Greater Greater Washington as a news source

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If anything, increasing density will make housing more expensive. Look at Navy Yard. Way more people live there now. It's also way more expensive than it used to be. Happens over and over and over in neighborhoods across DC.

So, increasing the density of a neighborhood makes the neighborhood more desirable and in-demand? How about that.

I doubt that building 110' buildings in the Palisades and Chevy Chase DC will make those neighborhoods more desirable. What makes them desirable is their leafy, village in the city character. DC doesn't need a one-size-fits-all approach to planning.

OK, so Navy Yard is expensive because lots of people live there, whereas the Palisades and Chevy Chase DC are expensive because few people live there. Got it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If anything, increasing density will make housing more expensive. Look at Navy Yard. Way more people live there now. It's also way more expensive than it used to be. Happens over and over and over in neighborhoods across DC.

So, increasing the density of a neighborhood makes the neighborhood more desirable and in-demand? How about that.

It also pushes out poor brown and black families to make room for rich white people without children. So that's that. Increasing density is basically the same thing as gentrification.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Change the law to require any development over 30 units to include 33 percent IZ housing. If DC is serious then it need to up the standards. Otherwise, the push for “affordable” housing seems like an excuse and smoke screen to let development companies build just more high end market rate housing.

which will mean fewer new developments and less IZ

But the mayor says we need lots more affordable housing. We will never grow our way to affordable housing with current requirements of 8-10 percent IZ in qualifying projects. We have to up the percentages by statue.

Unless, it's really not about affordable housing after all.

Affordable housing is just a fig leaf. Changing zoning laws and letting developers do whatever they want has nothing to do with affordable housing.

Of course zoning changes could increase affordable housing. Just look at Japan. https://www.citymetric.com/fabric/tokyo-proves-housing-shortages-are-political-choice-4623

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If anything, increasing density will make housing more expensive. Look at Navy Yard. Way more people live there now. It's also way more expensive than it used to be. Happens over and over and over in neighborhoods across DC.

So, increasing the density of a neighborhood makes the neighborhood more desirable and in-demand? How about that.

It also pushes out poor brown and black families to make room for rich white people without children. So that's that. Increasing density is basically the same thing as gentrification.

Are there many poor brown and black families living in Palisades and Chevy Chase DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If anything, increasing density will make housing more expensive. Look at Navy Yard. Way more people live there now. It's also way more expensive than it used to be. Happens over and over and over in neighborhoods across DC.

So, increasing the density of a neighborhood makes the neighborhood more desirable and in-demand? How about that.

I doubt that building 110' buildings in the Palisades and Chevy Chase DC will make those neighborhoods more desirable. What makes them desirable is their leafy, village in the city character. DC doesn't need a one-size-fits-all approach to planning.

OK, so Navy Yard is expensive because lots of people live there, whereas the Palisades and Chevy Chase DC are expensive because few people live there. Got it.

Increasing density pushes housing prices up, and it's not hard to see why.

The more people live in a small area, the most businesses want to be there too. As restaurants and bars and stores move in, the area becomes more desirable so more and more people want to live there, and prices go up accordingly. That's what happened in Navy Yard. Before that, it happened in U Street and 14th Street and H Street and...

Palisades and Chevy Chase are expensive for entirely other reasons (the houses are beautiful, the schools are great, etc.).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If anything, increasing density will make housing more expensive. Look at Navy Yard. Way more people live there now. It's also way more expensive than it used to be. Happens over and over and over in neighborhoods across DC.

So, increasing the density of a neighborhood makes the neighborhood more desirable and in-demand? How about that.

Depends on what you like. I don't want to live in one of those glorified dorms that cover Navy Yard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Loosening zoning laws is going to make zero difference to housing prices. It's odd how people have convinced themselves this is some kind of silver bullet to high housing prices.

Supply and demand doesn't apply to the housing market?

Yes, it does, and that's the problem for those selling zoning as the easy answer to everything.

They always want to focus on the supply side of the equation, and assume that if they just bring more housing units onto the market, prices will decline. But what about demand? If prices were to actually go down, demand would go up because that's what happens when prices fall.

Housing prices will never actually fall no matter how many units they build because it will always been exceeded by demand. There's millions of people who would happily move into the District (do you think people want two hour commutes?) and there isn't space to build millions of new housing units.

See the problem really is that people either never took, or never understood, Econ 101.

The above commenter does not know the difference between "demand" and "quantity" demanded. Or what elasticity of demand means.

When supply of X goes up, and prices go down, and then people buy more of X, that is NOT demand going up. The demand curve (which tells you how much people will demand at any given price) has not moved. The quantity demand has moved - we speak of that as "moving along the demand curve"

Now its possible that the demand curve is perfectly elastic, which means that any increase in supply will be "soaked up" and no change in prices will occur. But that is in fact very rare, and almost certainly not the case for housing across a metro area (it may be the case for housing in one neighborhood, where a drop in prices will lead people to move from other neighborhoods).

