Please mark your calendars for 7:30-9PM on Tuesday, June 19th, for our Neighborhood Conservation Plan Revision kickoff event at Fire Station No. 9 (in the basement – and Fire Station No. 9 is the one off of Walter Reed Dr. near the dog park).

We’re going to have food (pizza and other things) and beverages and talk about what we want our neighborhood to look like over the next 10-20 years. At the event, we’re going to go over the NC Plan briefly and we’re going to give you an opportunity to provide your specific thoughts on what you’d like to see in the new plan, and how you can help us get there.

Please join us!

For those who could not attend, attached are the documents presented at the 5 April 2018 meeting regarding the Neighborhood Conservation project along 12th St S from Glebe Rd to S Highland St. This project includes curb, gutters and a sidewalk.

Aerial View [PDF, 31.1 MiB].

Plan Schematic [PDF, 1.7 MiB].

Parking Plan [PDF, 1.4 MiB].

The Douglas Park Civic Association will host a special meeting to review the initial design concepts for the Neighborhood Conservation project along 12th St S from Glebe Rd to S Highland St. This project includes curb, gutters and a sidewalk. Please join us for a special civic association meeting Thursday evening 5 April 2018 at 7.15pm in the downstairs meeting room at Firehouse 9; 19th St S at Walter Reed Drive. County staff will present the draft plans and take questions and comments.

See the official County meeting announcement here [PDF, 344 KiB].

Please join us!

Over the past two years, a county-board-appointed Working Group of residents has been reviewing and updating the vision and planning for the 4 Mile Run Valley and its associated parks (Allie Freed Park, Shirlington Park, Shirlington Dog Park and Jennie Dean Park). Please join us for a special civic association meeting Monday evening 19 March 2018 at 7.15pm in the downstairs meeting room at Firehouse 9; 19th St S at Walter Reed Drive. Working Group members and county staff will present the draft plans and take questions and comments. The final policies when adopted by the county board will frame the evolution of the Valley for the next quarter-century.

The draft policy framework document is here:
https://arlingtonva.s3.dualstack.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/31/2018/02/DRAFT_4MRV_Framework2218.pdf

The parks guidelines document is here:
https://arlingtonva.s3.dualstack.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/31/2018/02/4MRV_parks_guidelinesDRAFT020918x.pdf

Please join us!

Arlington County plans to make significant changes to elementary school boundaries in Fall 2018. The changes will take effect Fall 2019, and may move current Douglas Park Henry families out of the new Fleet school. Arlington County will make decisions soon, so the time to make your voice heard is now!

Three Things You Can Do:

1. Weigh in on Walk Zones (Questionnaire). Deadline: March 19, 2018. Before it makes redistricting decisions, the County will determine which planning units are within the “Walk Zone” of each elementary school. For instance, if your planning unit is in Fleet’s Walk Zone, that helps your chances of being in the Fleet school boundaries. Note that planning units in the Walk Zone are not bus-eligible.

Look up your planning unit and fill out this Questionnaire (which has a map displaying the proposed Walk Zones. Please consider requesting that all current Henry planning units (listed below) be added to the Fleet Walk Zone. The planning units that must be written in may be at greatest risk for redistricting, so if you want those to be part of the Fleet community, PLEASE WRITE THEM IN. Current Henry planning units that are not in the proposed Fleet Walk Zone:

40610
46111
46110
46130 (must be manually entered)
46011 (must be manually entered)
46132 (must be manually entered)
46131 (must be manually entered)
46120 (must be manually entered)

If you already walk from a location that APS has noted as outside the proposed walk zone, please share that information. For example, even though all current Henry locations south of Columbia Pike are “outside the walk zone” many current Henry families in these planning units currently walk to school. You can also add your thoughts on how your current walk could be made more walkable with infrastructure improvements (crosswalk, traffic light, crossing guard, etc.)

If you are currently districted to Randolph or Hoffman Boston, fill out their questionnaires. If you currently walk to Randolph and have ideas for improving walkability, note them in the questionnaire. Your planning unit may also be considered walkable to Drew, Abingdon, Barcroft, or Claremont. You can find and fill out those questionnaires here. If you have strong feelings about where you would like to be districted, note those in the questionnaires, and see additional ideas below.

2. Email the County Board (countyboard@arlingtonva.us) and the School Board (school.board@apsva.us). Any email, no matter how brief, that conveys what is important to you on this important issue is HUGELY important and will be considered!

