Virginia Highlands Park 

1600 S Hayes St, Arlington, VA 22202

Summary of Virginia Highlands Park loss of green space.

Virginia Highlands Park has experienced a significant loss of green space over the past 10 years. These losses in green space are not being recognized by the county and not understood as impacting a core facility in parks, used by residents of all ages from the neighborhood and throughout Arlington. The losses of open spaces to single-use, permit & reserved facilities are putting pressure on this park and other neighborhood parks. And these conversions are occurring without transparent and inclusive engagement with residents.

DPR is misusing the label “CIP maintenance” and utilizing millions of taxpayer dollars that have been allocated to “CIP maintenance” to undertake major new capital projects that should be designated as “new capital projects” rather than designated as “CIP maintenance.” Projects billed as “maintenance” or “replacing” like facilities, currently underway for the athletic fields are removing green space.

Arlington County mis-represented this project as a “maintenance” CIP project. And in doing so very likely violated a series of ordinances, policies and even public engagement procedures. See here

• Total estimated 17,000 sq ft of new paved areas for just the 2015 maintenance project
• And in the 10 years prior to that over 100,000 square feet of unprogrammed green space has been built, converted to synthetic turf or a restricted field.

Virginia Highlands Park, Arlington, VA from 2010-2017

Past 10 years have reduced green space:

• The fire station expansion constructed in 2004/2005 removed 25,000 sf. of previously open green space.
• The north soccer field was refurbished in 2004, replacing the natural grass with Astroturf and restricting use. This area covers 80,000 sf.
• The sprayground constructed in 2013 added 3,300 sf. of paved area, not including the additional land used for pump equipment and new sidewalks. This feature was slated to go into the already paved plaza area, but for reasons still unclear to the neighborhood was changed at the last minute.

In 2014, at Virginia Highlands Park, DPR claimed improperly and inappropriately that the extensive work it authorized to be performed was “maintenance.” Which should be replacing like for like. But, this project included:

• Approximately $3 million in funding
• Conversion of open space to a soccer field. The central lawn field was re-regraded in 2014 and classified as a “pickup” field but is scheduled for more than 500 hours annually, which is more than the softball fields. It is also closed for “maintenance” for many months out of the year. The conversion to a field versus open space makes this space also off-limits to other uses such as dog walking. This area covers 45,000 sf or over an acre.
• 100,000 sq ft of land disturbance
• Estimated 17,000 sq ft of new paved areas just for the maintenance project. Increase of 11,300 sf. of paved athletic courts (up from 48,100 sf.) and an addition of 5,300 sf. of sidewalk/plaza space (up from 3,400 sf.).
• New facilities (soccer field and youth court) added
• Numerous site amenities such as electronic reservation system, 18 new benches, bleachers, shade sails, etc…
• A complete redesign of the east side of park
• Loss of natural open parkland
• Environmental degradation increasing storm water run-off and on-going damage to mature trees
• Park facilities closed for nearly 1 year
• No replacement of general park facilities located just feet away from the recreation, such as benches, picnic tables and grills.

• 

Community and the park:  

Concerns about being pushed out, not funded and environmental issues worsened. 

Funding: $3 million dollars for park maintenance, yet none of that maintenance funding went to community needs such as benches, trees or community gathering amenities like grills or picnic tables.

The $3M consisted of a complete redesign and amenities such as a new electronic reservation machine, bleachers for the new grass soccer field, numerous spectator seating added for the courts and new sport court lights that also shine into the neighborhood were added.

Update on April 2018

  

6 months later the park bench has been replaced! It’s now facing a youth basketball court, making it the 19th sport spectator bench, 0 park benches for passive park spaces on the east side of Virginia Highlands Park. Apparently, the Department of Parks believes that no one would ever want to come to park to enjoy it with friends, family, neighbors or by themselves. Instead, either they must be playing a sport or must be watching one.

Not funded:

• No benches on the east side located in passive spaces. In fact, only 1 bench not directly placed on recreational facilities exists on the east side and it was entirely unusable because it sank so low to the ground. In  October 2017, DPR removed the bench after concerns were raised about it not being replaced. As of April 2018, there is still no benches replacing the removed one.
• No picnic tables or grills, which have rusted over– only feet away from the tennis courts.
• No dog waste bag dispensers. This is an 18 acre park and there is not one dog bag dispenser/waste station.
• Also not funded on the east side is beam from the North World Trade Center tower from New York given in honor to Fire station 5, who were first responders on September 11th to the Pentagon. This important monument sits on wood blocks since 2010 often with overgrown grass, no lighting and no plaque or any commemoration for what transpired on September 11th with our neighborhood and the brave men and women of our neighborhood fire station. While not maintenance, it continues to show the unfortunate lack of prioritization in the funding our parks for everyone including the important community entities in them.

