goes on, right? Any idea? Tell us a little bit about those projects or how that public engagement is going on right now. Because you mentioned that you're starting in April.

Yes.

So I'm assuming, you know, we're in July now. Right.

So we did have an online open house. The two projects in East Falls Church, everybody loved. The project on 13th Street North, there was some concern. of loss of on street parking. What was presented to them was a worst case scenario where we might not be able to acquire easements and that would require the loss of parking spaces. that there were people who were stirred up by that and had concerns about that. We did go in person to Green Valley and talk to them about Shirlington Road. And that was warmly received. So I think we also did have some folks from 13th Street North come to our funding hearing to talk and understand a little bit more. I think there was some concern about, well, maybe you should do this more holistically. Maybe you should tie this to future redevelopment. But at a certain point, it has to, you know, hey, you came up to the list now, and we want to get it done now, so let's get it done. I mean, we can't wait on other things or get everything absolutely perfect, but this will help address an issue with sidewalks that feed Washington Liberty students to school back and forth. So hopefully they'll see the benefit of that.

So, yeah, thank you for that. And I guess my final question would be, would it be your assessment, given that we're in CIP right now and you're pretty much content, do you think we're moving at the pace of need and that you're receiving everything you need to be successful as a commission?

I mean, we would always like more money. Everybody wants more money. Okay. But we are very pleased that our funding is steady, that we can keep this pipeline going. Because, you know, yes, we have 85, but we are making some progress.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Ms. Lewis, Ms. Cunningham. I mean, thank you, Mr. Spain and Ms. Lewis for the answers. Ms. Cunningham.

Ms. Lewis, while we have you, thank you so much for being here. I'm curious about, as you look at the projects that are coming to you, it's always interesting for the community to try to understand and for the board to try to understand all the different ways that important transportation and safety projects get implemented. Can you say a little bit about how you coordinate with the Complete Streets effort by staff and with the neighborhoods program, which we're going to hear from a little bit later, and where the synergies are? Any observations we should keep in mind about those programs that have grown up at different times in some ways?

Yeah. I will hope that our staff would tell us if there are some other projects that were on act, you know, because we don't want to be tripping over one another. But I will say that we did have a project that was recently approved and you all did give extra money to that. So thank you very much for the North Oakland sidewalk. That one had started off as an ARNAC project. And even though I've lived in Ashton Heights for a very long time, I had no idea that there was this huge ARNAC battle over a sidewalk along Oakland Street. So that was defeated. But it was still on our list. And it came up. And I was like, we really should do this. I walk on this street all the time. Why is there no sidewalk? The engagement wasn't a happy one. I had neighbors that I know very well right in my face. But I think they're talking to me now, so this is good. And so I'm looking forward to the project. But I think... The benefit with our program is it got it outside of that circle. Like I said, when that was going on with our NAC, I mean, I lived several blocks over and I had no idea. But our program at least does a much broader engagement. And there were so many people. Somebody said it was like... The highest, I think staff said it was the highest percentage of people responding about a sidewalk. And they were all very favorable. So I think, you know, sidewalks are part of a larger network. I mean, I understand, yeah, if you're going to lose a tree or the front of your house is going to change, you're going to be concerned. That's absolutely true. But there is the greater good. Got it.

Thank you. And then for C2E2, I won't belabor it because I get to talk with you guys pretty frequently. But I'm curious about the comments on green procurement, particularly for paving and concrete. If there's anything you want to elevate there and we'll follow up with staff whether we're doing it already or we could do more.

Right. Yeah, I read that, too. Okay, good. I really don't have anything to add.

It's a follow-up, perhaps. But I'd be happy to get back to you. Okay, terrific. And that's it. I'll pass it on.

Thank you, Ms. Cunningham. We are at our mark. Yes, Mr. Keratonis.

