Comments At Arlington County Board Meeting, July 18, 2026.
At the June 13, 2026 County Board meeting Takis Karantonis characterized me as a loser for challenging the notion that Missing Middle a/k/a Expanded Housing Options (EHO) produces affordable housing. He said:
“I had the opportunity to run elections against Dr. Clement a couple of times and . . . we have had this argument again and again. And she lost the argument. And I believe she’s going to lose it again.”
Takis went on to claim that I have proposed no solutions to the housing crisis. On the contrary, I have repeatedly proposed a whole suite of solutions including:
- Rezoning neighborhood by neighborhood based on simple to understand floor area ratio (FAR) rules as recommended by the Laboratory for Architecture;
- Promoting office to residential building conversions a/k/a adaptive reuse;
- Investment in community land trusts; and
- Restoring the partial tax credit for renovation of multi-family dwellings, which County Board repealed in 2021.
That Takis misrepresents my position and relies upon ad hominem remarks to shut me down indicates that EHO is the real loser when it comes to affordable housing.
Indeed in commenting on my remarks of June 13, Maureen Coffey congratulated the County Manager for proposing to pay for more affordable housing through bonds whose “debt service would have to be funded – most likely through a tax rate increase.” (CIP, Manager’s Message, Housing Policy Proposal – Capital Investments In Housing, 3. Exploring Funding Options)
Those are the County Manager’s own words. In other words, since EHO isn’t working, the County’s solution is to tax gouge people out of their homes and businesses to subsidize affordable housing for others.