Tonight is National Night Out!
With participation from the City's public safety agencies and the support of the many City government agencies that preserve our quality of life, this annual event is a great way to get to know your neighbors.
The full list of parties is on the City's website.
|
Friendship Fire Festival Saturday!
Celebrating the founding of the historic Friendship Firehouse in 1774, this festival is a great event for residents and visitors of all ages!
|
|
Sales Tax Holiday
In the past, the Commonwealth of Virginia had three separate sales tax holidays: one for back to school time, one for hurricane preparedness, and one for Energy Star efficient appliances.
Use the opportunity to shop at some wonderful Alexandria businesses and enjoy the tax discount!
|
|
Restaurant Week
Give your kitchen a break. It's time to dine out in Alexandria.
With 60+ Alexandria restaurants participating, you can obtain a three-course meal for one or dinner for two for $35.
|
|
Irish Festival
Held in Waterfront Park at 1A Prince Street, the festival includes entertainment, food and family fun!
|
|
Back to School Nights
With schools back in session next month, the Alexandria City Public Schools have scheduled Back to School Nights for parents throughout this month.
|
|
 |
|
This summer has been anything but quiet. The City has kept pace on important infrastructure planning efforts, grappled with high profile criminal incidents, and experienced major leadership transitions.
Friday was Dr. Alvin Crawley's last day as the Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) Superintendent. We wish Dr. Crawley well as he moves to George Mason University and enters the next phase of his career.
For Dr. Berlin, this is a return to Alexandria. Prior to her time in Falls Church, she held several leadership positions with ACPS.
On Thursday Dr. Berlin will welcome the students at Samuel Tucker Elementary School back to school as they get their traditional jump-start on the 2017 - 2018 school year.
|
|
Eco-City Alexandria
Led by an incredibly motivated and knowledgeable group of residents, the City vaulted to the lead among local governments by adopting the
Eco-City Charter nearly a decade ago. The charter defined a comprehensive vision for our City to improve environmental sustainability.
The Eco-City Charter then led the City to adopt the
Environmental Action Plan. The plan laid out specific actions the City should undertake. It detailed how we should measure success and it began to define the next phase of our Eco-City evolution.
With any plan the City adopts, the test is not simply whether we will
 accomplish what we laid out in the plan (although that is an important test). The City plans that have transformative impact are the plans that end up cutting across multiple City policy priorities. The Eco-City Environmental Action Plan has had that impact. It has fundamentally transformed City operations in numerous policy areas.
With the Federal government now choosing to decline its traditional global leadership role in climate policy, the responsibility falls to local and state governments to lead the way.
In April, the City staff released the latest report detailing our progress in achieving the items defined in the plan.
We have seen great progress in the City in furtherance of our goals:
- The City government has reduced energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions.
- The percentage of new construction utilizing green building components has increased.
- The City's tree canopy has increased.
- We have protected over 100 acres of new open space.
- We have doubled our solid waste recycling rate.
- We have increased transit ridership.
- We have adopted smart-growth oriented residential parking standards.
- We have improved the walkability of our neighborhoods.
- We have implemented stormwater infrastructure around our City.
Despite a constrained revenue environment, we have used non-General Fund revenues to continue to make progress.
In recent years we created and sustained a very successful farmers market compost program.
In adopting the current budget the Council funded a new program to provide proactive maintenance of the City's urban forest.
We are actively bringing a new Metro station to Potomac Yard and a new dedicated Transitway to the West End.
We recently created a new stormwater utility to address our obligations to the Chesapeake Bay.
We identified hundreds of millions of dollars to address combined sewer modernization to address our obligations to the Potomac River.
Last year's approved budget included a new Sustainability Coordinator position. An applicant has now been selected and starts later this month.
Our Complete Streets investments have continued to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety and accessibility throughout the City.
Our recently approved
Eisenhower West and
Old Town North Small Area Plans included substantial sustainability chapters. As these plans are implemented, the City will have opportunities to achieve more significant sustainability initiatives, including district energy and other large-scale efforts.
Yet, we can do more.
