The September 2025 newsletter is linked below. If you have any comments or questions, email editor@ashtonheights.org.
Issues in Full Gear
By Scott Sklar, President, AHCA
The Ashton Heights Civic Association (AHCA) is in full gear this fall.
As many of you know from the AHCA listserv, we won a Virginia grant to give out tree whips to enhance the Ashton Heights tree canopy. Brooke Alexander, who chairs our Tree Canopy & Native Plants Committee has formed a group composed of 20 residents (the full list is on page 4). They all deserve our thanks and full cooperation. This initiative has profound benefits to Arlington County and specifically to Ashton Heights. Tree canopy has numerous benefits to our community: absorb pollution, buffer traffic noise, act as a habitat for wildlife, take in a huge amount of stormwater thus preventing floods and flooded basement, and absorb carbon, a potent greenhouse gas.
AHCA has been contacted by the county on music permits for The Lot as well as for the new restaurant at the old Silver Diner site. AHCA Development co-chairs Jack Spilsbury and Alexander Tuneski are tracking this issue, along with a range of other ongoing planning and development issues. At our September AHCA meeting, we will hear about development of the NAFCU site which has been vacated at the corner of 10th and North Irving Streets.
We have received a few complaints (speeding cars on Pershing and commercial food truck parking), which are being handled through the AHCA Transportation Committee, chaired by Patrick Lueb. I have been talking with the county to see if they can offer up free parking space at Arlington facilities in Ashton Heights and Lyon Park for these vehicles so our residents with these businesses can sustain themselves. We’ll see how it proceeds.
This last quarter of the year, Arlington is already facing some challenges and an economic downturn. The firing and buyouts of federal workers and curtailing of awarded federal contracts to the plethora of firms in Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax and Loudoun Counties disproportionately affects this region. Since COVID, Arlington commercial office space vacancy rates are estimated around 22-23% as of late 2024 and early 2025, a trend exacerbated by shifts to remote and hybrid work. To address this, the county launched its Commercial Market Resiliency Initiative (CMRI) and Adaptive Reuse Policy, which streamlines the process for converting outdated office buildings into other uses to reduce vacancy rates and boost the tax base, though efforts are still in progress.
According to Rocket Homes, the list price of homes in Arlington County has decreased by 10.9% since June. Summary: The median home list price in Arlington County was $780,000 in July 2025, down 10.9% from the previous month, and the median price per square foot was $487.
In turn, income from property and business taxes will be down, and the Arlington County budget will be stretched thin. This will create some hard choices for reining in services, holding residential property tax rates, and holding back some important initiatives on stormwater management, tree canopy, clean energy and greenhouse gas reduction, among others.
As always, as a community, I am proud of how many of our residents are helping immigrants, fired government workers, improving our parks and playgrounds, overseeing children’s sports and activities, among many other service activities.
We are so very lucky living in Ashton Heights and in a large part it is all of you that give your time to make this a better place. I hope to see you at our September monthly meeting in the social hall of the Clarendon United Methodist Church and until then – Happy Fall.