Cherrydale Citizens Association

Meeting January 16, 2008

WRITTEN & SUBMITTED BY MAUREEN ROSS.

THESE MINUTES HAVE NOT BEEN EDITED, APPROVED NOR ENDORSED BY OFFICERS OF THE CHERRYDALE CITIZENS ASSOCIATION

We had 23 Cherrydalers present at the meeting (not including 2 lovely children!)

In addition we had guests George May, project manager for the fire station relocation, and Fran Lunney County coordinator of housing planning

President Brian Bonnet presided. (and several people gave him membership checks to pass on to our treasurer, hint hint everyone!)

7:30 to 8 - CHILI CONTEST! It was a 5-way tie. Each chili recipe was unique. Thanks go to Evan Lacopo for his generous “Guess where it’s from” chili, Ron Kampeas for “Empty the fridge” concoction; Marc Scarcella for Beer Chili, Jack Spitler for Cheater Chili and Bill L’hommidieu for No NAME chili. I’m kind of sorry I didn’t get 5 doggie bags because they were ALL delicious and now as I type I am hungry again.

This was a great idea! Thanks go to Terri Gaw for the inspiration and perspiration!

Fire-Station update:

George May presented up dates on progress in the fire station relocation project. (Note I have asked him to email me the finer details and will post separately as it’s a tad complicated.) Koons and County have 2 separate agreements. One agreement is the land transfer (Koons gives County their rear parking lot and County gives Koons the 21st Rd land). The 21st Rd land becomes part of the area for the Koons parking garage and the new 21st Rd is moved to where the abandoned white house was on Lee Hwy next to Koons. The other agreement is about easements.

After everything is signed, THEN 21st Rd is moved to where the white house was. This takes 6-7 months. Then Koons’ Garage is built, with Koons using the rear parking lot for staging. This takes 8-10 months. Then the fire station is actually built. So we are looking at years here.

Accessory Dwelling Proposal

Fran Lunney from County explains the Housing Commission’s proposal. Refer to the article in the January Sweet and Sour newsletter. Quick summary follows:

Why do this? So elderly can afford to stay in their homes and have help; to make ownership more affordable (with a rental unit in your home or garage you can qualify for 25% more house); to make rental units and affordable housing in general more affordable (rental units in homes tend to be lower than the surrounding rental rates); allow extra income for home owners.

How to do it? It would have to be owner occupied, with a parking impact survey done first, no more than 2 adults renting the unit, no more than 1000SF, with a foot print no larger than 650 SF, with an owner signed pre-approval for code inspection access. The use permit would pass automatically from owner to owner of the land, and the use permit could be removed. The unit would have to have it’s own everything - kitchen, heat, a/c, exit etc.

Concerns and questions and comments from the community:

How effective is code enforcement if there is a problem? Answer - for current rental units it is difficult to get permission to enter when a code violation is suspected, but this use permit will have some documentation owner must sign which preauthorizes code inspector access.

Does this deed allowing a rental unit pass automatically from owner to owner? Answer: Yes. (How do we know? How does new owner know? Maureen reminded us of the incident on N Monroe where the home owner had a covenant disallowing removal of the 100 year old pine tree but shortly after the land changed hands the tree was cut down and new owner claimed he had no idea about this rule)

How strict are the rules on what the accessory dwelling looks like if it out side the house (like in a garage)? Originally County was going to disallow windows and doors on the side nearest the neighbor but it was pointed out that could mean neighbor starred at just a massive wall. So Fran considered bringing back to the housing commission the consideration NOT to make specific rules but decide design thru a use permit review which allowed neighbor input.

If having the rental unit makes a mortgage more affordable, doesn’t that mean the new owner will have to rent the unit, thereby assuring that we end up with many more rental units and hence more density? Answer not known but County estimates that this proposal would add only about 28 new units a year and that currently we have 1 illegal rental for every 20 to 30 homes.

Won’t this raise property values and hence taxes and eventually the price of homes, starting the problem all over again?

Doesn’t the County already give relief to the elderly to forego property taxes if they earn less than 80,000$ income and own less than 300,000$ in assets? Answer - yes, but people still need extra cash

Can’t the elderly already rent out a room or 3 for that matter to help with expenses and home care? Yes

How would County make sure the owner occupied the home? And how many months of the year does occupy mean? If the owner was there only 6 months a year does that qualify? This is not yet defined. There might be waivers for those sent overseas or waivers to allow substitution of family members. (Is a waiver a good idea?)

Is this a loophole for the lot coverage limits? NO

Has County considered the cost and effect on our already challenged storm water and sanitary sewer capacity? Answer - no, not yet.

At least one Cherrydaler gave support to this measure though some others thought it was unnecessary or worse could increase density and parking problems. There was no consensus yet. This proposal must next go to the Planning Commission and then the County Board.

For more details look on line www.arlingtonva.us/departments/cphd/housing/hpp/cphdhousinghpphsgcommission.aspx or call Fran Lunney 703 228 3785 THANK YOU FRAN

Fraber Home and Oak Grove Park:

Pat Goodman came with her husband Bobby to present their dilemma regarding the Fraber Home (her parents) at 1608 N Quincy, which is the red brick house next to the Yellow House at Oak grove Park on Quincy St. Pat is the executor of her parents’ estate. Interesting note - she was born in 1939 atop the Cherrydale Drug Store (Dr. Walton’s Hospital) at the intersection of Lee Hwy and Quincy St.

