Plan Langston Boulevard

Plan Langston Boulevard History

In 2012, grassroots efforts to plan Langston Boulevard began. Civic association presidents got together to talk at regular breakfast gatherings, and walking tours and community meetings offered residents the opportunity to learn and exchange ideas. Then the establishment of the Langston Boulevard Alliance (LBA) resulted in the development of guiding principles, a preliminary community vision, and recommendations to create an adopted County plan for Langston Blvd. The vision called for Langston Blvd. to become a walkable main street with a string of neighborhood activity centers between Rosslyn and East Falls Church, with new transportation and housing options, better public spaces, and more.

In 2019, the County recognized community support for that vision. Understanding growing market pressure and the opportunity to realize County goals through reinvestment, the County initiated a planning study. Plan Langston Boulevard (PLB), passed by the Arlington County Board in 2023, built upon the work of hundreds of citizens and the many previous community visioning efforts.

Plan Langston Boulevard Vision

The Langston Boulevard Area Plan envisions economic sustainability, environmental resilience, and equity, connecting the key planning elements into a cohesive roadmap toward the future. This plan enables growth along Langston Blvd. that will reflect a sustainable and equitable approach to land use planning, leveraging proximity to transit and activity centers to reduce travel times and carbon emissions and meet the housing needs of increasingly diverse residents and household types.

Implementation of this plan promotes long-term climate adaptation and resiliency. Adaptation and resilience are complementary—adaptation allows a place and people to thrive in a changing environment, while resilience is the ability to anticipate and recover from adverse impacts. Long-term resiliency includes thoughtful strategies for enduring competitiveness, desirability, and quality of life; a welcoming ecosystem for businesses and residents; public health and safety; and optimizing the cost-effectiveness of government services, operations, assets, and infrastructure. PLB enables more meaningful development than what had been permitted earlier, and can guide development in a positive, purposeful way.