Just a remark on Complete Streets. There is a driving idea between complete streets. The critical word is complete. Arnak is neighborhood driven. It really responds to the first level. I find the story of Auckland is absolutely amazing because something started there, could show the improvement. And then eventually it grew up to be now the complete solution, right? The idea of complete streets was always to deliver more and faster and in a more, you know, holistic way, kind of more administratively oversight-driven way. And Arnak covers the more democratic way to do things, which is slower and not always. I mean, it goes with a different pace and a different geographic distribution. The idea in the last couple of years of three, four years is to be complementary and actually work together. The nexus between these two programs is absolutely critical. Also, I think also absolutely critical because it delivers not only transportation assets but also environmental us, et cetera, having a healthy conversation between actual neighbors on parking, at the end, it's always painful. But at the end, it isn't necessary to have because the absence of that has given us all the missing links and all the problems that we have. I mean, you know, million-dollar properties without neighborhood assets. So that's not normal. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Garantonis. Thanks to the three of you. Mr. Howell, with respect to your comments, I do not know your question. I do not know the answer to that question. And whenever I have a hard question I don't know the answer to, I send it to the county manager who is here. And we do have process left to go, but I would ask, in the interest of time, if you might have a chance to just... connect with the county manager on the way out, or you can ask for an email and we will engage with staff to see what we know and what we're able to do to try and answer your question. So thanks to the three or four of you. Mr. Way is there as well.

Can I just add one?

Go ahead.

I mean, I do think that on the Carlin Springs site, the reason that there is not a released plan of what the county may or may not do on the site is we don't have a plan and so there's nothing to release and I know that that is a bit challenging but we're really focused on moving forward with the site plan that we do have because it's so critical and we did not want to slow that down by having to figure out a whole planning process for what the county side may or may not be. So I really don't think it's a intentional lack of transparency, it's just hard to share something that hasn't been created or talked about or decided.

Thank you for the additional context. And I'm sure you will certainly follow up, feel free to. And like I said, hard question goes to Mr. Schwartz. So thank you for the four of you very much. Also, just for C2E2's awareness, I think in the last 12 to 20 hours, there's been, or in the next 12 to 20 hours, you'll see a question updated ON OUR CIP THAT YOU WILL WANT TO LOOK AT BECAUSE IT'S RELATED TO SOLAR FACILITIES THAT CAME UP PREVIOUSLY. I KNOW THAT ALL FOUR OF YOU SHARE AN INTEREST THERE BUT IN PARTICULAR, MS. NEWLAND, YOU MAY WANT TO CHECK IN THE NEXT 12 HOURS OR SO. WE HAVE AN UPDATE THERE.

JUST TO REITERATE HOW TO DO THAT IF OTHERS ARE INTERESTED AND FEEL FREE TO ADJUST MY ANSWER IF I'M WRONG BUT YOU GO TO THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN PAGE AND THEN YOU CAN SEE THE BOARD EFFORTS OR WHAT'S IT CALLED, RICHARD? work session follow-up and in there you can see the questions those that have been asked and that our DMF team have been vigorously working to try to resolve and get posted for the public and for the board but let us know if you have trouble finding them

Sure, thank you and thank you. We have Commission Member Vice Chair Mr. Shinners here as well. So thank you for joining us. We will go to our next group and magically we're hopeful that there will be new name tags that will arrive and that will be our Tenant Landlord Commission. The three of you or four of you may come on up. Tenant Landlord Commission, the Juvenile Detention Center Commission, Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center Commission, the Arlington Neighborhoods Advisory Commission. And thank you, Mr. Davis. Thank you. Do you wanna just John, oh, there you go. Okay, there you go. All right, so we'll go in order of tenant, landlord, then the juvenile detention center, and then Arlington. Neighborhoods Advisory Commission, Mr. Litman and Mr. Kirkpatrick, we'll keep you on your toes. If you want to add, you will have the full opportunity. So, tenant landlord.