This fall, we will begin a process of
updating our Green Building standards. These standards set the obligations of developers for incorporating sustainability into their new construction.
Our planned municipal facilities work gives us an opportunity to raise the bar for sustainability practices in our own facilities construction.
A year from now, we will work to update our landscape guidelines to reflect the Environmental Action Plan and the City's Urban Forestry Master Plan.
Next year's General Assembly session gives the City new opportunity to request increased authority for tree preservation, local energy generation and more.
Constrained budgets make it more challenging for our City to continue its leadership in sustainability practices, but we can and should work to lead the region in this policy area. These efforts are critical given recent Federal policy changes, but are also good for our economy and our quality of life.
|
|
Making PARKnerships
Politicians of nearly every stripe extol the virtues of "Public/Private Partnerships," sometimes called "P3" for short. While the partnerships come in many flavors, it usually involves the blending of private and public resources to achieve a community good.
Residents and businesses have partnered to make improvements at Ewald Park.
Faced with dwindling public resources, and enthusiastic Alexandrians seeking to take matters into their own hands, I asked that we create a consistent approach to City participation in these partnerships.
The summary report from FY 2017 shows all of the good this new effort has launched around our City.
A component of this new attempt at partnership is the
City's Community Matching Fund, which provides public resources to supplement private efforts to improve our community.
The awardees are:
- A partnership with Compost Alexandria to create pilot processing sites for food waste material.
- A partnership with the T. C. Williams High School Softball Boosters to make upgrades at Witter Field.
- A partnership with the Alexandria Little League to make improvements at Ben Brenman ball field.
- A partnership with Patricia and Kate Moran to make improvements at the Nancy Dunning Garden.
- A partnership with the Del Ray Gateway Project to make interim improvements to the Colosanto Pool site.
Our City is fortunate to have residents willing to contribute sweat and resources to make our City a better place. I'm excited to see the City partner with them to make it happen.
|
Where Do Your Tax Dollars Go?
I have now been a part of adopting seven City budgets as a member of the Council. Each year, I try to find new ways to engage residents in the process, and increase understanding of budget priorities and trade-offs.
Modeled after the
Federal Taxpayer Receipt, this website will take the assessed value of your home and detail how much of your real estate tax is going to the various programs and services of City government.
A month ago marked the start of Fiscal Year 2018. Accordingly, we have updated the receipt to reflect the newly enacted budget. Give it a try and
let me know how you like it!
|
|
Fire Station Locations
Additionally, the City had included the addition of a new Fire Station 211 on the far West End of the City, proposed to be provided by the future developer of the
Beauregard Small Area Plan.
In late May, the results of this study were presented to Council. The study reviewed the previous City planned investment, the newly proposed plan of investment, and created an "optimized" plan.
 The study showed that the proposed eleventh fire station in the Beauregard Plan area was unnecessary to safely protect residents and property alike. As a result, the Council's recently approved Capital Improvement Program removes any funding related to this proposed station.
Yet the study did show that response times could be reduced as a result of moving four of the existing fire stations further westward.
This proposal is just that: a suggestion for how the City might be able to optimize public safety response time around our City. Implementation would potentially involve land acquisition and costly construction activities.
As we move forward, however, this data can assist us in prioritizing how we invest in our fire stations, as well as take advantage of development and redevelopment activities to improve our infrastructure.
|
|
AAA/Aaa Affirmed
Each time the City goes to borrow money for its capital budget, it must go before the rating agencies to have its credit worthiness assessed.
Much like individuals must have a credit check performed before acquiring a mortgage, a car loan, or a new credit card, the City must go before Standard & Poor's and Moody's to have the two organizations assess whether we are doing a good job managing the City's finances.
Those high ratings qualify the City for the cheapest borrowing rates available, which will save our taxpayers millions over the 20 year life of these bonds.
.
Our capital budget is funded primarily through a mix of debt and current year funding also known as "cash capital." Relating this to
your home mortgage, the cash capital is the down payment. We also pay interest each year on the debt that was issued in previous years.
Alexandria is very conservative with our use of debt.
