Recycling in Arlington Parks–Too Few Bottle and Can Recycling Containers

Although Arlington County did add more recycling containers in Arlington parks after the Green Party

complained in July 2007In 2008, there are still many park areas that have too few recycling containersArlington County says it increased its overall rate of recycling…but

Letter submitted to the Editor, Arlington Sun-Gazette, on  September 13, 2008–Commenting on Arlington County’s Increased overall Recycling Rate

I was encouraged to see that the recycling rate for Arlington’s commercial businesses and apartments rose to 33 percent, up from 29 percent three years earlier (“Recycling Rate Up at Businesses, Multifamily Properties,” Sept. 4, Arlington Sun Gazette). According to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the county’s combined recycling rate for detached homes, townhouses, apartments/condos, and commercial businesses was nearly 43 percent in 2006, up 3 percent from 2005.

In 2007, there were virtually no recycling containers in any of our public parks. Arlington Green Party members visited four of the county’s 148 parks to rescue recyclables from trashcans. In a matter of hours, we were able to fill up eight large 13-gallon trash bags with recyclables pulled from the garbage. Based upon what we retrieved, we calculated that approximately 3,700 cubic gallons of plastic and metal recyclable containers (the annual equivalent of approximately 5 million one-liter plastic bottles) were being thrown away every day in Arlington’s parks.

The Arlington Green Party asked the County Board to install recycling containers in public parks and recreation areas, and the county did respond positively by adding some recycling containers in some, but not all, parks. Perhaps this simple change accounts for the recent increase in the overall commercial recycling rate.

Despite the good news, however, Arlington still lags behind the City of Falls Church (with a 52 percent recycling rate) and the champion of Virginia recyclers, the City of Vienna, which recycles 55 percent of its solid waste.

According to Arlington’s AIRE program data, only 12 percent of solid waste from apartments is recycled. And 70 percent of Arlington’s solid waste comes from the commercial building and apartment sector (the other 30 percent comes from townhouses and detached homes).

So how can Arlington become the top recycling community in Virginia? Clearly, we need to expand recycling opportunities for office workers and apartment dwellers. Owners of commercial buildings, and multi-family housing must pay private haulers for trash and recycling services that can be less flexible and less convenient than the county’s recycling collection program for single-family homeowners.

In an effort to help find solutions, we asked county staff to meet with us in July to discuss the recycling programs for commercial buildings and apartments. Unfortunately, to date, county staff has refused to meet with us.

If we want a truly environmentally sustainable community, as I believe we all do, then county government must willing to engage all citizens to tackle what is admittedly a difficult problem. I and the members of the Arlington Green Party stand ready to roll up our sleeves and help with this effort—now we just need the county to respond.

Arlington’s current housing program is wasteful, expensive and inefficient

Democratic County Board members praise “Arlington’s innovative private-public partnership” in which the county supplies funds to private organizations, some of which are “non-profit” and some of which are for-profit.  In fact, an examination of this “innovative partnership” finds  that the private organizations and developers receive most of the benefits while the public pays the tab and renters receive very little for the large sums of money spent.

The Arlington Department of Community Planning, Housing and Development employed 90 employees at a cost of $8.4 million in salaries in fy2009.  The county staff may produce 400 CAF (committed affordable units) in that year at a cost of $21,000 in staff salary per unit.

In addition, the county sends millions of federal dollars and local dollars directly to the housing providers, the largest of which is AHC, Inc.  In FY2005, AHC received $1.6 million  in direct public support (most of this through Arlington County Government). 

AHC paid its president a salary of $202,143 in fy2005, another director $153,000; and its senior employee $190,000, according to public data from the U.S. IRS.  In essence, AHC acts as Arlington’s housing authority and its top executive is paid over  $200,000.  AHC’s gross income was $8.4 million; and in addition made a profit of over $1 million in 2005, all of which it retained.  How does a “nonprofit” make a million dollar profit?

The Fairfax County Housing Authority is run by a largely volunteer citizen board of directors who are paid no more  than $300 in compensation annually as set out in Virginia law.  The president (or chairman) of the Fairfax Housing Authority thus earned $300 a year for  running Fairfax’s housing operations.  The Fairfax Housing Authority grossed an income of about $20 million in 2007.

Is Arlington merely subsidizing the life style of “nonprofit” employees who make $200,000 incomes while Fairfax relies upon voluntary citizens paid $300 a year to operate a program three times larger than AHC?

