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Description
Arlington County Board Member Katie Cristol's New Year's remarks at the County Board's Organizational Meeting, held on Jan. 2 2019.
A
Miss
crystal
Thank
You
mr.
chairman
and
congratulations.
One
of
my
favorite
ideas
of
the
past
year
came
from
an
exhibit
at
the
National
Building
Museum.
The
premise
was
that
as
the
American
family
and
household
changes,
our
neighborhoods
and
our
housing
must
as
well.
The
policy
approach
to
reconciling
these
changes
was
called
making
room
and
it's
how
I'm
thinking
about
the
year
ahead,
making
room
means
making
room
in
our
neighborhoods
and
in
our
community
facilities.
A
Our
region
is
growing
in
2015
well,
before
Amazon
ever
had
the
idea
of
a
second
headquarters,
the
Metro
Washington
Council
of
Governments
forecasts,
it
a
million
and
a
half
more
jobs
in
650,000,
more
households
coming
to
our
region
by
2045,
but
a
region
hasn't
grown
housing
supply
to
match
our
economy
and
we're
all
feeling
the
crisis
or
the
consequences.
An
affordability
crisis
for
our
middle-class
displacement
of
our
working-class
and
low-income
residents.
Arlington
might
only
be
one
jurisdiction
in
a
big
region,
but
I
know
that
we
can
be
leaders
and
establishing
a
better
way
forward.
A
So
how
do
we
make
room
in
2019
and
in
the
years
to
come?
First,
by
addressing
the
biggest
concerns
associated
with
growth,
my
colleagues
and
I
have
sought
to
support
the
school
board
over
the
past
few
years
in
addressing
the
most
acute
capacity
crunches
through
more
effective
site
planning
processes
and
the
three
new
or
expanded
schools.
Opening
their
doors
about
nine
months
or
so
from
now
represent
real
progress
for
families
and
for
students.
A
But
we
also
need
to
show
how
Arlington
plans
not
just
to
address
these
current
needs
but
to
accommodate
the
growing
numbers
of
students
over
the
coming
decades.
So
2019
is
a
year
to
make
progress
on
this
kind
of
long-range
planning,
whether
it
takes
the
form
of
a
schools
element
of
the
comprehensive
plan,
which
is
my
preference
or
another
tool
that
we
can
better
pair
with
a
more
complete
look
at
the
non
schools
community
facilities
needed
over
the
decades
to
come.
A
Similarly,
we've
seen
throughout
Arlington
that
congested
roads
and
the
perception
of
parking
scarcity
can
really
tear
neighborhoods
apart,
not
to
mention
motivate
opposition
to
more
neighbors.
We
have
to
be
able
to
get
people
where
they're
going
living
and
working
without
adding
more
congestion
and
more
parking
demands.
Our
efforts
towards
this
goal
in
2019
include
helping
restore
Metro,
reliability
and
ridership
and
realizing
the
two
long-awaited
milestones
for
premium
bus
service
on
Columbia
Pike,
like
new
transit
stations
beginning
this
summer,
as
we
seek
to
address
these
quality
of
life
issues
associated
with
making
room.
A
It
is
time
to
revise
our
zoning
ordinance
to
allow
different,
diverse
and
more
affordable
home
types
throughout
the
county,
not
just
in
our
commercial
corridors
in
2017
and
2018.
We
did
make
some
progress
on
allowing
the
forms
of
housing
currently
missing
in
Arlington,
County
interior
accessory
dwellings
and
to
family
dwellings,
for
example,
but
not
nearly
enough
amazon's
arrival
has
focused
our
community
energy
on
protecting
our
middle
class
from
being
permanently
priced
out.
We
can't
squander
this
opportunity
to
make
these
hard,
but
critical.
A
We
also
need
to
make
room
for
new
perspectives
at
our
decision-making
table
and
a
harder
look
at
where
inequality
persists
in
our
community.
The
leaders
of
our
human
services
coalition's,
particularly
the
10-year
plan,
to
end
homelessness
and
the
destination
2027
public
health
update,
have
really
crystallized
this
issue
for
us
in
the
past
year
and
I'm
thrilled
that
our
chair
has
made
equity
of
focus
for
2019
I
believe
that
affordability
is
and
will
continue
to
be,
the
most
central
component
of
an
equity
agenda,
because
ending
disparities
is
a
hollow
victory.
A
Indeed,
if
we
achieve
it
through
diminished
numbers
of
lower
income
or
demographically,
diverse
neighbors,
but
we
also
need
a
better
system
for
evaluating
whether
our
decisions,
policy
or
programmatic
are
advancing
or
stymieing.
Our
equity
equity
goals.
Consider,
for
example,
the
city
of
Oakland's
practice
of
scoring
neighborhood
traffic
requests
against
maps
of
health
and
safety
outcomes
for
residents
and
then
sharing
those
results
with
constituents,
as
they
use
them
to
prioritize
those
very
same
traffic
requests.
A
I
also
think
it's
possible
to
focus
both
on
the
scale
of
work
and
improvements
ahead
in
2019,
while
still
making
room
to
acknowledge
how
much
we
accomplished
in
2018,
an
unusually
difficult
operating
budget
and
Capital
Improvement
Plan
Update
consumed
the
first
half
of
the
year,
each
forced
difficult
conversations,
and
indeed
led
to
dissatisfied
stakeholders
and
yet
both
culminated
in
financial
plans
that
avoided
tax
rate
increases,
while
still
protecting
key
services.
We
achieved
a
watershed:
funding
agreement
for
the
first
time
in
the
history
of
Omata
across
two
states
in
the
district.
A
Our
big
ideas,
roundtables
invited
in
new
voices
in
English
and
in
Spanish,
as
well
as
familiar
faces,
to
talk
about
the
big
picture
issue
of
Arlington's
growth.
What
we
worry
about,
what
we
hope
for
and
how
we
can
make
room
for
others,
while
maintaining
what
we
love
about
our
hometown,
which
is
a
big
idea
indeed,
and
a
big
task
for
the
year
ahead.
Happy
new
year.