In April 2024, the Arlington County Board adopted a set of 10 principles to guide growth in the County, and the metropolitan Washington region, toward equitable outcomes. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) developed these principles in late 2023 and early 2024. The COG Board of Directors approved them in March 2024 and encouraged member jurisdictions to adopt them for local implementation.
It is essential that Arlington and the other member jurisdictions implement these principles in planning, development, housing, land use, and other areas because disparities exist throughout the Washington region in housing, resources, and life expectancy – which, according to the COG’s Uneven Opportunities Report, varies by 27 years across the region. These disparities are largely caused by decades of systemic and structural racism that allowed and undergirded redlining practices, discriminatory housing policies, and displacement.
Adoption of the following principles for equitable development is a key step toward establishing practices and policies that work to eliminate, reduce, and prevent disparities.
Document the historical harm caused to communities of color by the actions of government through planning, housing, and development to identify the connections between those actions and today’s racially disparate outcomes.
Require local community participation and leadership in decision-making to reflect a diversity of voices, use power mapping with an equity lens to design equitable decision-making structures that account for differences in power amongst stakeholders, and include targeted strategies to engage and compensate historically marginalized communities, and voices representing future residents. Build cultural competence in planning processes and design planning processes and materials to be clear, accessible, and engaging for culturally diverse stakeholders.
Implement equitable development policies with a sufficient dedicated budget, organizational structures, and staff trained in equitable planning practices to sustain and grow jurisdictions’ capacity to follow through on their adopted policies. Develop public-facing accountability tools designed with community engagement and tie them to meaningful budget and policy processes to measure jurisdictions’ performance and monitor regional racial disparities.
Promote generational wealth-building, local economic development, and entrepreneur opportunities including local minority businesses participating in publicly supported capital projects and real estate development. Work with the private sector to avoid and mitigate displacement of businesses during the construction of new projects, enhance community-serving establishments with capital and capacity-building supports, and increase career pathways for quality living wage jobs for people in all neighborhoods.
Develop government regulations, policies, and programs to mitigate economic pressures and allow anyone who wants to continue living in a community to do so as it grows, especially for residents vulnerable to displacement pressures due to systemic racism and economic insecurity, and prevent displacement of small businesses that serve communities experiencing displacement pressure, including preventing predatory speculation of property in communities at risk of displacement.
Create and preserve healthy, safe, and long-term affordable housing for all family sizes, abilities, ages, and incomes to create integrated, inclusive communities in all neighborhoods through a mix of publicly supported strategies scaled to meet the actual housing needs of the region’s population growth and communities that have experienced housing discrimination.
Respect the local culture, character, and diverse values of a community by uplifting existing cultural resources as valuable assets of a community.
Prioritize effective, safe, dignified, healthy, and affordable multi-modal transportation choices for all residents. Support transit-dependent communities and provide equitable access to core services and amenities, including employment, education, health, and social services.
Design built environments that enhance health opportunities for communities currently experiencing racial disparities in health through public amenities (schools, parks, open spaces, transportation, complete streets, health care, and other services), access to affordable healthy food, physical exercise, improved air quality, and safe and inviting environments.
Work across silos within government and across other sectors to eliminate disproportionate and harmful environmental burdens on any community. Enact regulations and secure resources to mitigate and reverse the effects of environmental hazards past and present that have disproportionately harmed communities of color.