Cherrydale Neighborhood Yard Sale Saturday, May 31 8:00am - 3:00pm Time to clean out your closets, attics, basement and garages so you can make roomfor all the stuff you’re going to buy at the Cherrydale Yard Sale! This annual event is a lot of fun and a huge success, often with more than 70 homes participating. These are yard sales that citizens throughout Cherrydale have in front of their own homes. Cherrydalers Scott and Kathy Springston put all participating homes on a map which is distributed to all homes hosting a sale. We advertise in the Washington Post and put up lots of signs and pie plates directing people to your sale. Contact Scott and Kathy Springston or call them at (703) 528-1548 to let them know if you want to be included in the sale no later than a week before the yard sale. Give them your address and pay the $5 donation or you won’t get on the map. Make checks payable to Cherrydale Citizens Association. You can drop off check or cash to 1713 N. Quebec St. Bromptons Update Last updated: May 25, 2008 On May 7, 2008, the Arlington County Planning Commission recommended to the County Board by a vote of 12-0, that the unfinished Bromptons building be considered ablight under County ordinance and that the County move forward with its demolition. However, at the County Board hearing on May 24, 2008, County Manager Ron Carlee made the last-minute recommendation to defer considerationof the Planning Commission’s recommendation, and based on his recommendation, the County Board voted 5-0 to defer designating the Bromptons condo building a blighted property. The County appears to have realized that they had two separate and distinct enforcement processes going on: (1) a Site Plan and/orBuilding Code Violation (i.e., Unsafe Building)—a process that started with a stop work order at the Bromptons in March 2006, formally began in November 2007, and was upheld on administrative appeal on March 24; and (2) a Zoning Code Violation (i.e., Blighted Property)—a process begun in January and endorsed 12-0 by the Planning Commission on May 12. County staff realized, at the last possible moment, that pursuing demolition under the Unsafe Building Violation rather the Blighted Property Designation would leap frog the County in front of the numerous liens on the Bromptons filed by the banks, engineers, architects, etc. that are suing Ed Pete. In upholding the Building Code Violation, the County gave Ed Pete until July to demolish the building. If Ed Pete doesn’t demolish, it appears that the County can proceed to demolish under the Unsafe Building Violation and place a lien on the Bromptons that would be first, rather than last, in line, and so would increase the chance the we taxpayers get our money back. So the County Board voted to defer, until September, the Blighted Property designation. To be clear, Ed Pete could appeal either or both designations to the Virginia State Courts, and it is unclear how much court proceedings could slow everything down. Also at the May 20 County Board hearing, the Bromptons contractor, Signet, told the Board that it believes that it can repair rather than demolish the building, and that it is in negotiations with Ed Pete to buy the property. But if that falls through, there is a probability that the building will be demolished down the garage, a fence will be put around it, and that it will sit as an undeveloped eyesore until Ed Pete finds someone else who is willing to buy the property, which will still be encumbered with all the liens on it. That could be years in the current condo market. Finally, the County Manager admitted that the Blighted Property Ordinance needs to be updated to address commercial development. None of this was in the County staff report. If there is a lesson in any of this, it is that the County lacks the enforcement tools to prevent or to remedy this kind of (admittedly unprecedented but) entirely foreseeable disaster. In the future, perhaps the County needs to require a much larger construction bond or insurance coverage to protect against this kind of developer miscalculation and/or developer abandonment. Given the size of these projects, the County also needs many more andmore-highly-trained site plan/building code staff members who can adequately reviewbuilding plans and red flag them before an improperly-designed project breaks ground. In light of the County’s current resources, this is one more reason that the County never should haveapproved the Bromptons in the first place. Absent the Signet deal coming through, the County could still fix this problem by giving up on the still stalled and still over-priced acquisition of land from Koons Toyota, acquire the Bromptons through eminent domain (for probably close to $0 given all the liens) and build the new fire station #3 on the site of the Bromptons, which everyone knows, but for Chief Plougher’s open hostility toward the Cherrydale Volunteer Fire Department, is where the fire station was and issupposed to be—next to the Volunteers. Since the County taxpayers are in all likelihood going to get stuck with demolishing the Bromptons condo building, we might as well get something useful in place of this mess. Thanks to County Building Official, Shahriar Amiri, for leading the effort to have the Bromptons structure torn down. If you have any additional questions about this issue, please feel free to contact Shahriar at 703.228.3848 or samiri@arlingtonva.us. Cherrydale Citizens Association President Brian Bonnet suggests contacting the County Manager and the County Board asking that they continue to push this demolition with all appropriate speed. Link to the Washington Business Journal Article: |
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