AHCA Comments on Pentagon City Plan Draft #3

Update: This AHCA letter was sent to the County Board on January 24 based on the member motion from the January 2022 meeting.

The comments below on the 3rd Draft of the Pentagon City Plan were provided on behalf of AHCA to the County staff and Pentagon Study Planning Study coordinators December 31. Residents are encouraged to continue to participate, send in their own comments, and share their thoughts with AHCA at info@aurorahighlands.org. You may find these additional resources useful:

* Prior comments from AHCA on Draft 2 in November and Draft 1 in September.

* Comments on the latest draft from Ms. Van Hine as a pedestrian advocate and 36 year resident of Aurora Highlands.

* Arlington Ridge Civic Association (ARCA) comments on Draft 3 (Dec 31).

* Crystal City Civic Association (CCCA) comments (Jan 9).

* Arlington County’s Pentagon City Planning Study site

[December 31, 2021]

Unaddressed Comments

AHCA has previously and continuously expressed concern about a number of areas in this plan. Whereas there has been some progress, many concerns remain mostly or partly unaddressed. In many ways, these items could be addressed through greater ambition and openness to investing further county resources in an area due to generate significant new tax revenues for the local government. Our outstanding objections follow:

• The cost of realigning Joyce is not worth it; there are better potential uses of limited developer funds.
• The County is failing to invest in more new public space, but rather is just primarily improving existing open space. A focus on acquiring public ownership over currently private parks and open spaces or on public easements over pedestrian corridors like the Green Ribbon means we do not get a net new increase in publicly accessible space even though density could double or come close to tripling. .
• The expression of the Green Ribbon suggests that it may not be fully realized as a truly lush, heavily planted area. The proposed PenPlace design plans, where many portions of the Green Ribbon on this site are not aligned with the design guidelines, are an example of this concern being realized. Given the potential for only 4 foot planting zones with many gaps and use of non living materials, the Ribbon allows a lot of room for minimal commitment.
• The plan fails to envision a second entrance for the Pentagon City Metro station in more detail than as a potentiality tied to capacity, rather than as a means to encourage more ridership through reduced pedestrian distances to the station entrance.
• The transportation changes are not ambitious enough to achieve the proposed mode shift, with optional performance monitoring and no plans for what action will be taken if the shift is not achieved.
• A 10 foot clear zone is essential on all sidewalks and a greater focus on how pedestrian travel will be encouraged and made 100% safe.
• Serious gaps remain in the protected bike network, particularly the need for separated lanes in both directions along the full stretches of 12th, 15th and Joyce Streets
• Overall, many areas of the document steer too much towards flexibility and will lead to conflict in interpretation between community members, county officials and developers, especially in the longer term as memories fade of intent and background.

Community Facility

The core Sector Plan document itself makes mention of a school, which the neighborhood has highlighted as a priority but APS has not provided a timeline for, and a fire station. It fails to mention anything about other expanded community facilities like a library and community center, especially since the existing inadequate facility may be replaced (by the school and/or expanded fire station mentioned in this section). This document is inadequate if these are not mentioned as priorities at 1.6.

In the implementation matrix, there is a proposal to locate the existing primary fire station building, a new elementary school, a library and a community center on the existing Aurora Hills facility site. It is our understanding that there has not been a feasibility analysis to see whether there is space for all of these facilities, but a visual comparison shows that this is either unrealistic or would require sacrificing a significant amount of park land. The community is unwilling to accept a choice between not having these facilities, which are needed to accommodate the growth in population, or losing parkland, which we are asking for more of, not less. While details of this will be determined in a Virginia Highlands Park master planning process sometime in the future, we need a commitment now to a realistic plan to accommodate our short and long term needs before all land becomes spoken for.

River House would be a logical place for an expanded community facility; it could be located on the southern half of the current Grace Murray Hopper Park, the proposed use of which both the community and land owner agree is inappropriately vague. If unable to be built with community benefit dollars, this facility should be included in the implementation matrix as a future CIP item.

GLUP Map

The discussion of the Sector Plan has primarily focused on increased density at a few major sites, namely River House, Brookfield, Simon and PenPlace. The plan has made mention of some potential to develop an expansion of the Regency Care site along Fern St. However, the new GLUP map includes the Claridge House in the increase to High Medium Residential. It is important to not incentivize redevelopment at Claridge House, which provides unique and badly needed committed affordable senior housing. Any change should explicitly be stated to sustain the long-term existence of this important community feature, while development should primarily be infill or around the Regency Care site.

Tree Canopy And Vegetation 

The addition of tree canopy minimum coverage is good, though unambitious, and reflects an important neighborhood priority. However, strict supervision and a plan of enforcement is needed to ensure proposed plans can meet it. For example, given that some of the goal can be achieved not at grade, a planning review should include a close look at soil depth and tree selection to ensure that proposed above-grade plantings can realistically meet canopy goals in the long term. We do not want to end up with a lot of empty planters on buildings.

For  above-grade spaces, developers of residential buildings should be encouraged to engage residents in the spaces either by making sure greened spaces are accessible, ideally to the general public, or by encouraging residents to plant publicly visible balconies and patios. For example, units could come with planter boxes installed with a subsidy for purchasing plants. This helps new residents take some ownership over the neighborhood in addition to the greening benefits.

The PDSP should consider what happens should site plans subsequently come out of alignment with planting requirements. The best method would be to not just evaluate sites by planting requirements during the SPRC process but to include the planting requirements in the site plan itself. This ensures that the plantings must be maintained in order for the site to remain in compliance.

Pentagon Parking Lot Bus Station

While the community’s desire in the long term is for the Pentagon parking lots to be replaced with public space or developed buildings, the inclusion of a new bus station is positive. This bus station should be designed working with the community in addition to the other stakeholders and should have a goal of reducing bus parking and idling along Hayes. There should be a clear, safe pedestrian passage across Army Navy to make this a safe place for pedestrians to access. 

Implementation Matrix

The implementation matrix is an important addition that we have been asking for through the process. However, it is missing elements:

• Add development of the Pentagon parking bus station
• Add specificity for which bike facilities will be expanded and when, if not connected to expected developed sites.
• Under land use and zoning, monitor for other elements of site plans beyond housing and biophilia that are required by this Sector Plan. Either add them, such as open space, transportation, sustainability, etc or combine into one point. These are scattered elsewhere, but are directly connected to land use.
• Add detail on how site-based trip generation will be monitored, such as periodic studies or regular traffic, bike, etc counts.
• Specify which bike facilities will be expanded and when.
• Given our comments on Joyce, add study the most helpful alignment and location of Joyce, potentially in conjunction with the VHP master planning process. 
• Add transit related items, such as Metro and bus improvements.
• Add a process/plan to improve pedestrian facilities where site plans are not expected to occur in the near future.

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