The Urbanist Cult

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Considering that most cities spend a considerable amount of energy trying to figure out how to reduce poverty, to pretend that increasing the poverty in a neighborhood 300% to make it a high poverty neighborhood is no big deal seems like an odd posture that is unlikely to find broad support and not because as you think people are racist and classist NIMBYS. The reason is because it’s an undesirable policy outcome. Hope that helps to clarify things for you.

Cities try to reduce poverty, not reduce poor people. One thing that would help is making housing available for less money. (I would also dispute the notion that every person who qualifies for affordable housing makes below-poverty level wages, and even if we grant you that, I'd also dispute the notion that 27 percent poverty would suddenly make Tenleytown "a high poverty neighborhood," since it would still be 73 percent the very wealthy people who already live here.)

Having more income diversity in this neighborhood may be an undesirable policy outcome for you, and I will concede, for a lot of people who live here. But so what? That doesn't mean it's an undesirable policy outcome for everyone -- it certainly doesn't make it an undesirable policy outcome for me. I suspect it would be a very desirable policy outcome for the people who can't afford to live here now but who could if there was more affordable housing here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Affordable housing doesn't mean poverty. Sheesh, no one is talking about homeless shelters for thousands.

Oh my bad. I thought more neighbors were welcome. Thanks for clarifying that you only want neighbors at 80% AMI but not below. You don’t want to live by poor people either? I don’t blame you. But here’s a tip, in order to have vibrant retail you need more affluent people with high disposable incomes. If your goal is Columbia Heights income demographics then expect Columbia Heights retail. Or, instead of remaking Tenleytown into Columbia Heights to suit you, you could just move to Columbia Heights which seems to suit you better?

Somehow Columbia Heights was able to keep its Best Buy and instead Tenleytown has a ... Target. So I don't think you are saying what you meant to say.

Columbia Heights has both a Best Buy AND a Target!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Considering that most cities spend a considerable amount of energy trying to figure out how to reduce poverty, to pretend that increasing the poverty in a neighborhood 300% to make it a high poverty neighborhood is no big deal seems like an odd posture that is unlikely to find broad support and not because as you think people are racist and classist NIMBYS. The reason is because it’s an undesirable policy outcome. Hope that helps to clarify things for you.

Cities try to reduce poverty, not reduce poor people. One thing that would help is making housing available for less money. (I would also dispute the notion that every person who qualifies for affordable housing makes below-poverty level wages, and even if we grant you that, I'd also dispute the notion that 27 percent poverty would suddenly make Tenleytown "a high poverty neighborhood," since it would still be 73 percent the very wealthy people who already live here.)

Having more income diversity in this neighborhood may be an undesirable policy outcome for you, and I will concede, for a lot of people who live here. But so what? That doesn't mean it's an undesirable policy outcome for everyone -- it certainly doesn't make it an undesirable policy outcome for me. I suspect it would be a very desirable policy outcome for the people who can't afford to live here now but who could if there was more affordable housing here.

Nice attempt here to argue a straw man to distract from your pretty sick views that poor people should be involuntarily moved about and diluted like they are pollution. Your first sentence is a literal restatement of what I said. You can type all the words you want but it’s not going change the execrable views that you have expressed.

[Anonymous]

NP but whoever said people should be moved around involuntarily?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Considering that most cities spend a considerable amount of energy trying to figure out how to reduce poverty, to pretend that increasing the poverty in a neighborhood 300% to make it a high poverty neighborhood is no big deal seems like an odd posture that is unlikely to find broad support and not because as you think people are racist and classist NIMBYS. The reason is because it’s an undesirable policy outcome. Hope that helps to clarify things for you.

Cities try to reduce poverty, not reduce poor people. One thing that would help is making housing available for less money. (I would also dispute the notion that every person who qualifies for affordable housing makes below-poverty level wages, and even if we grant you that, I'd also dispute the notion that 27 percent poverty would suddenly make Tenleytown "a high poverty neighborhood," since it would still be 73 percent the very wealthy people who already live here.)

Having more income diversity in this neighborhood may be an undesirable policy outcome for you, and I will concede, for a lot of people who live here. But so what? That doesn't mean it's an undesirable policy outcome for everyone -- it certainly doesn't make it an undesirable policy outcome for me. I suspect it would be a very desirable policy outcome for the people who can't afford to live here now but who could if there was more affordable housing here.

Nice attempt here to argue a straw man to distract from your pretty sick views that poor people should be involuntarily moved about and diluted like they are pollution. Your first sentence is a literal restatement of what I said. You can type all the words you want but it’s not going change the execrable views that you have expressed.