The median for other similarly rated and sized jurisdictions is 2.42%.
Debt is a tool that allows us to balance the costs of large capital investments across the generations of Alexandria taxpayers that will benefit from them and to pay for our investments from the returns we reap from them.
Standard & Poor's similarly cited the City's "conservative approach to debt issuance" as well as our "very strong management policies and practices.
It is important for us to maintain the careful stewardship that will protect our taxpayers and our City's infrastructure long into the future.
|
Host a Town Hall in Your Living Room!
My regular series of Town Hall Meetings continue!
You supply the living room and a bunch of your friends and neighbors. I will supply a member of the Alexandria City Council (me) with the answers to any of your questions about our City.
Just drop us a line and we'll get a Town Hall on the calendar! Thanks for the interest!
|
|
Upcoming Issues
|
The
Alexandria Redevelopment & Housing Authority (ARHA) is an independent entity, with a City Council-appointed Board, but separate from the City. ARHA utilizes Federal funding from the US Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) to provide housing to low-income residents of Alexandria.
ARHA directly manages and controls 1,079 units of affordable housing. In addition, ARHA manages the City's Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program, which utilizes Federal funding to provide assistance for another 1,906 low-income families to reside in privately-owned housing units. Together, this is approximately 4% of the City's overall housing stock.
At the federal level, we have seen dramatic changes in how public housing is managed and developed. In the past, the Federal Government had been a proactive participant in bringing about the redevelopment of public housing. This was demonstrated in Alexandria when the City used
HOPE VI funding to redevelop 100 units of Public Housing into
Chatham Square. This mixed-income development incorporated both market-rate and public housing.
Going into 2017, the Federal Government was forcing changes in public housing with its inaction. Today, HUD only funds 73% of every dollar required to operate Alexandria Public Housing units. The balance of revenue that ARHA collects as rent is not sufficient for sustainable management of their properties, and this is likely to get worse. The impact of
current Federal budget proposals on housing programs could be cataclysmic.
With aging properties sitting on valuable land, ARHA must look at the highest and best use of its land to preserve housing for low-income residents in our City.
Over 30 years ago, the City Council adopted
Resolution 830, which committed the City to the replacement of any public housing unit that was displaced by redevelopment. In past redevelopment efforts, replacement units have been obtained and created throughout our City.
In 2008, the City Council adopted the
Braddock East Master Plan, which called for redevelopment of several aging public housing properties. By allowing additional density near existing transit, it was designed to encourage private partnership in the redevelopment of this housing.
Aligned with this Plan, James Bland Homes
have become Old Town Commons. This redevelopment activity has proven successful in providing a sustainable model for mixed-income housing in our City.
In the fall of 2014, with these experiences and lessons behind us,
As they continued through the process, ARHA narrowed the number of properties down to five: Andrew Adkins, Samuel Madden, Hopkins Tancil, the ARHA Headquarters building, and Cameron Valley.
The ARHA Redevelopment Work Group, on which Councilman Chapman and I serve, along with the ARHA Chair, the ARHA Vice Chair, and the Planning Commission Chair, is tasked with coordinating the work between the City and ARHA.
ARHA has chosen development partners for each of the five remaining properties:
Andrew Adkins: Alexandria Opportunity Housing, LLC, an affiliate of Clark Realty
Samuel Madden: Alexandria Opportunity Housing, LLC, an affiliate of Clark Realty
Hopkins Tancil: EYA/Penrose/JBG
ARHA Headquarters: EYA/Penrose/JBG
Cameron Valley: Bozzuto/Wesley Housing
Given resource constraints at the staff level, as well as the need for Federal tax credits to make redevelopment feasible, these projects have now been sequenced.
Redevelopment of Andrew Adkins, a property located on West Street facing Braddock Road Metro, is proceeding first.
Last year, the
Andrew Adkins process began with a kick-off meeting for the community to meet with the redevelopment team. Since that time development partners have been submitting concepts to the City's Planning and Zoning staff for review and comments.