Okay, well, thank you all for the opportunity to address you all regarding the capital improvement plan. The tenant landlord commission met yesterday and we discussed what to include in our comments and we alluded to, we concluded on five topics. The first is we wanted to comment and see if there is further insight on the deferral of immediate housing capital funds. The proposed CIP has, which we are grateful for, has half a billion dollars of future housing proposal in the planning, in the public mix, public private funding. There is no concrete timeline, and if you all can clarify, future funds to protect our existing affordable housing market in that timeframe window, because we all know 18 months, especially in the development space, is a lot of time, and it could delay projects for two or three years during that timeframe. And related to that, because affordability is top of mind in the Commonwealth, we do support the Barcroft debt servicing, and that ensures that that site is able to remain affordable for the next century. We did pivot though towards green space around the county. As Arlington moves forward with densifying various transit and residential corridors, the plan should focus on creating additional public benefits such as parks, squares, and dog parks wherever possible. It is essential to expand these public spaces concurrently and also continue growth and preserve our urban forest and tree canopy. We do strongly support the $34.9 million for parks and recreation, especially Drew Park. And lastly, which was actually top of mind, we had a lot of discussion on this, which was our four-legged friends to ensure that Arlington has adequate spacing and services for our pets that seem to have proliferated after the pandemic, to ensure that we provide dog waste disposal bags at any county facility, not just limited to parks, but also our community centers. and libraries and such. But that was the gist of our comments, but we welcome your questions.

Thank you very much. We'll hear from everybody. I know one Arizona DeFerranti dog will very much appreciate that advocacy. We'll go next to Mr. Lawrence. And we'll come back with questions.

Thank you. First, let me say we have no FY28 CIP request right now, but you're ahead of us. So I'm not saying we won't have one. We just don't have one right now. You all should have the letter from the managers of the jurisdictions. We will obviously work on that and, you know, get you what you asked for by the end of the year. JUST A QUICK NOTE ON ME AND PLANNING. I SPENT SIX YEARS ON THE FALLS CHURCH PLANNING COMMISSION, THREE YEARS AS VICE CHAIR, TWO YEARS AS CHAIR. I DID THE STATE'S YEAR-LONG PLANNING COMMISSION TRAINING COURSE AND THEN I WAS RECRUITED TO JOIN THE SCHOOL BOARD AND I WAS THEIR FACILITIES LEAD TO SET UP A NEW PRE-K SCHOOL, RENOVATE A an elementary school for the first time in 50 years and replace our high school. So, CIP, facilities assessments and capital planning, I've got experience in. Right now, I met with Janitha, our executive director, yesterday just to talk about the whole idea behind capital planning. I want to stress, because we haven't met about this, I'm speaking on behalf of myself, not on behalf of the commission. But Janitha and I saw, what we're looking at is basically three kinds of buckets. One is, because we're obviously focused first on the kids, things like taking out the slabs and all the units are done. But things that affect the kids' lives the most. And let's face it, the slabs could have lasted for another 60 years. So they weren't a capital need, but they were a need for the kids. And there are things like, you know, other things that will touch them directly. The next bucket is frankly, items that have been deferred way too long. We've got an RFP for our access control room, and you've all seen it. It's out of a 1950s science fiction movie. That will close on Wednesday. That will be the largest capital project we've done in 38 years since the four units downstairs were made. We've just deferred and deferred and deferred. We're replacing things as they break, but the second bucket is the more urgent stuff like HVAC and access controls. And then the third one is the longer term, the roofs, the elevators, and things like that. So you're probably going to get things broken up. We do have about $4.5 million in our capital reserve now. So we're starting in a lot better position than a lot of people. And that's pretty much it. I won't really talk much about shelter care because that's more an Alexandria thing. But shelter care has an old building that's needed in the last year and a half, a new roof, new fascia, new gutters, new ADA ramp, and other things are falling apart. But... That's it, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Lawrence. We will come back to you. I certainly saw Ms. McNair yesterday as part of a community criminal justice board briefly, and always helpful reminders. So, Mr. Lightman.

Great, thank you. John and I have met with all of you separately, so I won't reiterate the things we said there or the things in our letter. What I would like to give you is a little context as you move forward into your decision-making phase. In 2019, the Arlington Neighborhoods Program, which then was Neighborhood Conservation Program, was at a low ebb. The county board had commissioned a review of the program based on concerns about its effectiveness, not the board's effectiveness, the program's effectiveness.

We don't let that happen.

