Unless it can win on further appeal, it appears it’ll be back to the drawing board – at least briefly – for the Arlington County government and its Pentagon City Sector Plan, which aims to guide future development in that corridor of the county.
A three-judge panel of the Virginia Court of Appeals on May 7 overturned a portion of a lower-court ruling, which had sided with the county government against a resident’s lawsuit opposing adoption of the plan in 2022.
In a narrow ruling by Appeals Court Judge Dominique Callins, the court said Circuit Court Judge Judith Wheat got it right in ruling in favor of the county government on several facets of the lawsuit brought by residents. But the appeals-court judges said Wheat got it wrong on the question of whether the county government satisfied state-law requirements for advertising the proposed changes in advance of adopting the plan and related zoning regulations.
As a result, unless the county government can prevail at a higher level, local leaders will need to go back and hold new hearings on the proposal.
Eleven local residents, led by Richard Rebh, had sued the county government, contending the new sector plan’s allowing for taller building heights around River House parcel where they lived potentially would affect their views of the D.C. skyline and thus reduce property values.
In their ruling, the appeals-court judges acknowledged that the county government came close to satisfying legal-advertisement requirements, but concluded the wording of the legal ads published in the Washington Times and online were slightly too vague for the public to discern what county leaders were proposing – and thus fell short of state requirements in place at the time.
The ruling appears to be focused narrowly on the legal-advertising issue; it did not take issue with Wheat’s siding with the county government on the overall Pentagon City Sector Plan as adopted by the county.
That suggests that county officials, if they choose, can simply re-advertise the matter, hold new hearings and ultimately vote on it.
But if the ruling stands, it could have an impact on current litigation between residents and the county government over Missing Middle housing and zoning policies put into effect last year by the County Board.