She says she has repeatedly refused to sell the land to anyone who would tear down the home. She wants to preserve it. County has now threatened condemnation thru eminent domain. “This will be the third eminent domain procedure on my parent’s properties at 1608 N Quincy.” They lost the 2 lots behind the home for the soccer field and lost the front and side land for Rt 66. More recently, at some point during various negotiations with the County Ms Goodman was even threatened with having her driveway blocked as the County tried to declare it a “hazard”.

“I believe the County could make good use of the 1608 N Quincy home with a ramp for handicapped for children with special needs. The County replied they cannot buy land with bonds for that purpose.” She has tried to sell the property to someone who will preserve/improve the home, not tear it down.

Pat says the County’s plans are to move her grandmothers home, the yellow bungalow 1612 N Quincy up to 17th St. “Other plans have not been revealed - the parks people “want to see how the area will look after the move and the tear down”. (Cherrydale has not been sent official notice of County Plans but it sounds like it’s time to have one)

She asked for and received UNANIMOUS support from the CCA against any exercise by the County for eminent domain of her property.

Vacation Lane/N Monroe St reconfiguration proposal as a traffic calming measure:

Presented by Steve Taylor from Vacation La

Refer to the January Sweet and Sour News for details and excellent pictures of the proposal. The next steps are rather fast - if the proponents get 60% of their neighbors to sign up on to this, it will go to the Transportation Committee, and then maybe the Planning Commission then County Board. Steve asked for our support IF it got a majority vote of approval by near neighbors. There was some discussion as to whether this should wait until the next meeting but the objection to waiting was that it’s 2 months away and the decision in County will be sooner.

It was noted that the Maywood list serve had a fair amount of negative comment on this proposal. Maywood was only notified Tuesday that we were going to be talking about it, and our newsletter may not have yet reached neighbors in that area though likely they did.

Initially Vacation Lane folk were given the option of speed cushions but there were a few people with vocal opposition and so it went nowhere. There are more people on Vacation La then N Monroe St and the vocal opposition seems to be from Monroe. Still Steve thinks they will get at least 60% maybe 80%. He says the cost of the project is about 50K. I have asked Betty Diggs in County to let us know cost and next steps. There seemed to be a consensus that if a certain majority percentage approved the project, why not support it. We will hear back soon and keep you posted.

Lee Hwy and Bono Films Undergrounding Utilities Issue

Maureen Ross presented:

Refer to minutes of the meeting 1/15/08 with County yesterday morning at the corner of Lee Hwy and Bono Films by the on-ramp to I 66. County discovered a storm sewer where they wanted to place the large transformer (4x4.5’) and switch (6x5’) for the undergrounding. So they went off plan and built up a 3 ft dirt mound over the site, so the transformer could be placed there. But this leaves a large unattractive mass about 9 x 10 feet just a few feet off the sidewalk.

The objections to this are: it’s ugly right at the entrance to Cherrydale and violates the intent of the highway beautification; it was an effort jerryrigged without the proper review, despite engineers being alerted to the problem by neighbors (inc Alicia Cowen); it blocks bicyclists view coming down the bike path to sidewalk and 66 and vice verse blocks pedestrian views; and the dirt mound will probably need a retaining wall.

The site could be move 20 ft over and back. We are asking the County to obtain fair estimates of moving the transformer. We have waiting 10 years for this, we might as well do it right. After all we’ll be stuck with whatever happens for at least half a century.

We approved UNANIMOUSLY the following:

We recommend the County take responsibility for the mistakes on this project and procur an objective evaluation of alternatives to mitigate the problem, including the option of using the VDOT land in the corner next to the Bono Parking lot, so as to make an attractive street in keeping with the goals of the Cherrydale Lee Hwy Revitalization Plan.

Lincoln St Sidwalk blocked by new phone pole:

Maureen presented: Once again County has allowed placement of a phone pole in the middle of a sidewalk, obstructing pedestrian traffic. This despite the huge Cherrydale Sidewalk Obstacles Tour of last Spring. Even despite that this particular site was of specific concern and discussed at length with County and the Utility companies. At the 1/15/08 meeting County offered an unusual solution. The sidewalk only goes up from Lee Hwy just to the end of the Masonic Lodge. The phone poles are all on that side of the street and so this is the side what will probably never get a sidewalk completion. However the other side is likely to be redeveloped and therefore get sidewalks all the way up to 20th (some day no where near). So since there are NO trees down this area of the street why not tear up the sidewalk between the 2 entrances to the Masons parking lot and just fill it in with grass and trees, keeping the pole there of course.

Maureen has spoken with 4 near neighbors. 3 families say fine or don’t care, and one objects. Masonic Lodge Officers will be calling us back.

One of the problems is the habit of County saying “OOPS, well it’s done now” and getting away with it. Recall that County did this 3 years ago when we finally got the brick walk and landscaping around the power station at Lee and N Monroe and they placed several 10 inch cables onto the phone poles blocking the sidewalk. We had to hold a large meeting and County decided (rather than move the cables to parallel the street) to dig into the new landscaping and make a semi circle of sidewalk around the pole. County was given a tour of numerous examples of mistakes all over Cherrydale and yet did it again on Lincoln St.

We discussed this issue briefly and there seemed to be a consensus (but no vote) not to tear up the sidewalk. That leaves the option of doing NOTHING or moving the pole.