IRL terms a perfectly elastic demand curve for housing means that say, the rent for a 1BR apt is $2500. You build 10,000 more 1BR apts. The rent will NOT go down even to 2499, because as soon as it does, there are 10,000 people interested in renting 1BR at $2499, who were not interested in paying $2500.

The same thing at 20,000 units. Or 30,000 units.

Some reflections shows this is absurd.

Now, it is also true that demand shifts for other reasons. In particular in a region like ours demand for housing increases because there are more jobs in the region. But IF there are more jobs in the region, that demand shift happens whatever you do to supply of housing. And results in higher prices.

If anything, increasing density will make housing more expensive. Look at Navy Yard. Way more people live there now. It's also way more expensive than it used to be. Happens over and over and over in neighborhoods across DC.

Navy Yard had hardly any market rate housing at 15 years ago. It was parking lots, gay nightclubs, and empty lots. Cut off from the City by I395 and only recently having gotten a metro station. If Navy Yard had been built up at a 20% lower density it would have become just as expensive. If it had been developed as all market rate townhomes it would likely have ended up as expensive per square foot.

But building all that housing in Navy Yd almost certainly lowered prices and rents elsewhere, by drawing off demand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If anything, increasing density will make housing more expensive. Look at Navy Yard. Way more people live there now. It's also way more expensive than it used to be. Happens over and over and over in neighborhoods across DC.

So, increasing the density of a neighborhood makes the neighborhood more desirable and in-demand? How about that.

Depends on what you like. I don't want to live in one of those glorified dorms that cover Navy Yard.

No, whether it increases prices or decreases them is independent of "what you like".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If anything, increasing density will make housing more expensive. Look at Navy Yard. Way more people live there now. It's also way more expensive than it used to be. Happens over and over and over in neighborhoods across DC.

So, increasing the density of a neighborhood makes the neighborhood more desirable and in-demand? How about that.

I doubt that building 110' buildings in the Palisades and Chevy Chase DC will make those neighborhoods more desirable. What makes them desirable is their leafy, village in the city character. DC doesn't need a one-size-fits-all approach to planning.

OK, so Navy Yard is expensive because lots of people live there, whereas the Palisades and Chevy Chase DC are expensive because few people live there. Got it.

Increasing density pushes housing prices up, and it's not hard to see why.

The more people live in a small area, the most businesses want to be there too. As restaurants and bars and stores move in, the area becomes more desirable so more and more people want to live there, and prices go up accordingly. That's what happened in Navy Yard. Before that, it happened in U Street and 14th Street and H Street and...

Palisades and Chevy Chase are expensive for entirely other reasons (the houses are beautiful, the schools are great, etc.).

Er no, what happened on 14th street was that people who were priced out of Dupont started buying and rehabing homes in Logan Circle. The gentrification made it a desirable place for density, not the other way around. Similar for H Street and gentrifcation creeping north from the Hill, and on U Street.

Its POSSIBLE that bars etc make a neighborhood more desirable. But again, if so, that means a new nabe with bars will draw off demand from an old neighborhood with bars. The point is that new supply lowers prices in a wider area, the full market, the one tiny place where it is added.

I mean unless you think that hipsters spontaneously generate to fill new amenity filled neighborhoods.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Change the law to require any development over 30 units to include 33 percent IZ housing. If DC is serious then it need to up the standards. Otherwise, the push for “affordable” housing seems like an excuse and smoke screen to let development companies build just more high end market rate housing.

which will mean fewer new developments and less IZ

But the mayor says we need lots more affordable housing. We will never grow our way to affordable housing with current requirements of 8-10 percent IZ in qualifying projects. We have to up the percentages by statue.

Unless, it's really not about affordable housing after all.

I don't think the citywide IZ mandate can by itself meet the Mayors goal. It's one tool. Other tools are added AH commitments on specific larger developments, esp on District owned land. Also direct subsidies and loans to create AH.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If anything, increasing density will make housing more expensive. Look at Navy Yard. Way more people live there now. It's also way more expensive than it used to be. Happens over and over and over in neighborhoods across DC.

So, increasing the density of a neighborhood makes the neighborhood more desirable and in-demand? How about that.

It also pushes out poor brown and black families to make room for rich white people without children. So that's that. Increasing density is basically the same thing as gentrification.

Typically neighborhoods in DC gentrify ahead of density. Whites looking for rowhouses buy them and rehab them (or buy them from a flipper). When the area finally has high prices, that is when the developers of apt buildings come in.

Now of course some of those who sell those rowhouses actively want to and are happy to take the $ and move to Md or outside the region. But if the people living in the rowhouses are renters, DC should certainly look at ways to protect them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Change the law to require any development over 30 units to include 33 percent IZ housing. If DC is serious then it need to up the standards. Otherwise, the push for “affordable” housing seems like an excuse and smoke screen to let development companies build just more high end market rate housing.

which will mean fewer new developments and less IZ

But the mayor says we need lots more affordable housing. We will never grow our way to affordable housing with current requirements of 8-10 percent IZ in qualifying projects. We have to up the percentages by statue.

