Dennis Leach (center), with Arlington County board members Chris Zimmerman (left) and Jay Fisette (right).
Dennis Leach, Arlington County’s transportation director, is interviewed in the excellent, hyper-local newspaper endeavor Patch about building a vibrant bikable and walkable community in the midst of “unprecedented construction.”
(I can literally hear the jackhammers right now outside my office window in Rosslyn!)
Leach highlights some really interesting insights on the inner machinations of how government, basically, works to make our lives better.
The county has “six or seven” inspectors assigned to every public and private development project and to all utility work, Leach said. They visit multiple sites daily. The current staffing level “makes it difficult” to visit every site every day, he said.
As developers apply for various permits, the information about their projects are collected into a master database. So, if something is left unfinished or not up to proper standards, the county has a list indicating who is responsible.
The average permit is granted for 180 days, though developers can apply for new permits to accommodate their construction schedule.
“I can’t emphasize this enough: There’s so much that people don’t see that’s below grade — water, storm sewer, Washington Gas, Dominion Power, other lines. Generally, with any of our capital development work, the front-end is very challenging,” Leach said.
“In almost all of our projects, the initial phases are disruptive and lead to a temporary deterioration of the right-of-way. But we are absolutely committed to restoring, and ultimately, the things that get built are a dramatic improvement over where we started.”
Over the past five years, Arlington has begun requiring developers to submit transportation plans that show how they will accommodate motorists, pedestrians, cyclists and transit during each phase on construction.
Photo by cliff1066™