Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Board to Take Up A Number of B'ham Items Saturday
The county is set to issue $43 million in bonds, with $14.8 million going to purchase property on Village 1 that will become a street and park, between N. Pershing Drive and N. Henderson Road, west of N. George Mason Drive (the four-storey Madison at Ballston Station apartment building is there). The vote comes this Saturday at the county board's monthly meeting.
As part of the 2007 agreement between the county and Paradigm Development Company, the owner of the property, the county would buy road and park space on the Village 1 property.
The road will extend N. 3rd Street from N. Henderson to N. Pershing and would build a park, about the size of a football field, on N. 4th Street just west of N. George Mason. According to county documents, Paradigm will complete the road and park; the money spent includes those improvements.
According to the county manager’s report, “Under the terms of the purchase agreement, closing on the acquisition is dependent on the developer’s completion of certain site work, including demolition and removal of above and below ground structures and site grading. This work is anticipated to be completed later this fall, with closing and settlement of funds to occur on the acquisition shortly thereafter.” These bonds are not part of the “general obligations” fund but the “annual appropriations pledge” and therefore will likely carry a “double-a” rating, and therefore higher interest. They might also be issued under the “Build America Bonds” as part of the federal stimulus package, the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” the report said. “Estimated annual debt service in [fiscal year] 2010 on the bonds totals $0.9 million. Approximately $0.2 million will be paid for from the Transportation Investment Fund and is attributable to the portion of the Buckingham Village 1 acquisition related to the public street extension. The remaining $0.7 balance will be paid for from the General Fund and is within the County’s adopted FY 2010 budget,” the report states.
Federal stimulus money will also go to Carlyn Springs apartments for energy improvements. The board is set to approve up to $151,120 of “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” money to Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing for the apartments at 4318 N. Carlin Springs Road (on the corner of Carlin Springs and N. Thomas Street). The complex, two buildings, is a mix of market-rate and affordable units.
Union Jack’s Pub in the Ballston Commons Mall is looking to expand its outdoor café from 20 to 54 seats, and the plan they have puts tables and chairs at the boundary of the right-of-way along the Glebe Road sidewalk. County staff, according to the manager’s report, felt it required a site plan amendment to make sure chairs and tables do not encroach on the walkways. The report says that Ashton Height’s Civic Association was notified and no comments were made. The restaurant must maintain a six-foot, barrier-free walkway between any fencing that corrals their tables and chairs, and the “tree pits” that run along N. Glebe Road, according to the report. Citizens may comment on this item at the recessed meeting Tuesday July 14, 6:30p.m. (see the comment, below).--ST
Public comment starts 8:30a.m. July 11 at the county board meeting room, third floor of the county office building, 2100 Clarendon Blvd.--ST
Related stories…
Labels: ballston, Buckingham, county board
Thursday, November 15, 2007
HeraldTrib Yesterday: Forgotten Items
Labels: art, county board
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Mike McMenamin to "Meet-n-Greet" in Buckingham
Sunday Oct. 14, 2 to 4 p.m.
The forum will be held at the Arlington Oaks Community Center, 4490 N. Pershing Dr. (at the corner of N. Pershing and N. 2nd Street, across N. Pershing from Culpepper Gardens). Parking is limited to on-street, so walk if you can.
Mr. McMenamin plans to bring a Spanish-language interpreter with him, so Spanish speakers are encouraged to attend.
Food and beverages will be served.
Mr. McMenamin won about 19,000 votes last year in his first run for the county board, losing to incumbent Democrat Chris Zimmerman, who won the three-way board race with over 43,000 votes. Last year was Mr. McMenamin’s first run for board over what he saw as a county government out of touch with the neighborhoods. His jump into politics started with his and his neighbor’s inability to get a stop sign erected in their neighborhood.
A member of the county’s Fiscal Affairs Advisory Committee with two children in public schools, Mr. McMenamin calls himself a “details man” on his web site. His platform is focused on working with neighborhoods, having responsible, what he calls independent, leadership, and responsible spending. He particularly concerned with construction delays and budget overruns, his web site says.
The general election is Tuesday Nov. 6, with 13 seats from school board to Virginia Senate up for grabs, including two places on the county board. Five candidates are vying for those two seats.
Labels: county board, politics
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
HeraldTrib Today: Sept. 26, 2007
DON’T FOGET THIS SUNDAY: The HeraldTrib’s first “Meet-n-Greet” with Josh Ruebner, (Green Party) at 2p.m. at the 
Arlington Oaks Community Center. He’ll talk, take questions, and mingle. He is bringing a Spanish-language interpreter. Light food and beverages will be served. (Click the link for more information.)
Other Meet-n-Greets with county board candidates:
The HeraldTrib is unaffiliated with any political party, but offers these as a public service. More on the other two candidates will be posted as we near those events. --ST
The purchase and renovation of Buckingham Village 3 was the topic du jour at the Buckingham Village 3 Working Group on Monday, Sept. 24. The group, largely responsible for what happens to Village 3, discussed who should sit on a panel to review developer proposals and what that request for proposals should look like. 