Some things you might tell the Board (borrowed from other neighbors who have weighed in!):

your child/children and family are invested in the Henry/Fleet community through friends, teachers, school activities, community activities
you believe that it is senseless to send your middle school student to Thomas Jefferson (where they are districted), but not send your elementary school student next door to Fleet;
you felt like you were promised that you would move to Fleet with all of Henry given previous representations by APS during and after the South Arlington Working Group; or
you moved to your home to go to Henry/Fleet.

3. Tell the County What to Consider in Redistricting (Questionnaire). Deadline: March 9. Before it makes redistricting decisions, the County is also accepting public input on what it should take into account when making those decisions. As is, the County places by far the greatest weight on proximity. Please consider filling out the survey to add considerations such as: keeping school communities and neighborhoods together, and keeping middle school and elementary school siblings on the same campus.

Read about Arlington County’s Elementary School Planning Initiative here.

Arlington County Schools (APS) is requesting volunteers from the community to assist in evaluating elementary school walking zones ahead of the 2018-2019 school year.  Parents with children in or expected to attend APS elementary schools are encouraged to apply.  Schools included in the Douglas Park neighborhood coverage include:

  • Abingdon
  • Barcroft
  • Claremont
  • Drew Model School
  • Patrick Henry
  • Randolph

A schedule of working group assigments and meeting dates is available here [PDF].

Criteria for Task Group Membership:

  • An understanding of their school neighborhoods;
  • Ability to schedule and perform a community walking tour of the neighborhoods within the 1-mile policy zone as identified by APS;
  • A time commitment that consists of approximately one month of intensive effort between Feb. 15 and March 22 in gathering community input and conveying this to APS staff.

Task Group Work and Timeline

Feb. 15-March 1 – “Getting Started on Walk Zone Review” community meetings*

School task groups will be invited to attend one of four 1½-hour meetings with APS staff to review the walk zone for each school, provide input, and learn about the process and tools to gather community input on potential expansions of school walk zones.

March 12-22: “What We Heard on Walk Zone Review” community meetings will invite each school task group to attend one of four 1½-hour meetings with APS staff to review the input from their respective school communities on potential expansions of school walk zones.

To volunteer, drop an email to DPCA president Adam Henderson and indicate which group(s) you are interested in serving on.

Arlington County has released its 2018 street paving plan. Streets in Douglas Park include segments of:

  • S Lincoln St
    S Lowell St
    S Nelson St
    S Norwood St
    S Oakland St
    S Stafford St
    S Thomas St
    S Wakefield St
    12th St S
    13th St S
    16th St S
    16th Rd S

Arlington County will begin this year’s paving season around mid-March and end in mid-October 2018, weather permitting.

A notice will be distributed to each residential or business address to notify them their streets has been selected for paving. Attached is the door hanger which will be distributed along with “No Parking Signs” 24 to 48 hours prior to the start of operation. There will be inconveniences such as traffic detours, no parking on the streets, noise, dust, etc.

A PDF map of affected streets is available below:
2018 Arlington County Paving Plan.

This project at 1100 S Highland St was originally approved in 2009. It consists of 12 townhomes containing 32 market-rate apartments and 4 affordable units. A representative from the project has been requested to be on hand at the 20 November civic association meeting.

Site Plan.

Landscape Rendering 1

Landscape Rendering 2.

We had a productive meeting on 21 September at the Ft Barnard laydown site which resulted in a few tweaks to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with DES and some improvements to the landscape screening plan.

The final Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is available here:
Ft Barnard Site MOU.

The revised landscape plan is available here:
Ft Barnard Site Landscape Plan

The landscape plan is scheduled for a November 2017 implementation.

As you may have noticed, over the past two months DES staff has transitioned the use of the Ft Barnard site at near the intersection of South Pollard Street and 19th Street South. This has resulted in a sharp reduction in the use of the site as the site now houses a half-dozen large refuse containers which are utilized in the event of major storm damage or very large public events.

On Thursday 21 September 2017 at 6p, we will have an on-site meeting to review the latest MOU and the latest revisions to the landscape plan. Staff has incorporated feedback from our prior meeting and has produced a much denser and more robust plan that is heavily weighted to native plant material.

You can review the latest Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) here….

…and the latest landscape plan here

Please join us Thursday evening.