Funding for the program was cut back drastically. COVID hit, disrupting operations. The county staff director for A&P left for another job. Several staff of his staff members retired. And Arnott itself had trouble getting a quorum to its meetings to do business. that I want to share with you today. Tonight, ARNAC will be voting on a package of projects worth $4 million to send to you for approval this summer. At the last two ARNAC meetings, and Mr. Spain and Ms. Cunningham were at the last one, 35 members attended each meeting. We're going to have to ask them to bring in more tables so we can sit around the table. In the last year, the County Board has approved two new neighborhood plans. We have seven additional neighborhood plans in process. We have new civic associations such as Potomac Yards seeking to join the group. We asked you in a previous CIP to set aside a million dollars for equity projects, which is part of the balance of seven million we have for the next two years. We have two equity projects in the pipeline, which will exceed that amount, and so we'll eat into some of that balance. The county staff is operating at full capacity, has been gaining valuable experience, and more than 20 civic associations have submitted letters in support of ARNAC's recommended seven million dollars in funding over the first two years of the CIP. The proposal to not provide additional funds for A&P in the first two years of the CIP will squander this momentum, squander the enthusiasm of our membership, and slow down badly needed projects that enhance safety, equity, and livability. We hope you'll reconsider that position. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Leighton. Mr. Kirkpatrick, you're here. Did you have comments you wanted to add?

I think just to add to what...

I think we cannot hear you, but you got to be read. There you go.

Go ahead. Just thank you. Just to add to what David was saying, we've done quite a bit of community building within RNAC, which a lot of times we get members who are sent over just to get their project through and done. And we spent a number of meetings over the last year informing people about what RNAC and the AMP really is, which is collaboration and community. And so we worked through a lot of that and we still have that great enthusiasm that David was talking about. I think our concern here is that if the $7 million probably that we are carrying over from the previous bond was probably an easy thing to say in a tight CIP year where you have, okay, there's 7 million already, but that was 7 million that we had left over because we were doing all this reconstruction of our NAC and rebuilding a staff. So I think if we don't get another full 7 million that we're asking for, I would only say that not getting anything would be harmful to us.

Got it, thank you. So now we turn to questions from colleagues. And actually, with respect to the housing capital fund that you started with, and I'm just nervous, Ferreira?

Ferreira.

Ferreira, I'm sorry. I apologize. Thank you, Ms. Coffey, for helping. So we've had discussions as recently as today about that. The manager has been working on it. There's more work to come to get to detail. And I've received an email separate from that I mentioned to everybody about concern about, you know, rents and the number of market actors. You need to make sure that the competition does work so that landlord is not in a position to to further accentuate the challenge and rent the. that so many Arlingtonians see. I don't know that I have any specifics. I'm open should colleagues or Mr. Schwartz have specifics, but we are working on it. I can say with confidence, near certainty that there will be guidance with respect to this, but that we won't have done all of the thinking that we need to do to get to a fully fleshed out thought process. Ms. Coffey.

Yeah, I think. This is a hugely innovative proposal. It's something brand new that I'm not aware of any jurisdiction in Virginia or really the country that has thought about funding committed affordable housing this way. And I think what's really important is it certainly is not proposed to replace or discontinue the AHIF, like Affordable Housing Investment Fund, the money from the operating budget that we already have invested there for any existing projects or the near term pipeline wouldn't change. So we know we've got expiring affordability things to consider and the game plan for those things are not changing. I think it is an open question whether if we did put together this housing innovation fund, whether it would go into AHIF as a way to bolster the funding within AHIF and provide new opportunity, whether it would be a whole separate standalone thing, whether it would be some combination thereof. I think those are the 18-month questions that we need Staff and in our community to work together to really figure out because I think what we do know is that we are not investing enough in creating new affordable housing And it's gonna take a really big swing like this to get us there But because we've never done it before we gotta figure out what it is We even want to be doing and so that's really what I think the 18 months of is about is figuring out, you know, it's one thing to say potentially $500 million on the table. It's a very different thing to say is that for retention and rehabilitation of expiring affordability? Is it for all new build construction? Is it a combination? Is it a competition? Is it RFPs? Is it partnership? Like all of those questions are on the table and we need time to figure that out, but we can't stop doing all the things we're doing right now. And so I hope no one thinks that this is a replacement for all of the great work that happens on a regular basis. It's really a way of saying that Our existing work is great, and we need to step up and level up if we want to accomplish what it is that we say we want to do on housing and affordability for Arlington.

