Oh, Chevy Chase (DC affordable housing)!

[Anonymous]

These complexes become eye sores quickly.

My old town way back in 1967 they let a 30 unit Garden Complex rental property in town. Only rental complex in town. Was shinny and new and affordable. All good.

By 1979 was run down already those transient tenants were annoying and disturbing to the SFH home zoned area.

The mayor and building dept. ordered building to fix it up or he would pull his CO. He did not have money.

Town worked it out he converts to Condos, would get interest free loan to fund renovation and town would fast track permits and charge no fees. He did. Building code changed rental buildings illegal.

Popping 30 lower income families in a rich neighborhood sounds good in paper. It is not.

So why allow in first place?

[Anonymous]

No one wants apartment buildings in their nice, SFH neighborhood. BFR as the kids say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As I understand it the (now reduced to an) 8 story building will offer a mix of affordable housing and luxury units. The presumption is the affordable housing residents will use public transit (though is this always the case?).
Where will the residents of the luxury units park their multiple vehicles?

I’m sure they will figure it out. The rest of the city has.

The rest of the city has access to public garages. The CC area does not. They will park in the surrounding neighborhood.

They park in the neighborhoods in the rest of the city. Garages are the exception for most of the city.

Got it. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know if the plan proposes what level of income is required for the Affordable units? I think that piece is missing from this conversation. People keep saying this is “low-income” housing but in many mixed-income complexes, you need to make 50-70k per year to afford your share of the rent. This is actually more “middle-income” than “low-income.” It’s also possible that there will be a spectrum of units and some will have deeper levels of affordability. Does anyone of this has been proposed yet?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As I understand it the (now reduced to an) 8 story building will offer a mix of affordable housing and luxury units. The presumption is the affordable housing residents will use public transit (though is this always the case?).
Where will the residents of the luxury units park their multiple vehicles?

I’m sure they will figure it out. The rest of the city has.

The rest of the city has access to public garages. The CC area does not. They will park in the surrounding neighborhood.

They park in the neighborhoods in the rest of the city. Garages are the exception for most of the city.

I doubt they can build these new units without parking, and I doubt they’ll replace the community center without replacing the existing parking. It will probably have a garage with a mix of resident parking and public parking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know if the plan proposes what level of income is required for the Affordable units? I think that piece is missing from this conversation. People keep saying this is “low-income” housing but in many mixed-income complexes, you need to make 50-70k per year to afford your share of the rent. This is actually more “middle-income” than “low-income.” It’s also possible that there will be a spectrum of units and some will have deeper levels of affordability. Does anyone of this has been proposed yet?

Yeah you can see the breakdown of affordable units by %AMI for the city here. Idk what they have proposed for this site but it’s all needed.

http://open.dc.gov/economic-intelligence/affordable-production-preservation.html

Here is more on income requirements. It’s not a housing project, it’s designed to create communities with mixed income levels.
https://dhcd.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dhcd/publication/attachments/2022-6-24%20IZ%20ADU%20price%20schedule.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These complexes become eye sores quickly.

My old town way back in 1967 they let a 30 unit Garden Complex rental property in town. Only rental complex in town. Was shinny and new and affordable. All good.

By 1979 was run down already those transient tenants were annoying and disturbing to the SFH home zoned area.

The mayor and building dept. ordered building to fix it up or he would pull his CO. He did not have money.

Town worked it out he converts to Condos, would get interest free loan to fund renovation and town would fast track permits and charge no fees. He did. Building code changed rental buildings illegal.

Popping 30 lower income families in a rich neighborhood sounds good in paper. It is not.

So why allow in first place?

So let me ask you something. Are you ok with “rich” people moving into “poor” neighborhoods and gentrifying them so that the housing prices go up? Or is it just that “poor” people can’t move to “rich” neighborhoods. Is this a one-way thing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one wants apartment buildings in their nice, SFH neighborhood. BFR as the kids say.