Arlington spends far more than necessary on affordable apartments.  The two most recent large projects of preserving affordable apartment units occurred in Buckingham and in the Arlington Mill project on Columbia Pike.  At Buckingham, the county will spend a projected  $51 million to keep 140 units or a cost of $364,000 per apartment (many of which are one-bedroom  units).  At the Arlington Mill project, the county will spend $26 million to create 61 new units at a cost of $426,000 each.

Two years ago, the county board could have designated  the three Buckingham Villages as historic property (as is all of the rest of the entire 1,700 Buckingham apartments), and could have purchased roughly 460 units for its assessed tax value of about $44 million. 

The county would have owned the land–over 20 acres–outright–including the open space and trees.  These 560 apartments would have cost less than $100,000 each.  More importnatly, the land would have been public land keep as a land trust for open space or if needed, for future schools or recreational areas.

How can the county spend $400,000 for an apartment and succeed in keeping these as affordable without enormus rent subsidies?  Moreover, there are entire apartment complexes that could be bought at prices far less than these.

At these inflated capital costs, it is no wonder  why Arlington has been unable to stem the loss of 1,700 affordable market  rate units each year and has been unable to meet even the rather modest goal of adding 400 new CAF units annually.

The Arlington public-private partnership for affordable housing  is yet another example of lemon socialism–profits for private companies, and large government outlays for little if any housing units.

High salaries and profits for developers and the bill for taxpayers with Arlington tenants getting very little  if anything of value.

Favola record on “aggressive affordable housing policies” shows a dismal result

Despite the County Board’s goals set in the 1990s—no net loss of existing affordable units and the addition of 400 new committed affordable units (CAFs) each year—the number of affordable rental units in Arlington fell by about 13,000 between 2000 and 2008, from 20,000 in 2000 to 10,000 in 2004, and to fewer than 7,000 in 2007 and 2008, a 1,600 loss annually. Ms. Favola became a Board member in 1997.

In 2006-07, the County Board refused to save all 560 apartments in Buckingham Villages 1-3 along with its trees and greenspace.  The Buckingham Apartments were in great condition and housed over 1,500 people. 

About two-thirds of the 560 apartments were or will shortly be razed, and luxury townhouses and condominiums built in their place.  However, many of the luxury townhouses are still unsold and empty and the developer (as of September 2008) has halted construction of the luxury townhouses:

During the past four years, the county reached only 74 percent of its goal of adding  400 CAF units annually. During fy 2004 to 2007, the county added an average 298 CAFs annually (139 CAFs in 2004, 284 in 2005, 295 in 2006, and 472 CAFs in 2007).  Moreover in2007, 185 existing CAFs were re-counted as CAFs, so the net increase in the actual supply of CAFs was 287. Then about 240 of these 287 units were existing Buckingham Apartments already modest cost market rentals.

Using their own goal of 400 CAFs,  a teacher would give a “grade of 74%” to  Ms. Favola and her Democratic Board colleagues, probably a “C-” or a  D.    But when one considers the loss of 1,600 market rate apartments annually during the past  8 years that clearly did not meet the Board’s own goal, the grade must be further lowered to an “F.”

At the September 2  debate before the Arlington Civic Federation, Ms. Favola claimed that, “Arlington has created more affordable units per 1,000 people than any other jurisdiction (in the Washington area).” (Source: David Schultz, “Reeder Criticizes Favola’s Priorities,” Arlington Connection, Sept. 9, 2008).  This assertion is unsupported by data.

Neighoring jurisdictions have done as much or more than Arlington. The District of Columbia built or rehabilitated 2,000 affordable units in fy2008, according to the DC Department of Housing and Community Development director Victor Selman (testimony before the DC City Council, April 20, 2007).  With a population of 582,000, this amounts to 343 units per 100,000.  Arlington financed 472 units in fy2007 with a population of 208,000 or a ratio of 230 units per 100,000.

During the 4 years of 2004-07, Arlington averged 298 units annually, a ratio of 146 units per 100,000 population.  Fairfax County Public Housing authority in fy 2007 financed 1,412 units or about 141 units per 100,000 population (Source: Fairfax County Housing Authority, “Fund 319 The Penny for Affordable Housing Fund,” FY2009 Advertised Budget Plan (Vol. 2)-685.).  Thus, Arlington and Fairfax are currently about even in effort per 100,000 population even though Arlington has a much greater need for multi-family housing (two-thirds of Arlingtonians live in apartments).