Thank you.

So I think that certainly covers it. I'll open it up for any questions. I would say with respect to the dog waste disposal bags, I think that's an operating budget piece, I believe, more than a capital. So I would ask you to help us by continuing to raise that in the future. Mr. Spain.

I was just moving my mic. It's fine. I'm going to thank you to all of you, but also to Mr. Dave and John from ARNAC. I'm just going to pivot for a second since I'm liaison there as well. As you can see, all of us have many commissions and things that we are liaisons to. One, I just want to say that I appreciate the request. We all have seen the requests that have come in asking for additional funding as it comes to ARNAC. And I'll just share my thoughts in this moment. And it doesn't take away from what you said, Dave, that it seems as though this very same discussion was going on in 2019. Isn't that something? But one thing I can appreciate, and the county manager said this a few weeks back as he sat at this table, this RNAC and that process in and of itself is something to witness when you have folks from all over our community coming together And community, quite honestly, John. Community building, something that we say, right? We echo that we want to do. To prioritize issues that they want to see done in their particular neighborhoods. Now there's conversations about how we can be more effective, how we can look at other projects that are going on to make sure we're prioritizing in a way that is efficient and we're not, you know, wastefully spending money, perhaps. But I will just tell you this, that having gone to many meetings, and especially one last week, It was quite obvious that this is where a large majority of the community wants to go and engaged in. And I think we still have some conversations to have as a board about what that looks like outside of zero, right? I don't know if it's seven. I can't speak for the full board. But I get it. Because once that kitty dries up, the question becomes, what does the future do? People need some indications of we're committed to this process. And the lacking of showing that commitment leads to uncertainty. Then it leads to people that don't want to show up. And they'll feel like it's not worth it. So I would just say I want to thank you and to everyone who sent in these letters, and I think there's some homework for us to do and perhaps even staff about what is an alternative, and I don't know exactly what that is right now, so I can't commit to it, but I'm very appreciative to what you've done in sending in those recommendations. And to John over at the detention facility, there is one question I have in a letter There's a request to prepare a six-year capital improvement plan for staff. I think that's, can you just give me some idea on, do you believe there will be some costs incurred with that? I mean, or that would be incumbent upon staff to put that plan together? In this particular letter that you sent, yeah.

Well, this would be put together by detention center and shelter care staff.

Right, okay, got that clear, okay.

Our executive director is trying to see whether she needs to get, you know, maybe somebody from the outside to help. I think so. She hasn't made that decision yet. Yes, it's a heavy lift. All detention center and shelter care staff.

And the thunder is rolling, so let me... Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And again, we're going to work hard as a team. We'll see where we get to. All right. Thank you for coming out. Sure.

Thank you, Mr. Spain. So I appreciate the context and I agree that in some senses the funding concern is similar to 2019. That was my first year on the board and I was keenly aware of it at the time. I do feel that your description of the road that has been taken since then leads me to a lot more confidence in where the program is. It has been now four or five years since I sat in a room with 30 plus people and it is a community engagement experience to go into a meeting so I would you know I I think we still have work to do but there's also a question of sort of guidance I would not I would hope that the confidence of where we've been over the past few years leads to a different place than 2019 as to the existential sustaining of the program I think for me the equity work all of it, I am there on continuing to invest. There's some question about how quickly the investment would go through, and I hear you on the rounds of funding being low. So I wanted to give that level some indication of commitment to the program that I think is fully appropriate, and that does not mean that the end of the conversation has yet occurred, as you referred to it, Mr. Lightman, as the concluding and deciding time is still ahead of us on this we are in a cip as a whole that is limited in terms of almost any new investments so it's that's sort of equally dour i'm not sure that makes us all feel particularly better but i don't know that we have any other oh miss cunningham go ahead

Because it's one of the most fun things about having these commissions is having you guys meet each other. I feel like there's a logic puzzle that I have to ask a question that touches at least two of you together. So I'm going to try. With the Neighborhoods Advisory Commission Committee, what interaction do you have with tenants and renters typically? And how might the Tenant Landlord Commission perhaps advertise or amplify or support that work?

