The Questions
I sent each candidate the same list of six questions. Below are the responses they sent me.
Question 1: Housing
Last year, Arlington's "Missing Middle" zoning changes were blocked by a court and are currently pending appeal. The Missing Middle plan would have allowed multi-family housing (up to six units depending on lot size) to be built on lots currently zoned for single-family housing.
Question 1a: Do you believe the County should continue appealing to reinstate Missing Middle? Why or why not?
James DeVita: I do not believe that the County Board should continue appealing Judge Schell’s decision on the Missing Middle. The Missing Middle is not liberal or progressive, it’s just a bad idea. The Missing Middle will NOT create affordable housing. Prices for the new units exceed $1,000,000.00. What the Missing Middle WILL do is increase traffic, make parking impossible, overwhelm our sewer and stormwater drainage systems, obliterate the tree canopy, create overcrowding in local schools, and irrevocably change the character of our neighborhoods. I would vote to drop the appeal and repeal the Missing Middle.
Takis Karantonis: I hope you will understand that I am not at liberty to discuss ongoing litigation and/or the legal position of the County Board.
That said, it is known that the Sep. 2024 ruling is mostly on procedural / governance questions rather than on the substance of the adopted policy. Arlington, as many Counties and municipalities in our Commonwealth see this ruling as directly impacting their ability to govern and making land-use decisions and implementing local jurisdiction as they have been doing for decades. It is therefore not surprising that the current appeal is by unanimous consent and enjoys support from the Virginia Association of Counties, Virginia Municipal League and the Virginia Local Government Attorneys Association.
The chronic lack of attainable housing options for middle-class households continues to present a serious challenge to Arlington’s economy, ability to attract and retain the workforce needed by our employers and ability to continue to be competitive in our region. EHOs is not the only tool in our housing policies toolbox, but it is one that should not be excluded, as evidenced by the intense and emerging discussion of similar policies across our Commonwealth and nationally.
Question 1b: Regardless of the outcome of the Missing Middle appeal, what specific actions should the County take to make housing more affordable for lower-income and middle-income residents?
James DeVita: Instead of the Missing Middle, I would recommend that the County Board encourage real estate developers to convert vacant office space to living space to create more affordable housing and also require developers to set aside units for Low Income Housing. I would also require the government to provide subsidies for low-income housing.
Takis Karantonis: I ran for office with a significant background in housing advocacy. Adequate, safe and affordable housing responds to a basic need and is therefore a basic human and civil right. Sufficient housing supply and a diversity of housing options to match our socio-economically diverse population, are critical for Arlington to succeed as a community.
I continue to work on:
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Reducing unreasonable barriers that suppress housing supply:
- simplifying and streamlining approval processes.
- enhancing public involvement to include under-served residents.
- advocating for building-code reforms, (like single-stairway-buildings) that make building more efficient, while not compromising quality or safety.
- Being intentional on reducing construction costs and increasing housing capacity by reducing minimum requirements for parking.
- Being further intentional in pursuing complete, walkable amenity-rich neighborhoods that can support denser housing.
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Recognizing that long-term zoning reforms are a necessary part of solutions that include:
- expanding housing options for all Arlingtonians,
- supporting mixed-income communities, and
- eliminating de-facto exclusionary zoning
- Preserving aging buildings and aggressively pursuing adaptive reuse for residential purposes.
- Continuing transit oriented corridor-development, where jobs, infrastructure, schools, and public facilities and spaces continue to provide for the best development conditions.
- Pursuing the geographic dispersion of affordable housing.
- Strengthening Fair Housing protections.
- Using Affordable Housing Investment Fund (AHIF) dollars to achieve committed affordable units on the entire lower income spectrum, especially for <40% AMI.
- Continuing advocacy for amending, by the Gen. Assembly, our affordable housing ordinance which limits Affordable Housing developer contributions to 5% with buy-out options.
- Strengthening rent-support programs (including but-not-limited to Housing Grants), eviction-protection and legal-aid programs.
- Funding and further expanding eligibility for the Moderate Income Purchase Assistance Program.
- Revitalizing the Arlington Condo-Initiative, emphasizing the preservation of existing condominium units.
- Supporting innovative, form-based, planning, that delivers higher development viability and predictability in the context of balanced, complete, neighborhoods with diverse housing options and high quality of life.
- Measuring outcomes and report frequently.
Question 2: The County Budget
The County Board recently had to make some difficult decisions to address an expected budget shortfall, including increasing the County meals tax rate from 4% to 5% and cutting some services. Do you believe those decisions were appropriate given the shortfall the County was facing? How would you approach addressing similar shortfalls in the future, given that the County Board may have to continue making tough budget decisions over the next few years due to declining demand for commercial real estate and federal policy changes?
James DeVita: I am not a big fan of tax increases. I would instead seek to make up the shortfall by bringing new business to Arlington temporarily lowering or eliminating business taxes for new businesses and adjusting zoning to allow businesses.
Takis Karantonis: The slash-and-burn policies of the Trump-administration are hurting tens of thousands of Arlingtonians, their families and communities. I have been actively and very vocally advocating for economic development strategies and fiscal governance focused on resiliency and effective and values-driven risk-management. Having been elected during the pandemic and having had to navigate the challenges brought to us by the Youngkin-administration here in Virginia I am well prepared for the current challenge.
Our first priority is and should continue to be defending, protecting and retaining our highly skilled workforce while diversifying our local economy so as to be less vulnerable to the federal chaos and political volatility.