From 2004 to 2007, the number of homeless people in Arlington (counted each January) rose 13 percent from 408 to 462; 42 percent of the homeless in January 2007 were living out in the open in Arlington (“unsheltered” according to government terminology). In December 2007, the Arlington County government cut all funding for ASPAN, the Arlington nonprofit organization then operating the county’s winter homeless shelter. This action was taken after its director complained about the dilapidated, unsafe and overcrowded conditions of this county-owned building slated to be demolished. Favola promised in February 2008 that the county would replace the aging structure for the homeless, “down the line” (Sun Gazette, Feb. 5, 2008). But no new shelter has been built.

The affordable housing crisis is particularly acute for mentally ill and disabled Arlingtonians. There are only 42 affordable apartments county-wide that are dedicated for this population, and several hundred people are languishing on a waiting list. In 2006, County Board members, including Ms. Favola, failed to restore $6 million in funds that were slated to establish group homes for 400 mentally and physically impaired individuals.

Is this best we can do in Arlington? I believe we can do better. And I support the housing authority referendum in November because it will enable the county to establish a permanent affordable housing stock (rather than sinking millions of dollars into units that are “affordable” only on a temporary basis). A housing authority, overseen by citizen volunteers, would to improve transparency and encourage a more efficient use of limited housing dollars.

The Democratic incumbent Ms. Favola insisted at our candidates’ debate before the Arlington Civic Federation that a new Columbia Pike Trolley would save energy and encourage further development on the Pike.  There have been many technical studies done on the proposed Pike trolley, and it is clear that a trolley will not necessarily speed or ease Arlington commuters ride to/from the Pentagon.

Arlington County Government and Ms. Favola argue that a trolley is more “Green,” i.e. saves carbon based energy over current buses or over using the larger rapid transit buses.  Academic studies have reached different conclusions, depending on how many passengers ride, frequency, and cost  of installing light rail in the ground.  In general, taking into account all the energy used to operate and to install and build a trolley system,  buses are more energy efficient.

It appears that a fully loaded bus uses on average less operating energy (BTUs) per passenger mile than does light rail per passenger mile, and about the same energy as heavy rail like Metrorail.  Source: M.J. Bradley & Associates, May 2007, Comparison of  Energy Use and Emissions from Different Transportation Modes, submitted to American Bus Association, , p. 4.

Moreover, many ART and Metro buses are now burning clean natural  gas (CNG) with very little emissions and higher efficiency than diesel.  Electricity for the trolley will come from the new coal-fired Dominion Electric plant located in Wise, VA, that will use coal mined from mountain tops in VA and WVA.  Coal-fired electricity contributes to significant air pollution and to destruction of natural mountains.  It also adds more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than CNG.  The VA Green Party opposes the construction of Wise coal-fire electricity plant.

One must also add the amount of energy it will take to build a light rail system on Columbia Pike which will include moving all the underground utility lines under the Pike, resurfacing with asphalt and cement (all of which are very energy intensive). The energy incorporated in the steel rails, and in the cooper overhead power lines that will have to be added.  The energy bulldozers and earth movers will use to relocate utility lines must be included.  The energy it takes to manufacture a trolley car and a bus are probably about the same or might favor the  bus.   Steel, copper wire, cement and asphalt have become very expensive owing to higher commodity and petroleum prices over the past several years.

My understanding is that the estimated $150 million cost of the trolley (including  that portion in Fairfax County up to Skyline) does NOT  include the cost of replacing utility lines under the Pike.

This is technical argument as to energy savings that depends on your assumptions, but Favola’s contention that a trolley obviously uses less energy than buses is dubious. More  importantly, the County has not satisfied the U.S. DOT or they would have received federal funds.  If DOT thinks the trolley is unsound, it probably is.

Ms. Favola did accurately acknowledge that a trolley is really a development booster for land on or just off the Pike.  In other words, public money will be used to increase the value of land around or on the Pike benefitting land owners or developers who own it.  Why should our county government use scarce dollars better spent on a new Wakefield High School or modest apartments for frail elderly  or  the disabled and give it to rich landowners or corporations?

Favola also fails to acknowledge the obvious fact that higher priced land will eliminate the last remaining moderate rental apartments, Fillmore Gardens or Barcroft Apartments, for example.  This is exactly what happened in north Arlington along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor.  Favola and the other county board members want to turn Columbia Pike into another Rosslyn-Ballston high rise luxury housing and upscale living.

Is this fair that county public funds be used to contribute to eviction of moderate rental residents or to much higher rents for these folks?  After all, it is their taxes as well that are being given to developers.  No, it is unfair, and a misuse of scarce public dollars.

This is our first flyer for the campaign. Feel free to use it! We are also going to get this converted to a door-hanger.

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