Unless, it's really not about affordable housing after all.

I don't think the citywide IZ mandate can by itself meet the Mayors goal. It's one tool. Other tools are added AH commitments on specific larger developments, esp on District owned land. Also direct subsidies and loans to create AH.

Even larger developments in Ward 3 like City Ridge and Cathedral Commons have only 8 to 10 percent IZ (and the later was a PUD with greater height and density than matter of right so should have had more IZ than bare minimum). There’s just not the political will in the mayor’s office to require more from developers. Bowser doesn’t want to antagonize her “johns.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If anything, increasing density will make housing more expensive. Look at Navy Yard. Way more people live there now. It's also way more expensive than it used to be. Happens over and over and over in neighborhoods across DC.

So, increasing the density of a neighborhood makes the neighborhood more desirable and in-demand? How about that.

Depends on what you like. I don't want to live in one of those glorified dorms that cover Navy Yard.

I don't want to live in Palisades, and yet the area is nonetheless considered desirable. Go figure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Change the law to require any development over 30 units to include 33 percent IZ housing. If DC is serious then it need to up the standards. Otherwise, the push for “affordable” housing seems like an excuse and smoke screen to let development companies build just more high end market rate housing.

which will mean fewer new developments and less IZ

But the mayor says we need lots more affordable housing. We will never grow our way to affordable housing with current requirements of 8-10 percent IZ in qualifying projects. We have to up the percentages by statue.

Unless, it's really not about affordable housing after all.

I don't think the citywide IZ mandate can by itself meet the Mayors goal. It's one tool. Other tools are added AH commitments on specific larger developments, esp on District owned land. Also direct subsidies and loans to create AH.

Even larger developments in Ward 3 like City Ridge and Cathedral Commons have only 8 to 10 percent IZ (and the later was a PUD with greater height and density than matter of right so should have had more IZ than bare minimum). There’s just not the political will in the mayor’s office to require more from developers. Bowser doesn’t want to antagonize her “johns.”

The Wharf though is much higher - 30%. At McMillan about 15%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Loosening zoning laws is going to make zero difference to housing prices. It's odd how people have convinced themselves this is some kind of silver bullet to high housing prices.

Supply and demand doesn't apply to the housing market?

Yes, it does, and that's the problem for those selling zoning as the easy answer to everything.

They always want to focus on the supply side of the equation, and assume that if they just bring more housing units onto the market, prices will decline. But what about demand? If prices were to actually go down, demand would go up because that's what happens when prices fall.

Housing prices will never actually fall no matter how many units they build because it will always been exceeded by demand. There's millions of people who would happily move into the District (do you think people want two hour commutes?) and there isn't space to build millions of new housing units.

See the problem really is that people either never took, or never understood, Econ 101.

The above commenter does not know the difference between "demand" and "quantity" demanded. Or what elasticity of demand means.

When supply of X goes up, and prices go down, and then people buy more of X, that is NOT demand going up. The demand curve (which tells you how much people will demand at any given price) has not moved. The quantity demand has moved - we speak of that as "moving along the demand curve"

Now its possible that the demand curve is perfectly elastic, which means that any increase in supply will be "soaked up" and no change in prices will occur. But that is in fact very rare, and almost certainly not the case for housing across a metro area (it may be the case for housing in one neighborhood, where a drop in prices will lead people to move from other neighborhoods).

IRL terms a perfectly elastic demand curve for housing means that say, the rent for a 1BR apt is $2500. You build 10,000 more 1BR apts. The rent will NOT go down even to 2499, because as soon as it does, there are 10,000 people interested in renting 1BR at $2499, who were not interested in paying $2500.

The same thing at 20,000 units. Or 30,000 units.

Some reflections shows this is absurd.

Now, it is also true that demand shifts for other reasons. In particular in a region like ours demand for housing increases because there are more jobs in the region. But IF there are more jobs in the region, that demand shift happens whatever you do to supply of housing. And results in higher prices.

If anything, increasing density will make housing more expensive. Look at Navy Yard. Way more people live there now. It's also way more expensive than it used to be. Happens over and over and over in neighborhoods across DC.

Navy Yard had hardly any market rate housing at 15 years ago. It was parking lots, gay nightclubs, and empty lots. Cut off from the City by I395 and only recently having gotten a metro station. If Navy Yard had been built up at a 20% lower density it would have become just as expensive. If it had been developed as all market rate townhomes it would likely have ended up as expensive per square foot.

But building all that housing in Navy Yd almost certainly lowered prices and rents elsewhere, by drawing off demand.

You know people actually did live in Navy Yard before all the developers moved in. They weren't rich or white (sorry!) but there were there, and the city pushed them out so it could build lots high-end condo buildings. Yay density!