Okay, it's been a while since I've seen a new posting in the Arlington forum. So let me get the ball rolling on one with something near my neighborhood that's bugging me. It's kind of an old issue, but I digress.
Does anyone know what the latest is on the controversy over the First Baptist Church of Clarendon's plans to build a housing complex on top of their building?
I had heard the NIMBYs in Lyon Village took their fight all the way through the state court system... but what was the outcome? I was out of the country for a while, so I missed out.
Couldn't have been good for them, I would imagine, since some of them still have their "Affordable Housing Yes, Illegal Rezoning No" signs up outside their houses. Can anyone give me an update?
Anyway, whatever the outcome, the whole incident highlights one of the inherent contradictions of life in Arlington. Much of the county -- not all, but a lot -- serves as a lonely liberal outpost in Virginia, and as a liberal Dem, that suits me just fine. But as liberal and open-minded as many of us claim to be, the thought of poor folks or - God forbid- minorities moving into one of our nicely trimmed, predominately white suburban neighborhoods is enough to start years of litigation. Sure, folks here will claim to be all for equal rights, affordable housing and helping the poor, but only as long as the poor are kept at arm's length.
Of course, the NIMBYs will tell you they don't fear the idea of poor folks and minorities moving nearby. They'll try to sell you the idea that what they hate about the church's project is the height of the building, the traffic congestion in might cause or some other such nonsense, or the idea that the county's rezoning effort cross the church/state constitutional line (which very well might be true, but is also somewhat debatable).
So that's my take on the whole fiasco. I would close with something a Arlington County official once told me about it years ago... She said Lyon Village has prospered from the development in Clarendon. Property values have gone up (as have taxes, but that's a whole other story) and there a more amenities in the local area. "Now everyone is asking the neighborhood that has benefited the most from this development to give something back," she said. "And they just don't seem to want to."
No doubt, there are plenty of folks out there who disagree with me. So let's hear it.