Whereas Arlington County has a long tradition of community involvement in County policy development - including land use policy and the Site Plan Review process - that is part of what is known as the "Arlington Way";

Whereas the many conditions contained in County-Board approved Site Plans typically represent a carefully balanced compromise between developer and community interests, including conditions offered by the developer specifically to gain community support;

Whereas some developers have in the past avoided fulfilling important Site Plan conditions through so-called "administrative changes", which do not require any further community or County Board review;

Whereas the County Board, County Manager and Zoning Administrator have apparently recently taken steps to reduce the number of approved administrative changes;

Whereas there is now an apparent trend, starting with the Navy League project, of developers seeking to avoid fulfilling important Site Plan conditions through so called "minor site plan amendments" instead of through "administrative changes";

Whereas the "minor site plan amendment" process does not involve review by any of County's citizen advisory commissions (aside from, on occasion, informal discussion in a Site Plan Review Committee meeting), and involves only review before the County Board;

Whereas the "minor site plan amendment" process often does not allow for full community participation and takes place only after the County Board and community have completed a negotiation process and oriented themselves to approval and actual construction of the project;

Whereas "minor site plan amendments" have been used in attempts to reduce the developers' costs and projects' value to affected communities without any counterbalancing changes that might improve projects' value to them;

Whereas County Board approval of such cost-cutting site plan amendments could encourage future developers to obtain community support by over-promising during initial approval, but with intent to renege once community support becomes less critical - a practice that would undermine the site plan review process and the Arlington Way; and

Whereas even when "minor site plan amendments" are prompted by circumstances unknown to the developer at the time of the initial approval, County Board approval of cost-saving measures without compensating community benefits may encourage future developers to remain deliberately ignorant of obstacles to the implementation of important site plan conditions; therefore

Be it resolved by the Arlington County Civic Federation:

That the County Board, County Manager, and Zoning Administrator are to be commended for reducing the number of approved "administrative changes";

That the County Board and County Manager should expect developers seeking "minor site plan amendments" to promptly notify and discuss such changes with affected communities before submitting them for County approval, giving them adequate opportunities for member notification, review and response;

That the County Manager should provide to the citizens of Arlington a written description of 1) the County's standards for community notification and discussion related to "minor site plan amendments" (and the County's expectations for civic and community involvement), and 2) the County's official description of an "administrative change", as compared to a "minor" or "major" site plan amendment;

That the County Board and County Manager should generally avoid approving (or recommending approval of) minor site plan amendments that are opposed by a community, particularly if that community supported the initial approved site plan;

That the County Board, County Manager, and Zoning Administrator should generally approve (or recommend approval of) only those "administrative changes" and "minor site plan amendments" that are prompted by information not reasonably known to the developer at the time of the initial site plan approval;

That the County Board should not, in any event, approve minor site plan amendments that are to the detriment of the community and to the financial benefit of the developer unless there are appropriate counterbalancing benefits to the community; and

That the County Board should be commended for insisting on such counterbalancing benefits to a community on certain recent projects (including the Market Common Phase II) before approving minor site plan amendments that were detrimental to the community.

For further information, contact:

Bill Gearhart or
Martha Moore

This page was last revised on: November 18. 2004.