Perhaps taxpayers can stop subsidizing many of the low and moderate income households that live in the SFHs in the neighborhood. How many of the senior households get a 50 percent reduction in their property taxes? Given the housing shortage why should so many households be subsidized? If you didn't work hard enough so that you can pay your taxes then you shouldn't be here either. Doesn't this follow from many of the arguments presented here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Chevy Chase strip has a small town, nostalgic feel. You can see the sky. The mom and pop shops and smaller buildings create a unique, neighbor-specific vibe that distinguishes CC from other DC neighborhoods.

This development will change that.

LOL. For those who aren't familiar, this is the historic neighbor-specific small time vibe that people are so eager to maintain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Chevy Chase strip has a small town, nostalgic feel. You can see the sky. The mom and pop shops and smaller buildings create a unique, neighbor-specific vibe that distinguishes CC from other DC neighborhoods.

This development will change that.

LOL. For those who aren't familiar, this is the historic neighbor-specific small time vibe that people are so eager to maintain.

Do you write for WaPo? Take a snap of the historic buildings directly across the street and see if that might be more of the small time vibe folks are talking about...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Chevy Chase strip has a small town, nostalgic feel. You can see the sky. The mom and pop shops and smaller buildings create a unique, neighbor-specific vibe that distinguishes CC from other DC neighborhoods.

This development will change that.

LOL. For those who aren't familiar, this is the historic neighbor-specific small time vibe that people are so eager to maintain.

Do you write for WaPo? Take a snap of the historic buildings directly across the street and see if that might be more of the small time vibe folks are talking about...

Right, but the plan doesn't call for changing anything about those historic buildings. The plan calls for replacing the community center (pictured) and the library. It has absolutely no bearing on the architecture down the block.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one wants apartment buildings in their nice, SFH neighborhood. BFR as the kids say.

Perhaps taxpayers can stop subsidizing many of the low and moderate income households that live in the SFHs in the neighborhood. How many of the senior households get a 50 percent reduction in their property taxes? Given the housing shortage why should so many households be subsidized? If you didn't work hard enough so that you can pay your taxes then you shouldn't be here either. Doesn't this follow from many of the arguments presented here?

Along these same lines, I’m curious how many people that are against this proposal could afford their SFH in their CC neighborhood today…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Chevy Chase strip has a small town, nostalgic feel. You can see the sky. The mom and pop shops and smaller buildings create a unique, neighbor-specific vibe that distinguishes CC from other DC neighborhoods.

This development will change that.

LOL. For those who aren't familiar, this is the historic neighbor-specific small time vibe that people are so eager to maintain.

Do you write for WaPo? Take a snap of the historic buildings directly across the street and see if that might be more of the small time vibe folks are talking about...

Right, but the plan doesn't call for changing anything about those historic buildings. The plan calls for replacing the community center (pictured) and the library. It has absolutely no bearing on the architecture down the block.

How can you say that when the proposal will include a slightly taller building across the street from the mom and pop shops??

[Anonymous]

Please rezone Lafayette to feed into Wells/Coolidge. These bigots are so entitled. They need to be taught a lesson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why people can't separate out the issues of affordable housing with development of the library/community center. Many of us want both - We want the city to do their job and refurbish the library and the community center as publicly owned assets. And develop affordable housing in Ward 3.

The rub is - why does it all have to be on the same lot? There's plenty of other housing being developed. Does City Center have affordable housing? What about all the development in Tenley/Friendship Heights? Or the many other aging apartment buildings on CT avenue that constantly have a "vacancy" sign out front. Set the zoning to require set-asides of affordable housing units. I'd even prefer the city buy one of these other buildings [or just units in one of these other buildings] and develop the whole thing into affordable housing. But basically by combining the two and giving away public land to a developer, the City is basically giving away these public resources.

I live within a few blocks of the redevelopment in Tenley/Friendship Heights, and I certainly hope there's affordable housing in all those buildings. I also want to see it built on this already publicly owned city lot! We need more affordable housing; that doesn't mean "we need more affordable housing but only if it's not near me." We should be building it in multiple places.