The November 2024 newsletter is linked below. If you have any comments or questions, email editor@ashtonheights.org.
Little Wins Along the Way, but More to Go!
By Scott Sklar, President, AHCA
Powered by our active North Jackson Street neighborhood about Halloween Safety, we have been able to move more positive action. I talked with Arlington County Board Chair Libby Garvey and had a meeting with Arlington County Police Department (ACPD) Chief Andy Penn. As a result, we will have two police cars on North Jackson Street during Halloween. Additionally, we are working to get a block party county permit without insurance, so we can actually close the street to traffic in 2025. Everyone is working together, which is good news.
Another issue that garnered concern on the listserv, was that of an attempted battery early in the morning of an Ashton Heights resident at Columbia Gardens Cemetery. While the ACPD reported it through their daily criminal report, no effort was made by ACPD to inform AHCA residents of the incident, or more importantly, provide guidance to morning joggers and students walking to school of any threat assessment. Nor did we have a dialogue with our ACPD liaison with AHCA. Christine Schultz, who Chairs AHCA’s Security & Safety Committee will be in further discussion with our designated ACPD liaison. In my ACPD meeting with Chief Penn, I have solid assurances that they will reinvigorate communication, and he plans to come personally to a future AHCA monthly meeting.
As a footnote, Arlington County has put some modern firetrucks off duty due to staffing and budget concerns, and the ACPD is understaffed. In April 2024, WTOP highlighted the chronic problem of 16 hour shifts by police and fire first responders and chronic under staffing. Also, the fire and police unions asked for a 1 cent increase in taxes to address the shortages which the County Board refused to do. And on October 21st, ARLnow highlighted the Ballston Fire Station, engine 102 (the busiest station of the year) dropped out of service due to staffing shortages. We need to ally with our other civic association partners on this issue – since safety and security are extremely important “quality of life” issues.
Still in progress, dialogues on “The Greenway” between North Ivy and North Jackson Streets behind WBM. A huge amount of time has been put in by our AHCA Tree Canopy & Native Plants Committee Chair Brooke Alexander and I am now involved to accelerate compliance. I will report back through the AHCA listserv with an update.
We have a great AHCA listserv discussion about bushes and trees on private property on corner lots that block clear view of traffic at their corner. Since I teach one of my three GWU courses under the GWU’s Graduate Urban Studies program, I am enlisting graduate students to take pictures of these corners to highlight the blockage, publish the with pictures, and see if we can get compliance passively (with love and praise), or, if necessary, hand to the County to prod compliance to code (see below). We will ask for sites on the Ashton Heights & Lyon Park listservs in November.
4. Visual clearance (corners)(a) R and RA districts
On any corner lot in an R or RA district there shall be no planting, structure, retaining wall, fence, shrubbery or obstruction to vision between a height of three feet and a height of 10 feet above the curb level within the triangle formed by the street right-of-way lines and a line connecting said street lines 25 feet from their intersection.
Finally, I have been advised that a porch repair on the 700 block of North Ivy St, which required no changes to size or electricity, and utilizing the old lumber has been stalled by the County for SIX months with little support by the County code officials.
Aside from AHCA putting in a letter at the hearing stage, I plan to use this as an example to open the process, provide more “written advisement by staff,” develop a more user-friendly web site – etc. I will be collecting stories in December by those of you not doing major renovations, just basic repairs, so see “the lay of the land” for conversations with the County.
I want to thank many of you in the Ashton Heights community for helping gather other neighbors, provide information, and work with our AHCA Committee chairs & co-chairs to solve problems, provide insight, and move the needle forward. That’s what civic associations were designed to do.
November’s AHCA monthly meeting is our last for 2024, please come, and acquaint yourself with Arlington County’s Vision Zero — this traffic safety program and how will it change Arlington and at 8:30 p.m. “How to report hazardous road conditions, and what kind of results can you expect?” I look forward to seeing you.