1) I’m not the PP who you initially accused of treating poor people like pollution, though I was the one you were replying to here
2) One way of reducing poverty is to help poor people be less poor. Same people. More money.
3) What are you talking about? Who is talking about diluting poor people or moving them around involuntarily? We’re talking about mandating some affordable housing in rich neighborhoods that poor people could afford to move into.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the "bad faith" poster. I would be happy with hundreds of affordable units, and I don't think that would change the neighborhood, much less change it for the worse.

So thanks for confirm your quota of housing for poor people in your neighborhood. Just can’t have too many to alter the neighborhood character.

I would be happy with thousands. You are the one implying a quote. I put no such restrictions on it.

You said that a few hundred would not change the character of a neighborhood. Since you believe there is a threshold for changing character of neighborhoods, how many would that be? What’s the number?

Well, let's see. Each ANC holds roughly 2,000 people, so let's assume Tenleytown and Friendship Heights currently have about 3,000 people, rounding up for the sake of argument. I'm a different PP, and I'd be fine with adding more than 1,000 new affordable units in the neighborhood -- which would, assuming most of them are built to suit families, approximately double the current population. I think it'd probably be hard to fit many more units than that into the area, but it would be space, not the existence of more residents or their income levels, that would be my main worry about adding more than that.

The Tenleytown primary area had an estimated population of about 4000 when Planning did a SWOT analysis back in 2012. It’s undoubtedly higher now, but that’s a good number.

Currently Ward 3 has a poverty rate of 9%. By your own account you want to take the poverty rate of Tenleytown above 27%, which is 50% higher than the citywide poverty rate of 18% and according to you, this is unambiguously good and will not change the character of the neighborhood.

This is more bad-faith argument, since you initially started asking for upper bounds and are now taking them as minimums or goals. But yes, I think it'd be just fine. (Another poster here is also correct that not every single household that qualifies for affordable housing makes below poverty-level incomes, so your numbers are even more bogus than my ANC-based guess was, but that's beside the point.) I've lived in mixed-income neighborhoods before I lived in Tenleytown, so the idea that -- gasp! -- 1 in 4 of the people who live near me might be poor isn't really as horrifying to me as you seem to think it would be.

What's the point you're trying to make, exactly? First you implied people advocating for more affordable housing and density in Tenleytown weren't asking for enough. Now you're suggesting we want too much. If you just oppose adding any affordable housing to this neighborhood, you can just say so; you certainly fit in well with a large number of our neighbors, and at any rate, this forum is anonymous and nothing that gets posted here manifests itself into policy.

The point is that turning a low poverty neighborhood into a high poverty neighborhood is a pretty significant and important change and I think there is merit to having an open discussion about that rather than you folks trying to play both sides, demanding policy changes to favor higher density and more affordable housing while also claiming that it’s not a big deal.

Uh, how is that playing both sides? Neighborhoods can be denser, have more affordable housing, and also those changes not be a big deal.

The problem is that the Urbanist Cult and DC Smart Growth Industry use "affordable housing" as a pretext and a smokescreen for a far-reaching, more laissez faire approach to zoning, planning and historic preservation. Their goal is a substantial increase in market rate density, particularly in areas that developers see as offering the highest potential profit opportunities. The paltry number of resulting IZ ("Inclusive zoning) units - which are not even truly "affordable" -- are grandly cited by the Smart Growth Urbanists to justify upFLUMming and up zoning on a massive scale. When the hollowness of DC's IZ program are pointed out, together with DC regulators' lax interest in even holding developers to their IZ promises, the Urbanists fall back on a lame trickle down theory that Build, Baby, Build! across DC will result in affordable housing. Trickle down was discredited as a general economic theory by the end of the Reagan years, and its application to housing markets, which are highly segmented and localized, is even more dubious. The only thing that is more outrageous than citing warmed over Reaganomics to justify their laissez faire development agenda is when DC Smart Growth, Inc. hires Trumpy GOP operatives to shamelessly pretend that it's all about brining more affordable housing to the District.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the "bad faith" poster. I would be happy with hundreds of affordable units, and I don't think that would change the neighborhood, much less change it for the worse.

So thanks for confirm your quota of housing for poor people in your neighborhood. Just can’t have too many to alter the neighborhood character.

I would be happy with thousands. You are the one implying a quote. I put no such restrictions on it.

You said that a few hundred would not change the character of a neighborhood. Since you believe there is a threshold for changing character of neighborhoods, how many would that be? What’s the number?

