Arlington County’s use of transferable “density rights” could allow a developer to double the number of low-income housing units now available along the cramped corridor around the Rosslyn Metro station. AHC Inc., a nonprofit affordable-housing developer, wants to rebuild the Key Boulevard Apartments into a high-density, mixed-income residence providing about 80 units for low-income families on the 1.24-acre site.
The 80 units represent about half of the 160 to 170 units AHC would build on the site. Three apartment buildings now on the Key Boulevard site provide 41 units.
“The difficulty is, there’s no ‘real’ real estate in Arlington, and you have to sort of create real estate in this world,” AHC President Walter Webdale said. “And you do that by creating density.”
To do that, AHC plans to use an Arlington County zoning rule that lets developers transfer “density rights” — an approval to build more urban, high-occupancy structures — from one property to another.
The company has density rights from another location, the Gates of Ballston. The Gates location is approved for denser development, but AHC elected to keep the garden-style apartments already there to preserve the site’s historic character, Webdale said, allowing AHC to shift the property’s density rights to the Rosslyn Metro site.
AHC plans to use revenue generated by the sale of condominiums at the Rosslyn site to offset the cost of the affordable-housing units, a method that would allow the plan to move forward without any financial contributions from Arlington County, said Webdale. To qualify for the low-income housing, residents’ income would have to be below 50 percent to 60 percent of the county’s median income, or between about $63,000 and $76,000 a year for a family.
“Rosslyn is where the jobs are for people who live in low-income housing,” Webdale said. “There’s a number of service jobs that are down there, and once you’re at the Metro, you don’t need a car, and jobs are available all along the Metro stations, so it is ideal.”
Developers are drafting plans to present to the Arlington County Planning Commission for approval.