As the long-time County Board liaison to our Economic Development Commission I worked very diligently with all relevant stakeholders in the community, especially with the business community, to reformulate our Econ. Dev. Strategic Plan and to advance the Commercial Market Resilience Initiative that has removed business-barriers and continues to bring new investment and jobs to the County – including new HQ relocations (such as CoStar) and significant office-to-residential and office-to-hotel-conversions.
We are further actively supporting our small, minority owned businesses, our tech-startup eco-system which we continue to grow in close collaboration with our resident higher education institutions.
Facing a hostile federal administration we have been upfront about our priorities when it comes to fiscal resilience:
- Strengthening our social safety net and continuing to provide basic services to all Arlingtonians.
- Proactively supporting employment, workforce-development and entrepreneurship.
- Continuing to support and provide the base conditions for a good local economy: from excellent Schools, excellent transit, excellent public safety, to good, reliable and responsive governance. Our commitment to affordable and attainable housing plays a critical role.
- Being thoughtful, principled and strategic with reductions and efficiencies, which includes defending our AAA Bond rating.
Question 3: Transportation
Next year, the County is expected to update its Master Transportation Plan, which was last adopted in 2007. The plan will cover all aspects of transportation, including driving, biking, walking, and transit. What would be your priorities for the plan?
James DeVita: I would want to make sure the bus routes which were eliminated are brought back and I also want to increase bike lanes and provide more electric vehicle charging stations.
Takis Karantonis: Arlington will continue to be a nationally (and internationally) a leading jurisdiction in smart growth, transit oriented development, but also a community that puts pedestrian and cyclist safety first and has been aggressively implementing our Vision-Zero strategy, which I am proud to have helped create and voted for.
As a transit advocate and daily bus rider, my immediate priority is: To save and fund Metro-rail and Metro-bus by securing a dedicated and reliable funding source. Arlington and our region should not have to beg our state-governments for this funding. I represented Arlington on our region’s Transportation Planning Board and successfully fought with my colleagues across the region to defend and enhance public transit.
Specifically on the MTP-update:
- Pedestrian and cyclist safety continues to be a top priority. Arlington has aggressively added new and protected bike-lanes, organized in well connected urban networks that elevate and add value to both modals.
- Making multimodal connectivity a ubiquitous option by design (residents should always have more than only one mobility option)
- Making strategic choices in retrofitting -and where necessary modify car-centered corridors (like Carlyn Springs Road) to become truly and safe multimodal and, most importantly, walkable.
- Strategically adjusting our parking requirements in order to both, reduce induced demand and to better handle existing demand.
- Focus on connectivity as a system of interlocking networks where non-car-based mobility has the same or better performance.
Question 4: Federal Policy Changes
Many Arlington residents are concerned about policy changes occurring at the federal level. Do you believe the County Board should have a role in responding to those changes? If so, what should the County Board's role be? If not, why not?
James DeVita: Yes, I was appalled by the Trump administration’s decision to fire federal employees. I believe that the County should try to rehire these employees if possible and if not, at least provide them with job training, networking opportunities, and job fairs.
Takis Karantonis: The County Board’s role is to defend, protect and shield local government and governance from the federal chaos and malicious attempts to undermine the economic, social and fiscal fundamentals of our community.
While the County Government can’t stop a hostile administration from devastating our federal government, we are actively supporting all directly and indirectly affected.
- Continuous job and legal-resource fairs are already taking place.
- Active recruitment of eligible former federal workers and contractors.
- Provision of specialized social services, spanning from legal support to mental-health and employment search support.
- Continuous Virginia and Federal advocacy in support of releasing the necessary funding to confront increased unemployment and workforce-development demands.
- Wrap-around services for families in financial distress or under pressure because of their immigration or minority status.
- Strong commitment to continue to welcome, protect and support our LGBTQ+ community.
- Strong commitment to continue funding and providing services essential for our local democracy such as libraries.
- Strong commitment to help and support those who are stepping up to help and support our residents (such as our non-profits)
Question 5: Public Safety
Like many localities, Arlington County has faced recruitment and staffing challenges in its police department, fire department, and sheriff’s office. What steps would you propose to address those challenges?
James DeVita: I would like to see the County provide low cost housing and\or housing subsidies for police, fire, and sheriff’s department recruits.
Takis Karantonis: With the exception of the ACSO employees all the above belong to collective bargaining units. Compensation and working conditions have dramatically improved over the last 3-4 years as a result. I fought for re-instating the right of these employees to actively negotiate compensation and working-conditions and am proud to have worked and voted for this (after >40 years of not being allowed to unionize in public service)
Recruitment and retention is now more stable which is also a consequence of an improving labor-market.
We further finished the implementation of the Kelly-day for the FD and significantly reduced compression and leap-frogging at the same time as we made it easier for lateral hires from other FDs, which will further reduce mandatory overtime and stabilize personnel strength.
Compensation and compression-reduction have been critical components of stabilizing our PD’s staffing.
While both staffing and overtime challenges won’t be resolved overnight, the policies applied are pointing in the right direction.
Question 6: Miscellaneous
Is there anything else you would like to mention?
James DeVita: I want to work with the School Board to increase internship programs, after school programs, and mental health counseling for students.
Takis Karantonis: A lot, but most importantly: The real progress we continue to make on providing a strong social safety net to all Arlingtonians. Rent, food and health (incl. mental health) assistance are established programs that support our community and help thousands of households every day in most difficult circumstances. Arlington is by all measures either at the forefront or well ahead of any jurisdiction in our Commonwealth in providing such a continuum of care.
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