It's been, that's a real challenge for us because in putting together our neighborhood plans, we want to reach people in rental units and in apartments, apartment buildings, but it's hard to do because we are denied access. And so to the extent that we could have a working relationship with someone who can advocate for access to those units so those voices can be heard. Because a lot of our projects are, we talk about property owners all the time, but a lot of our projects affect renters. And we want to hear their voice, especially when we do the surveys that produce our neighborhood plans. And so we would welcome that kind of relationship.

I echo those comments from Chairman Litwin. We have the same difficulty too. There's a lot of new rental protections that went into effect on July 1st and we struggle of just having to be able to publicize that directly and not mandate landlords to do so, but to request them and often are received with denials.

Got it. So I think that might be something we continue to work on with our CAPE team, because I think everybody kind of wants it, but nobody wants to break the rules. So kind of keep working on that. And then my last question for Neighborhoods Advisory, as well, is as you think about sort of the same question as the NCS team, as you think about the intersection of the different programs that we have in the county, some are staff-led, like Vision Zero and the kind of data-driven Some are broader community asks like NCS, and then some of them are really kind of micro community asks. Do you see synergies there, and particularly since you have a long list of projects that take a long time to get to the top because the money is not infinite? Are there pieces of those or projects entirely that might move over to Vision Zero or you might sort of recommend as, you know, they're gold seal approved by all three programs so they should go to the top of the list?

We try to go through the lists of NCS projects when a project is proposed. And if we, for example, if a neighborhood proposes a project and we see it's on the NCS list, we might say, this is a better way to go for you. Or if they are interested to hear or talk about the Oakland Street, if... they can't get it through our process, then we may encourage them to go there. So I think there's an opportunity for us to work more closely together to make sure that the project gets through somehow.

Okay, great. I think that's something for us as a board to look at and with the staff to encourage as well that we are, we're all really committed to some of these critical safety improvements, but also the quality of walking and being in our neighborhoods for renters and property owners alike. And so wherever we can go to the faster route, you know, and I think in some ways that micro work that you guys do might be one of the better front doors in some ways to say, you know, okay, but the sorting hat says go over there because you'll get done in a year versus over here it's going to take five or more.

Yeah, we're not committed that it has to be through us. I mean, it just needs to get done.

Yeah, that's great. Well, thank you so much for being here and your work throughout the year as well.

Thank you, Mr. Cunningham. Mr. Karantonis.

Thank you. Mr. Ferreira, reading the, hearing you and reading also the letter of the commission, I remembered a previous representative of, I believe, Clarendon, who said once to the county board, we are a neighborhood, too. And so what I'm after is you say here, you make a point in saying green space creation, corridor densification, and that so public assets should be available everywhere, and then you have a sub-point about Drew Park, et cetera. What motivates this? I mean, I'm trying to read through this in a way, I'm hearing your commission saying, we feel that we're not, that the CIP should take into account the needs of the denser places here where about 70% of Arlingtonians live. Is that correct?

Yeah, I would say, I mean, I know we're limited. I mean, our territorial gyroscope is 19 square miles. That is within our control. And that when we're planning, say, the Langston Boulevard corridor, that we incorporate plazas or parks or open spaces so that it's not just... and you have to go further into the neighborhoods to access the nature, the parks, and the bike paths, et cetera. So just be more conscientious as we work towards densification in these corridors, and I know you may apply different amendments and such to different projects, but to also maximize the public benefit spaces as much as possible.

Right, so quality over quantity and so forth?

