See revised Land Use element in Attachment B of Planning Board Resolution No.14-10 Demand for Transit Accessible Development A recent study by the George Mason University Center for Regional Analysis (GMU) recommends that a substantial portion of the necessary housing should be located close to established and growing employment centers, near transit and transportation networks, and in compact developments to meet the demands of smaller households seeking walkable, transit-accessible communities. Equally important to note is that, increasingly, jobs and employers are following their employees. To be competitive in the new economy, jurisdictions must be viewed as an attractive place for a broad spectrum of people to live. A critical message from the GMU forecast is that robust economic growth in the region cannot be guaranteed unless the housing preferences of the new workforce have been met. The county’s greatest opportunity to build a strong commercial tax base, and generate the type and scale of economic development opportunities that will make the county competitive within the region, is to concentrate on creating walkable urban places. As described in Christopher Leinberger’s 2012 report on walkable urban places (WalkUPs) in the Washington, D.C. region (“DC: The WalkUP Wake-Up Call”), it is anticipated that Walk-UPs will be the major driver of the real estate market in the years to come. According to this report, there were 43 regionally significant Walk-UPs in the Washington metropolitan area in 2012. These places have largely developed in the “favored quarter,” which includes northwest Washington, D.C., Arlington, Montgomery, Fairfax, and Loudon counties. However, since 2000, due to focused development and redevelopment efforts in Washington, D.C., new Walk-UPs have arisen along both the northern and southern Green Line. For example, the Navy Yard development, anchored by the National’s Baseball Stadium and the U.S. Department of Transportation, has transformed an entire community in southeast Washington, D.C. into a walkable, mixed-use community with strong employment, recreation, entertainment, and housing uses. On the northern Green Line, the Columbia Heights Metro Station was transformed through the introduction of new retail, restaurant, and entertainment uses. A variety of new housing types were constructed, contributing to the diverse socioeconomic and cultural mix of the community. The progress that has been made on the Metro Green Line provides a template for how new walkable, transit-oriented places can be developed outside of the Metro Red Line, which is traditionally the “favored quarter.”
Walkable Places
The Brookings Institution report “Walk this Way: The Economic Promise of Walkable Places in Metropolitan Washington, D.C.,” by Christopher B. Leinberger and Mariela Alfonzo, finds that: •
“Walkable Places perform better economically.
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Walkable places benefit from being near other walkable places.
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Residents of more walkable places have lower transportation costs and higher transit access but lower housing costs.
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Residents of places with poor walkability areas are generally less affluent and have lower educational attainment than places with good walkability.”
Brookings, May 2012
Walkable urban areas typically create a higher proportion of tax revenue in relationship to the amount of land that they consume. For example, the seven Walk-UPs identified in Arlington County occupy about 10 percent of the county’s land, but produce more than 50 percent of the county’s tax assessment. This can provide the type of development pattern that best matches the county’s vision of capitalizing on existing Metro infrastructure, implementing transit-oriented development (TOD), and attracting major employers. None of these efforts happened overnight, they each required focused planning and implementation efforts with the local government playing a major role in catalyzing the development through creative incentives, land assembly, providing by-right zoning, implementing parking strategies, and constructing critical infrastructure.
Land Use
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