Soooo, how is high-density looking to everyone now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somehow density loses its allure when all of the fast casual concept eateries and craft cocktail bars are closed.

The only people who care about density are 30 year old white guys who want to live near bars.

Are they “Density Bros“?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This isn’t about affordable housing, folks. That is just a pretext for the mayor to increase allowable height and density in neighborhoods like Chevy Chase and Cleveland Park, so that her crony developers can reap huge profits by building 13 story luxury condo buildings. The proponents claim that a minuscule percentage of “inclusive zoning” units (which are pegged at fairly high income levels) in such upscale projects will make housing affordable. That’s bunk - it’s trickle down theory and the public can see through the B.S.

Let's talk about the profit that developers made while building neighborhoods like Chevy Chase and Cleveland Park - Chevy Chase Land Company and Cleveland Park Land Company, respectively. If they hadn't developed, at a tidy profit, you wouldn't be living there.

I think that people value these neighborhoods for the leafy quiet streets, the fact that folks often know their neighbors, and that you can see the sky. Put up a lot of 10-14 story buildings across the neighborhoods and they lose much of the character that makes them special. There’s still plenty of vacant or nearly vacant (ie parking lots) large parcels in the city, to add thousands of housing units. Each of the aforementioned neighborhoods already has a number of apartment buildings on the avenues, so why is it necessary to build over single family streets and pedestrian scale historic districts ?

What does that have to do with developer profits? Aren't you angry that the developers ruined those perfectly nice areas 120 years ago by subdividing and building unnecessary housing? People who lived there valued those areas! And then along came the developers and put up a lot of houses, and the areas totally lost the character that made them special. Even worse, those same developers built public transportation to serve those areas!

What? You are kind of making facts up here. Grover Cleveland owned the area and sold it for the purpose of being developed when he lost re election in 1888. The houses built there were originally built as summer homes because it was cooler and people did not have AC. Most of the homes were built in the next 40 years and have remained unchanged since then. Oak View subdivision and Cleveland Heights were the first subdivisions built. You need to check out Ghost of DC and look at some of the old DC maps and property advertisements. Oh and Wisconsin Ave was already there (High Street) though a street car was added later. Connecticut there as well as an original Diagonal. So your facts are kind of all over the place.

Exactly. Developers, profits, new buildings, public transportation (streetcars), change. All the things you're opposing.

Isn’t Cleveland Park mostly an historic district, that regulates incompatible changes? Now I get why the mayor and her developer allies are making a full-court press in the Comprehensive Plan revisions to weaken historic protections in order to unlock more value for themselves.

[Anonymous]

"Isn’t Cleveland Park mostly an historic district, that regulates incompatible changes?"

No, it is not. Popular misconception that it is though. Next question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're disagreeing with the facts that there needs to be housing in cities and that multi-family housing provides more housing units per land area than single-family houses with yards? Really?

How much housing does the city need? Just out of curiosity. We have a population of 700K right now and as of the 2000 Census we had 275,000 dwellings (Single family attached + Detached, plus multi person buildings, plus mobile homes (DC has 203 mobile homes). So what is the magic number? If in the last 20 years 25K units were built (very conservative assumption there) we have around 300K units. How many more units do we want to build? 100K, 200K??? What is the magic number and where are we getting that number from? I am genuinely curious. You can look online right now, there are thousands of homes and apartments available right now across the city to move in this week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Isn’t Cleveland Park mostly an historic district, that regulates incompatible changes?"

No, it is not. Popular misconception that it is though. Next question.

This map of the historic district looks like most of the Cleveland Park neighborhood:

https://www.clevelandparkhistoricalsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/Cleveland-Park-HD-Contributing-Structures.jpg

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're disagreeing with the facts that there needs to be housing in cities and that multi-family housing provides more housing units per land area than single-family houses with yards? Really?

How much housing does the city need? Just out of curiosity. We have a population of 700K right now and as of the 2000 Census we had 275,000 dwellings (Single family attached + Detached, plus multi person buildings, plus mobile homes (DC has 203 mobile homes). So what is the magic number? If in the last 20 years 25K units were built (very conservative assumption there) we have around 300K units. How many more units do we want to build? 100K, 200K??? What is the magic number and where are we getting that number from? I am genuinely curious. You can look online right now, there are thousands of homes and apartments available right now across the city to move in this week.

You're using the "The fact that there are houses for sale and apartments available for rent proves that we don't need any more housing" argument.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're disagreeing with the facts that there needs to be housing in cities and that multi-family housing provides more housing units per land area than single-family houses with yards? Really?

How much housing does the city need? Just out of curiosity. We have a population of 700K right now and as of the 2000 Census we had 275,000 dwellings (Single family attached + Detached, plus multi person buildings, plus mobile homes (DC has 203 mobile homes). So what is the magic number? If in the last 20 years 25K units were built (very conservative assumption there) we have around 300K units. How many more units do we want to build? 100K, 200K??? What is the magic number and where are we getting that number from? I am genuinely curious. You can look online right now, there are thousands of homes and apartments available right now across the city to move in this week.

You're using the "The fact that there are houses for sale and apartments available for rent proves that we don't need any more housing" argument.

No, my question was how much housing do we need. I just threw in available housing to illustrate that there is housing today. I am asking how much housing we want? Sorry, I did not mean for it to be an either or argument. Two separate statements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're disagreeing with the facts that there needs to be housing in cities and that multi-family housing provides more housing units per land area than single-family houses with yards? Really?

How much housing does the city need? Just out of curiosity. We have a population of 700K right now and as of the 2000 Census we had 275,000 dwellings (Single family attached + Detached, plus multi person buildings, plus mobile homes (DC has 203 mobile homes). So what is the magic number? If in the last 20 years 25K units were built (very conservative assumption there) we have around 300K units. How many more units do we want to build? 100K, 200K??? What is the magic number and where are we getting that number from? I am genuinely curious. You can look online right now, there are thousands of homes and apartments available right now across the city to move in this week.