Photos from the World Trade Center Steel Ceremony

Community Input:

Under the “Maintenance” project, the only community input that was sought was in reference to adding a new youth basketball hoop, which became a survey option to “re purpose” a youth court from the tennis practice courts.

Option from survey: “Existing tennis practice courts to be converted into a youth basketball half-court.”

However, the practice tennis courts were rebuilt in a new location (for no apparent reason), and then old practice tennis courts that were supposed to be converted were torn down and rebuilt with a youth basketball court.

Survey comments such as “Good reuse of tennis practice wall” suggest that the community thought this was a true re-purposing and not a tear down. And many of the survey participants’ comments ask that there not be any paving over or loss to the green space. Survey for VA Highlands Park

ADA: Dept. of Parks has claimed that the reason for the redesign of the park was to meet ADA standards. But this does not explain DPR’s conversion of open, unprgrammed green space to a soccer field without the community’s input or even notification. And as for the re-design of the sport courts, as far as anyone can determine, ADA recommendations only apply to facilities that people with disabilities are most likely to use such as spas, playgrounds and pools. These are listed in the ADA recommendations. And even so, ADA appears to even have cost exemptions for communities.

Further, this explanation of DPR trying to ensure accessibility becomes more baffling when we see that DPR removed the former walkway to the only passive area on the east side and now there is NO ADA accessibility to passive green spaces where ADA might be appreciated. DPR has also claimed that the reason why they never replaced the only bench on the east side located in passive green space, even though it was so low to the ground that it is unusable, was because it was not part of the scope— but apparently the former path leading to it was…

Environmental Conditions: Flooding made worse after the “maintenance” project.

Restricted: Park rangers patrol people from walking their dogs now on lower reserved soccer field that used to be green space for the community.  Until, December 2017 the softball fields were locked and inaccessible to park goers unless you had paid for a permit. Now with partial fencing removed, they still remain permit-priority and restricted for dog walkers, uses which would harm the fields, and general park facilities like benches, gardens, trees, pavilions, etc…

Huge disturbance to park space & use: The area of land disturbance is over 100,000 square feet (2 ¼ acres) and is a complete construction site as clearly seen in this April 2015 Google Maps image.

Future: Virginia Highlands Park

This pressure on Virginia Highlands Park is not going away. In 2016, the county had additional plans for “improvement” to the northwest corner of the park through another “maintenance” project. The results of the past construction strongly suggest that any proposed changes will come with additional loss of green space, whether the county admits to that or not. So residents have been working hard to redirect any future park renovation work to actually address the problems above and address community needs.

January 2016 publication for Virginia Highlands Parks: West Side Rebalancing Proposal.

Questions for DPR_ Virginia Highlands Park Outreach. January 2017 ( Engagement process, data, and facilities at Virginia Highlands Park)

Aurora Highlands parks once served a smaller population, but the addition of dense residential and commercial developments in the neighborhood, has put intense pressure on the scarce green spaces. Not only has park land not increased in our neighborhood in any significant way, but the major park, Virginia Highlands, has been treated as a regional park to serve county-wide use. Consequently, available passive green space and mature trees have been usurped by facilities specific to only two uses: sports and playgrounds. Organized league sports predominate, while excluding the majority of the neighborhood’s age- diverse population. Currently under construction, this park has added more sport courts, fields, and playgrounds leaving only a tiny fraction of green parkland for other uses. Facilities just at this park alone include 2 soccer/athletic fields, 2 baseball fields, 6 tennis courts, 2 practice tennis courts, 1/2 basketball court, youth basketball court, sand volley ball court, 2 public playgrounds, 5 Peytanque courts, 1 spray ground and pavilions. These facilities are so use-specific that neighbors are prohibited to use them for any other activity, even when they are not in use which is the majority of the time.

While Aurora Highlands’ neighbors are proud to host these amenities used by all of Arlington, we regret that they are installed at the expense of open green space and tree-filled parkland that all neighbors could enjoy. With the population and density increasing, the need for natural green and unprogrammed space for all ages and uses in our neighborhood parks cannot be ignored.