By Tabitha Ricketts

Last month I wrote about ArNAC — the Arlington Neighborhoods Advisory Committee — and the types of projects it has funded for the Lyon Park neighborhood and others around Arlington. There have been great examples of beautification and pedestrian safety improvements all across the County. As your neighborhood representative, it’s my job to support project ideas from Lyon Park, see them grow from ideas into plans, and shepherd them through the process of review and selection by ArNAC. But where do those project ideas come from in the first place? That’s where you come in!

We, the members of the Lyon Park community, get to decide what projects we want to pursue for the good of the neighborhood. That’s one of the best things about the ArNAC program — it’s neighborhood-driven. But it also puts the burden of responsibility on us. If we want to make use of this program and its funding, we have to put forward ideas and be willing to do the follow-up work to turn them into plans. ArNAC has County staff standing ready to help us, but the work begins with us.

Fortunately, several of our wonderful neighbors have begun a fair amount of this work already. The Lyon Park Neighborhood Plan, filed with ArNAC in 2019, lays out a 10-year plan for the community, describing the neighborhood we want to create and maintain over this period. It highlights goals, preferences, and areas for improvement, based on significant surveying done at the time. ArNAC prioritizes funding for projects that align with a neighborhood’s plan — this is a great place to start. 

ArNAC follows a specific rules and pointing system to weight project ideas across the various neighborhoods, so we’ve adopted a similar set of criteria to help us prioritize ideas for Lyon Park:

Size, scope, and cost of the project — priority to ideas with less effort required

Level of impact — priority to ideas benefitting the highest number of neighbors 

Proposed champion — priority to ideas with a “block champion,” a neighbor ready to lead the charge and champion the project with me

Neighbor support — priority to ideas that already have significant support or goodwill from the neighbors most directly impacted

Additional funding sources — priority to ideas that can tap into multiple funding sources

Sidewalk or park project — priority to ideas for pedestrian safety or County park improvement. (Note that Lyon Park and our community center are owned by us, the neighborhood; that is not a County-owned or maintained park.)

These criteria are guidelines, not limits. They will help us prioritize our time and energy to be efficient within the ArNAC system. But all ideas are welcome!

Are you ready to get started? Reach out to me at tabitharicketts@gmail.com with your thoughts on how we can better our neighborhood, and let’s turn our dreams into actions!