Correct. And I know we're limited. There's only so much height we can give to a structure because of the capital plan. But I guess similar to, I guess going back into history, like the McMillan, not the McMillan plan, but the Commissioner's plan of New York, where Central Park was not, it was an afterthought. There was a need because we kept densifying and growing, but there was not an outlet of natural space that we could use. that the community could have it as an outlet. I mean, Boston has Boston Commons. We have Arlington Cemetery, which takes up a lot of space, so we don't have the acreage to provide a central park of Arlington, but to incorporate that into future plans. If we can spare a block or two here or there, but in an added extra two or three floors, that would be excellent.

Right. I mean, this intersects also with something we've heard about some urban parks, like, for example, Quincy, which is on Virginia Highlands. By the way, our most populous corridor doesn't intersect with a natural park, which is like the case of Columbia Park. There is an intersection with Fort Myron, for example, which is a huge asset. I hear you. I understand that. I would always expand my thinking here also to other public facilities and, you know, like community centers, libraries, et cetera. This is also a thought that we have been discussing a lot during this CIP round. Mr. Kirkpatrick, you said that, if there is no dedication of additional or for mirroring seven million, this will be harmful to the program. Can you elaborate a little bit what the harm looks like?

Yes. I think it would be harmful in that first we would lose a lot of the momentum that we've gained and especially I think in terms of participation because people would realize that it's going to be about if we go with the recommended amount of funding, it would be one to two projects, I believe, per funding round. And then we have to add in rising construction costs, plus the fact that David mentioned we have a million of that seven million that is transferring over is already for equity projects. of which there could be two coming up this round, so that leaves really six million for any projects that are not equity projects that are queued to come to fruition. So, in that way, I think it's a chain where it's a, reduces morale, people stop coming to meetings, people stop being active and participating, and, you know, maybe that would pick up in several cips later but it would it would take some time and then we would just be i think similar to 2019 built building again and you know some future cip maybe we'd be back to the funding that that we want but it would it would take some time

I hear you. I can relate very much to the discussion about what the soul of the program is and how morale actually produces the real goods, which is the sidewalks and the lighting projects and this. To me, this is... I am... I wasn't a, I had to be shown to believe. I've been shown and I believed. So I take that very well under advisement. So we will be discussing that very seriously. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Karantonis. Mr. Spain. Thank you. My last comment will be, Mr. Board Member Karantonis, you took the word right out of my mouth because I had written it down about morale and I guess, You know, the county manager, when he came to us in the CIP, the overarching theme was about investment in facilities and infrastructure. And, you know, there's a lot of other things and bells and whistles. But I also view this as, you know, with ARNAC and what's going on is that a showing of commitment. And you want, what you're looking for is predictability and not uncertainty. So my question would be, and I think you may have answered this a bit, what does a pause for two years outside of morale, what does that do? If you're able, unable, I mean, we can write out, you know, an intent and things that you need to do between now and then to maybe be more effective. But outside of morale, what else is that? How does that affect this program?

It slows the throughput of projects. If the funding level we're looking at would probably fund 12 to 16 projects over two years. The funding level is currently proposed. We're talking more 8 to 12 projects over two years. So when you have a long list and you slow down the throughput, you know, people already are understand that it takes a while for these projects to come to fruition because of the need to build the community support the need to Do all the design work and all that sort of stuff. It's not a quick process and if we Slow it down then we start to lose resources, we lose county resources, because county design engineers will go off and do other things, or the park designers will go off and do other things if they don't see our projects coming through the pipeline.

So the bottom line for me, thank you, and I'm done, is in order for this to happen, we have to find an offset. somewhere, shape, or form, or figure out a different way. So thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm done with my questions for this afternoon.

Thank you, Mr. Spain. Thank you, all colleagues. Seeing no lights, thank you, Mr. Ferreira. Thank you, Mr. Kirkpatrick, Mr. Lawrence, and Mr. Lightman. We all really appreciate this opportunity. I will say that this is an indication of rigor in the sense that having this system for engagement on CIP is not happening in all of my three or four CIPs. But I do think it's important. It's important for us to listen in person in addition to getting your letters and all of the feedback. That is the fabric that builds community, as you said, Mr. Kirkpatrick. With that, we are adjourned for today. Thank you so much.