In the negotiations between county staff, citizens and Paradigm Development Cos. regarding the future of Buckingham Villages, Village 3 fell under the protection of the county’s Historic Affairs and Landmark Review Board and is the village that will remain closest to what it is today.
In the negotiations, the county agreed to buy Village 3 for about $32 million, through a developer, from Paradigm Development Co, which owns the property. No money has yet been spent on the purchase. The working group will help woo and choose the developer with the idea that some, or all, of Village 3 would change from rental to co-operative, condominium or a mixture of the two.
Village 3 sits on Pershing Drive between N. George Mason Drive and N. Thomas Street. More on this when the request is closer to completion.
My column at the Arlington Connection has resumed. (It's about Arlington Freecycle).
For more stories that you might have missed, feel free to scroll down from this page, or click these links.
Today's Headlines:
Headlines from Earlier in the Week:
Troubles clicking through these links? Just scroll down, the stories are all there. --ST
Labels: buckingham villages, BV3, county board, meet-n-greet, politics
Monday, June 11, 2007
Bham Villages to Begin Relocation
Eighty-four households in Buckingham Village Apartments are facing relocation before the year’s end as Paradigm Development Company works to implement the redevelopment plan OKed by the Arlington County Board in a five-to-nothing vote on Saturday.
Paradigm plans to open their relocation office next Monday to begin helping families and individuals, said Micheline Castan-Smith, Paradigm’s project manager.
“Phase One” of the redevelopment includes razing the buildings along N. Pershing Drive west of N. George Mason Drive. Obviously, that cannot happen until the apartments are emptied, Ms. Castan-Smith said in an interview. Relocating the families will take until late November or early December, she estimated.
Paradigm is enlisting the help of AHC Inc., an affordable housing company based in Arlington. AHC owns and manages the Gates of Ballston in the Buckingham neighborhood and 18 other properties in Arlington. [For more on AHC, see the June 2 post, below.] Ms. Castan-Smith said other companies will be involved with the relocation.
As I wrote in the Feb. 28 post, eight buildings, between Culpepper Garden Apartments and N. George Mason Drive will be destroyed to make room for construction of “Building A,” a four-storey, 234-unit apartment building with pitched roof, a cupola atop, and a parking garage underground. The building will be a mix of market rate and affordable housing.
This is the facade of "Building A" on the side facing the "Common Green." (All images here were developed by Paradigm and are taken from plans shown at various Site Plan Review Committee meetings over the last 10 months.)
The plan for the property, “Scenario 8,” was the product of months of discussions between county staff, Paradigm, and residents throughout Arlington.
Village 1 in Scenario 8 includes two large apartment buildings, a "Common Green" between them, and rows of townhouses along N. George Mason Drive.
The affordable housing, open space and streets will cost the county about $49 million. What does this buy the county?
As reported in the Dec. 3 post (click the link then scroll down to “Village 3 Co-op-eration” under the Dec. 3 post), Village 3, on N. Pershing Drive just east of N. George Mason Drive, will be sold to the county and turned into a condominium or Co-operative. The details there are still to be worked out. The county cannot buy the property itself, but must work with another company to do so. They have two years to find the company to help them buy, said JoAnn Cubbage, the chief of the county’s Housing Services Sector. Purchasing Village 3, reported March 21, will be about $32 million, plus interest of up to $4 million.
The county will pay $14.8 million for the land on Village 1 to make street extensions of N. 3rd Street and N. 4th Road as well as a community open space just smaller than a football field on the extended N. 4th Street, David Cristeal in the county’s Housing Division said in an interview. Another $1.5 to $2 million will cover the cost of developing that space into a park.
The "Common Green" will be a public park in Village 1, including, (from left to right), a tot lot, gazebo, sculpture (or something similar), and flags.
Finally on the capital side, the county is loaning $7 million from the Affordable Housing Investment Fund and the Housing Reserve Fund to help Paradigm build 100 affordable apartments in the new buildings. That money will be paid back with interest, 3.5 percent, once the project is “stabilized,” Mr. Cristeal said, meaning that the building has been built and the units have been rented. That might take as much as five years, he said.
A couple hundred thousand more will be spent helping with tenant relocation and other assistance, Mr. Cristeal said.
In all, 300 units of affordable housing will be saved. All 140 units of Village 3 will remain and will be sold at below-market rates. (Some plans even call for adding units in basements and in other spaces.) One hundred units in the two new buildings will be affordable at the 60 percent of the Area Median Income, which will qualify Paradigm to receive tax credits on those units.
The final 60 units will be found somewhere in Buckingham. These units will be affordable at the 80 percent of AMI. Many households make more than the 60 percent AMI to qualify for the lowest-rent units, but they do not make enough to rent apartments at the market rate. This attempts to fill the gap, people involved in the negotiations have said.
“It’s an effort to assist those people. If they wanted to stay in the neighborhood, they could,” Ms. Cubbage said.
Where these units will come from has not been planned completely. Most likely they will either be found in the new buildings or taken from the market-rate units in Historic Ballston Park, Ms. Cubbage said.
Labels: affordable housing, ahc, Buckingham, buckingham villages, county board, financing
