At a recent County Board meeting, "Public Land for Public Good" was a central topic. The County Board had previously directed the County Manager to put together a list of all County owned buildings and lands that could be re-purposed for other uses. Some of the stated uses were for affordable housing and schools. But the list is broader and could mean bus storage, power stations and others uses that we don't yet know about.

Heading the target list for "schools" is the Wilson School site, and heading the target list for "affordable housing" is the Rosslyn Highlands Park/Fire Station 10 site. Both parcels are part of the Western Rosslyn Area Planning Study ("WRAPS") that launched Saturday June 21 with a site walk-around and meeting.

NRCA is already disappointed in the WRAPS process because of the reduction in park and recreation space that is in the County's revised charge. Further troubling is the notion that recreational space can be met by interior space (such as gymnasiums) within a rebuilt Wilson School.

How the PL4PG and WRAPS processes play out in North Rosslyn will be central to the character of our community in the years to come. I encourage you to explore the links below and to look at the Wilson School forum page on our site for further information.

http://projects.arlingtonva.us...and-use/public-land/


http://arlingtonva.s3.amazonaw...s_24HousingSites.pdf

Volunteers needed THIS WEEKEND (and beyond) to save our parks:

For anyone concerned about losing open space in our community (Rosslyn Highlands/Wilson School Field), please consider volunteering for the Arlington Parks Coalition. This group is an informal network of Arlingtonians concerned about the impact of the County Board's "Public Land for Public Good" initiative, which you can read more about in Jennifer's post above. The gist is that, due to the County's priorities around providing dedicated multi-family affordable housing, and the need for more schools, they are willing to usurp current public parks and recreation space to build housing and/or schools on it. As many of you agree, with open space at a premium in Arlington, building on precious park land is a very dangerous idea that threatens the quality of life for all.

The Arlington Parks Coalition’s first action will be to jointly host a booth with Friends of TJ Park at the County fair, which starts tomorrow. Please consider taking a shift at the booth to explain the issue and solicit signatures on our petition, which states simply,

“I support preserving and using our County owned parkland and recreation centers solely for park and recreation purposes for the benefit of current and future generations.”

The sign up form is hosted by supporters of the Lubber Run Community Center here: www.SignUpGenius.com/go/10C0F4AA8AC2CA02-lrcc .

If you aren’t able to take a shift at the booth, there are plenty of other ways to help. For one, I need a teammate on this project to help organize Rosslyn supporters. We will also likely need fundraising support and folks to attend future meetings as participants or as visible supporters.

This is the one cohesive effort that is being launched to advocate for Arlington parks. Contact me if you can help.

Best,
Katie

katherine.elmore@outlook.com
412 482 0295

All,
I forward to your attention a plea from Suzanne Sundberg, a long-time Arlington Parks advocate, asking that the public repudiate intense development of the Wilson tract. I urge North Rosslyn residents to follow up on her suggestion.
Mark Antell

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This is it folks. In case you haven't been following the saga in West Rosslyn (my former home was in Rosslyn), the county is preparing to destroy the historic Wilson School building (so named after Pres. Woodrow Wilson visited it) to make way for the usual combo of skyscrapers and pavement.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JChPyzRBnTY for a short YouTube video to see what is at stake. It's not just losing one of Arlington's few remaining historic buildings but also the very last scrap of open/green space in the Rosslyn area, where tens of thousands of people live.

If you care about parkland/open space preservation and saving what little remains of Arlington's history, please complete the survey at http://projects.arlingtonva.us...d-use/wraps/updates/ before noon on Monday, Aug. 11.

And please, urge your friends and neighbors to do the same.

Suzanne Sundberg

The Arlington Parks Coalition has another opportunity for volunteers to help get out the word that Arlingtonians value and wish to preserve all of our park land. Please see this message from Save TJ Park organizer Jim Presswood:

"Clarendon Day on September 27 is our next opportunity to enlist support for [Arlington Parks Coalition]. We plan to have a booth and
encourage your participation in this event, which will be 11 AM - 5 PM in the streets surrounding Clarendon Metro Station. You can sign up
online at http://www.signupgenius.com/go...AFAA23A0FD0-friends1 .

Our activities include asking booth visitors to sign the Save TJ Park and Save Arlington’s Parks petitions, educating visitors about the issues, and offering free tee shirts with a donation of $20 or more."

Please sign up for the 1 - 3 p.m. shift, or come by when you can. I'll be providing more information at tonight's general NRCA meeting.

Thanks!
Katie

Is meeting tonight or Thursday night at the Atrium at 7:30 PM?

Perdita Welch

The NRCA Meeting is Thursday night at 7:30 PM.