Arrias did the heavy lifting this morning. He took on the issues of mass destruction so we can worry about the missing metaphors. We thought we would use this Monday as a sort of metaphoric leap into a quick encapsulation of this week of transition. The foreign stuff is powerful, and immediate, like a movie caption reading “being Bored in Beirut.” With the point being not a certain lassitude in attitude but rather being on the end of a turning drill.

We don’t want to be in the middle of that one. It seems something like general war now in progress with the teaser for the next episode being “Ground invasion of Lebanon?” This week’s operations, combined with strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen a thousand miles away demonstrate a new regional scale of operations. What is the next surprise in an old familiar story?

We have our own fights here in Arlington. It is also about knocking down houses, but it is a little different in speed and replacement. This fight had some reverberations through the weekend from Friday’s ruling by Judge Schell that ‘Missing Middle’ was illegal. You can imagine our reaction, since we used to be there, or at least we used to be surrounded.

The “middle” term is specific here, referring to the space between single-family homes and high-rises. Think townhouses, duplexes and garden apartments for multi-family use. We could more easily sum it up quickly as a NIMBY v. YIMBY thing- “No!” vs. “Yes.” The one where the people in the Bungalows want to keep their decimal points and not have twelve cars on the lot next door and we could just walk across our parking lot away from the issue.

But Missing Middle may be the most divisive current topic in Arlington, which considering everything else is going a fair piece. We are a solid Blue enclave with a certain amount of virtue signaling that is de rigueur for these sort of upscale urban enclaves. We are composed of a few Generations of government workers that date back to the New Deal era, and that is the sort of spirit the County proudly wears.

You recall we were donated by Virginia to help created the District of Columbia at the nation’s founding, and later given back a generation later as ungovernable. It is a fact of which we are still proud.

But that is part of the story of why it was a magnet for development when FDR changed the size and scope of government in the Great Depression. The house in the slide above is typical of the craftsman bungalows that rose on green farmland in the 1930s. They cost as little as a few thousand dollars when new, and were too expensive for us to purchase when we washed up here in the years after Vietnam. Now, many feature a decimal point in the price.

So the tension is between those who have possession of the decimal points and those who don’t.
Retired Fairfax County Judge Schell was the legal stuckee for the contentious decision to overturn the EHO- the Expanded Housing Opportunity, or the shorthand “EHO.” All four sitting Circuit Court judges wisely recused themselves to avoid blow-back from the decimal pointers and the developers. They still have careers to protect. The County Board had unanimously displayed their virtue last year, though the legal proceedings led by earnest-looking Marcia Nordgren finally triumphed after Schell’s thorough review.

The County announced their “Disappointment” with Judge Schell, since they had intended to approve fifty or sixty EHO projects in the current budget cycle, which are as confusing to voters as this day in September being the end of a fiscal year for no apparent reason.

The big symbol in this fight had started with the decision of the Church Board of the stately Arlington Presbyterian Church who noticed their congregation had dwindled below sustainment for the imposing structure. They decided to sell the property to the companies that would make fortunes on finding the missing middles by placing them in centrally located serviceable homes. The idea being we could replace he churches with condos and all would be happy.

Except there aren’t that many stately churches around, and some of the multi use, multi-occupant structures are going to be where the little bungalows are now. Some without decimals.

You know how that is going to go, and we have no dog in any of the dozens of fights in progress. We are relaxed about it since the kinetic damage is likely to be much less than what is happening in Haifa or Beirut. But like their situation, we are just the middle of something here and we will stand with the spirit of Metaphor Monday.

Whatever that was. Tomorrow we will talk about something interesting. We promise.

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
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