CRA revises mandatory compliance grant guidelines: limits on conceptual site plans, clarifies soft costs and extensions

The Renew Arlington CRA approved revisions to its mandatory compliance grant program guidelines after staff clarified how the program will handle soft costs, conceptual site plans and extensions. The board approved Resolution RA/CRA 2025-03 by a recorded vote of 15 ayes and 0 nays.

Karen Nasralla, Office of Economic Development staff, said the revisions were developed with input from the city's Office of General Counsel and the council auditors and were intended to align program language with city code and to clarify how soft costs are handled. “We wanted to be clear that the program does include that the city will create a conceptual site plan for the applicant. However if they want something different and they want to hire their own engineer, they are free to do that but we are not gonna double dip and let them add that into the soft cost of their grant,” Nasralla said.

Key changes approved: - Conceptual site-plan limit: City staff will create conceptual site plans for applicants but the program will limit the number of city-produced conceptual site plans to three per property to manage staff workload. - Soft-cost…