To the editor: I was moved, and saddened, attending the March 18 Arlington County Board hearing on its Missing Middle housing plan and hearing so many young speakers, understandably, lamenting the lack of affordable homes in Arlington.
I was reminded of the classic musical “The Music Man” about a middle-America town whose parents are persuaded that they need to fund a band for their sons to learn to play music and avoid the wages of sin.
The charming and glib out-of-town salesman who persuades them of this remedy, of course, proves to be a con man who really wants to take the money and run.
The young prospective homebuyers at the March 18 hearing have jumped on the Missing Middle bandwagon apparently believing claims that Missing Middle housing is a pathway to home-ownership. But the county government’s own figures have dispelled any notion that units will be “affordable” when the cheapest sixplex for purchase is projected to cost at least $600,000 (assuming that it is even for sale and not the more likely rental unit) and require an annual income of at least $174,000, well above the Arlington 2020 median income of $123,000.
I wish I could have asked these speakers whether they could meet this income requirement; I fear for many the answer would be “no.”
Conveniently, we already have a real-world data point. A prospectus is circulating that solicits investors for a three-unit Missing Middle development in Lyon Park with projected per-unit prices of at least $1.22 million. Presumably neither an “affordable” nor even “attainable” (the county government’s latest catchword) opportunity for most of these prospective buyers – or for many others, for that matter – and undoubtedly into upper-income territory.
The fictional “Music Man” of course has a happy ending, with a great deal of intervening song and dance, and with the deception ultimately forgiven. I wonder if that will be the outcome for these young buyers when all of the song and dance of this Missing Middle process is over and the financial reality of actual units for sale starts to unfold.
Then again, the projected return on investment for potential investors in the Lyon Park Missing Middle development is at least 35 percent – perhaps they will be able to afford to live in Arlington and in the end play a happy tune.
Rick Epstein, Arlington