In early June,
the revised concept plan was presented to the City Council in a worksession for comments and discussion. Since that time, there has been substantial discussions between the City, ARHA and ARHA's private development partner. These discussions have focused on concerns regarding:
- The number of public and committed affordable housing units to return to the site
- The integration of committed affordable housing and market development in the new complex
- The application of the City's Affordable Housing Density Bonus program
At this point, the City is working to reconcile concerns regarding the proposed project so that the Adkins redevelopment can remain on schedule.
 Much of the new affordable housing creation the City does today is in partnership with non-profits. One of the goals of a modernization of Resolution 830 will be to reflect that reality and ensure that our preservation commitments do not just apply to public housing units, but across the spectrum of affordable housing.
As ARHA begins this effort in cooperation with the City, we will have a historic opportunity to partner with the private sector and provide new housing for a variety of income levels near existing transit in our City. This effort will also provide financial stability for ARHA in the face of continued change at the Federal level.
Let me know your thoughts!
Investing in Our Municipal Facilities
 In adopting the budget, we knew that doing things the way we had always done them was not sufficient. In addition to new investment, we had to take a dramatic step forward in bringing together the disparate visions of the City and School municipal facilities plans.
Despite large efforts to address deferred capital investment in recent years, the City stands at a crossroads. With a perfect storm of infrastructure needs for school, sewer, city facilities, transportation and recreation, the practices of the past will not sustain us in the future.
That $500 million of unfunded capital investments serves as a hidden debt on our municipal balance sheet. Yet instead of the 2.12% rate (the true interest cost of our most recent debt issuance) that we are paying for the City's actual debt, this hidden debt is costing us much more.
With construction costs
climbing at an annual rate of nearly 5% and the costs of patching, retrofitting, and otherwise "buying time" with existing aged infrastructure growing regularly, this hidden debt is far more onerous than the well-managed municipal debt load the City carries.
On the 10th and 14th of this month, the committee will participate in a two-part bus tour of proposed major
City and
Schools capital projects.
This group has arguably one of the most important tasks of any recent City group. They will be hard at work throughout the summer, and welcoming public input throughout the process.
Capital Bikeshare Expansion
The City's Capital Bikeshare network is again growing. With the award of grant money, we are adding 10 additional stations to showcase the bike sharing public/private partnership that now counts the District of Columbia, Arlington, Fairfax, Montgomery County and Alexandria as members. Prince George's County and the City of Falls Church will join within the next year.
At the conclusion of this expansion, the City will have 41 stations.
The City's Capital Bikeshare system was originally funded using
 Federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) funds. The CMAQ funds and developer contributions now purchase new stations, while about 5% of the City's Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) now funds operations for existing stations.
Both public and private transportation systems of all kinds depend on various forms of public subsidy. In Alexandria, the DASH Bus system recovers approximately 30% of its costs from fare box revenue. Original estimates of Capital Bikeshare's performance were expected to be similar.
Surprisingly, Alexandria's cost recovery in the first year reached 72% from rentals and now hovers at 63% with the expanded network.
Motivate International is the private contractor who administers the network for Capital Bikeshare. As they recently assumed the operations agreement, they also accepted a 25% reduction from previous pricing, thus driving down the City's cost for on-going operations.
The system has provided a critical, low-cost connectivity option for short trips, used frequently by our residents and visitors alike. Current plans will allow continued expansion over the next few years.
Please use this link to suggest station locations.
The new stations in this year's plan are:
- Braddock Road Metro South (to supplement the existing station at the Metro)
- Ben Brenman Park and Somervelle Street
- Duke Street and Holmes Run Trail
- Eisenhower Avenue and Holmes Run Trail
- East Glebe Road and Main Line Boulevard
- Potomac Avenue and Reed Avenue
- Green Street and Washington Street
- Holmes Run Parkway and North Pickett Street
- Barrett Library
- West Reed Avenue and Edison Street
Ultimately the Board recommended eight of the proposed sites, while asking that our Staff conduct further community input and analysis on the Ben Brenman Park location and the Green Street location.
|
|
|
Residents in Arlandria are continuing 
In May,