You're using the "The fact that there are houses for sale and apartments available for rent proves that we don't need any more housing" argument.

No, my question was how much housing do we need. I just threw in available housing to illustrate that there is housing today. I am asking how much housing we want? Sorry, I did not mean for it to be an either or argument. Two separate statements.

Well, the mayor has set a goal of 36,000 new units built by 2025, with 12,000 of those units explicitly in the "affordable" category.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're disagreeing with the facts that there needs to be housing in cities and that multi-family housing provides more housing units per land area than single-family houses with yards? Really?

How much housing does the city need? Just out of curiosity. We have a population of 700K right now and as of the 2000 Census we had 275,000 dwellings (Single family attached + Detached, plus multi person buildings, plus mobile homes (DC has 203 mobile homes). So what is the magic number? If in the last 20 years 25K units were built (very conservative assumption there) we have around 300K units. How many more units do we want to build? 100K, 200K??? What is the magic number and where are we getting that number from? I am genuinely curious. You can look online right now, there are thousands of homes and apartments available right now across the city to move in this week.

You're using the "The fact that there are houses for sale and apartments available for rent proves that we don't need any more housing" argument.

No, my question was how much housing do we need. I just threw in available housing to illustrate that there is housing today. I am asking how much housing we want? Sorry, I did not mean for it to be an either or argument. Two separate statements.

Depends how much is affordable for our essential workers, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're disagreeing with the facts that there needs to be housing in cities and that multi-family housing provides more housing units per land area than single-family houses with yards? Really?

How much housing does the city need? Just out of curiosity. We have a population of 700K right now and as of the 2000 Census we had 275,000 dwellings (Single family attached + Detached, plus multi person buildings, plus mobile homes (DC has 203 mobile homes). So what is the magic number? If in the last 20 years 25K units were built (very conservative assumption there) we have around 300K units. How many more units do we want to build? 100K, 200K??? What is the magic number and where are we getting that number from? I am genuinely curious. You can look online right now, there are thousands of homes and apartments available right now across the city to move in this week.

You're using the "The fact that there are houses for sale and apartments available for rent proves that we don't need any more housing" argument.

No, my question was how much housing do we need. I just threw in available housing to illustrate that there is housing today. I am asking how much housing we want? Sorry, I did not mean for it to be an either or argument. Two separate statements.

Well, the mayor has set a goal of 36,000 new units built by 2025, with 12,000 of those units explicitly in the "affordable" category.

Well, then dee mayor is going to have to get busy building more public housing and other affordable units on DC-owned land, something that she has not made definite plans to do. She will not meet her affordable housing goal by building upscale and market rate housing and hoping that 10 percent is “inclusive zoning” units. IZ is a a higher income qualification than workforce or affordable housing by the way, and DC regulators have not exactly enforced the IZ requirement that has been on the books for a decade.

Of course, Bowser’s plan may not really be about affordable housing. That may be a pretext to change zoning to permit market rate profiteering by her major campaign contributors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're disagreeing with the facts that there needs to be housing in cities and that multi-family housing provides more housing units per land area than single-family houses with yards? Really?

How much housing does the city need? Just out of curiosity. We have a population of 700K right now and as of the 2000 Census we had 275,000 dwellings (Single family attached + Detached, plus multi person buildings, plus mobile homes (DC has 203 mobile homes). So what is the magic number? If in the last 20 years 25K units were built (very conservative assumption there) we have around 300K units. How many more units do we want to build? 100K, 200K??? What is the magic number and where are we getting that number from? I am genuinely curious. You can look online right now, there are thousands of homes and apartments available right now across the city to move in this week.

You're using the "The fact that there are houses for sale and apartments available for rent proves that we don't need any more housing" argument.

No, my question was how much housing do we need. I just threw in available housing to illustrate that there is housing today. I am asking how much housing we want? Sorry, I did not mean for it to be an either or argument. Two separate statements.

Well, the mayor has set a goal of 36,000 new units built by 2025, with 12,000 of those units explicitly in the "affordable" category.

Well, then dee mayor is going to have to get busy building more public housing and other affordable units on DC-owned land, something that she has not made definite plans to do. She will not meet her affordable housing goal by building upscale and market rate housing and hoping that 10 percent is “inclusive zoning” units. IZ is a a higher income qualification than workforce or affordable housing by the way, and DC regulators have not exactly enforced the IZ requirement that has been on the books for a decade.

Of course, Bowser’s plan may not really be about affordable housing. That may be a pretext to change zoning to permit market rate profiteering by her major campaign contributors.

Publicly built/funded housing has to be part of it, yes.

I bet the housing you live in was built by a for-profit developer and opposed by at least some of the people who lived in the area when it was built.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Bob.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somehow density loses its allure when all of the fast casual concept eateries and craft cocktail bars are closed.

The only people who care about density are 30 year old white guys who want to live near bars.

Or people of any age or race who realize that suburban sprawl is bad for the environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Loving the big yard and woods right now... would hate to live closer in

So agree. The kids have plenty of space. I feel sorry for all the kids stuck in apartments right now, especially since I hear some playgrounds have been closed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Somehow density loses its allure when all of the fast casual concept eateries and craft cocktail bars are closed.

The only people who care about density are 30 year old white guys who want to live near bars.

Or people of any age or race who realize that suburban sprawl is bad for the environment.

Building more high end young professional flats with quartz countertops and Asian fusion fast casual restaurants on the group floor in DC neighborhoods will prevent SFH sprawl into corn fields north of Germantown. Oh, and prevent climate change.