Well, let's see. Each ANC holds roughly 2,000 people, so let's assume Tenleytown and Friendship Heights currently have about 3,000 people, rounding up for the sake of argument. I'm a different PP, and I'd be fine with adding more than 1,000 new affordable units in the neighborhood -- which would, assuming most of them are built to suit families, approximately double the current population. I think it'd probably be hard to fit many more units than that into the area, but it would be space, not the existence of more residents or their income levels, that would be my main worry about adding more than that.

The Tenleytown primary area had an estimated population of about 4000 when Planning did a SWOT analysis back in 2012. It’s undoubtedly higher now, but that’s a good number.

Currently Ward 3 has a poverty rate of 9%. By your own account you want to take the poverty rate of Tenleytown above 27%, which is 50% higher than the citywide poverty rate of 18% and according to you, this is unambiguously good and will not change the character of the neighborhood.

This is more bad-faith argument, since you initially started asking for upper bounds and are now taking them as minimums or goals. But yes, I think it'd be just fine. (Another poster here is also correct that not every single household that qualifies for affordable housing makes below poverty-level incomes, so your numbers are even more bogus than my ANC-based guess was, but that's beside the point.) I've lived in mixed-income neighborhoods before I lived in Tenleytown, so the idea that -- gasp! -- 1 in 4 of the people who live near me might be poor isn't really as horrifying to me as you seem to think it would be.

What's the point you're trying to make, exactly? First you implied people advocating for more affordable housing and density in Tenleytown weren't asking for enough. Now you're suggesting we want too much. If you just oppose adding any affordable housing to this neighborhood, you can just say so; you certainly fit in well with a large number of our neighbors, and at any rate, this forum is anonymous and nothing that gets posted here manifests itself into policy.

The point is that turning a low poverty neighborhood into a high poverty neighborhood is a pretty significant and important change and I think there is merit to having an open discussion about that rather than you folks trying to play both sides, demanding policy changes to favor higher density and more affordable housing while also claiming that it’s not a big deal.

Uh, how is that playing both sides? Neighborhoods can be denser, have more affordable housing, and also those changes not be a big deal.

The problem is that the Urbanist Cult and DC Smart Growth Industry use "affordable housing" as a pretext and a smokescreen for a far-reaching, more laissez faire approach to zoning, planning and historic preservation. Their goal is a substantial increase in market rate density, particularly in areas that developers see as offering the highest potential profit opportunities. The paltry number of resulting IZ ("Inclusive zoning) units - which are not even truly "affordable" -- are grandly cited by the Smart Growth Urbanists to justify upFLUMming and up zoning on a massive scale. When the hollowness of DC's IZ program are pointed out, together with DC regulators' lax interest in even holding developers to their IZ promises, the Urbanists fall back on a lame trickle down theory that Build, Baby, Build! across DC will result in affordable housing. Trickle down was discredited as a general economic theory by the end of the Reagan years, and its application to housing markets, which are highly segmented and localized, is even more dubious. The only thing that is more outrageous than citing warmed over Reaganomics to justify their laissez faire development agenda is when DC Smart Growth, Inc. hires Trumpy GOP operatives to shamelessly pretend that it's all about brining more affordable housing to the District.

Yes, you keep saying this. Some of us actually believe in the idea of adding more affordable housing though! You seem to be very sure that no one actually wants more density except "the Smart Growth Industry" or real estate developers. I'm not interested in adding affordable units through IZ or faux-affordability thresholds, and in fact, I would prefer that affordable housing and greater density came to my neighborhood without developers being involved at all, but I recognize that it's unlikely that we're going to be building public housing in Tenleytown anytime soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The problem is that the Urbanist Cult and DC Smart Growth Industry use "affordable housing" as a pretext and a smokescreen for a far-reaching, more laissez faire approach to zoning, planning and historic preservation. Their goal is a substantial increase in market rate density, particularly in areas that developers see as offering the highest potential profit opportunities. The paltry number of resulting IZ ("Inclusive zoning) units - which are not even truly "affordable" -- are grandly cited by the Smart Growth Urbanists to justify upFLUMming and up zoning on a massive scale. When the hollowness of DC's IZ program are pointed out, together with DC regulators' lax interest in even holding developers to their IZ promises, the Urbanists fall back on a lame trickle down theory that Build, Baby, Build! across DC will result in affordable housing. Trickle down was discredited as a general economic theory by the end of the Reagan years, and its application to housing markets, which are highly segmented and localized, is even more dubious. The only thing that is more outrageous than citing warmed over Reaganomics to justify their laissez faire development agenda is when DC Smart Growth, Inc. hires Trumpy GOP operatives to shamelessly pretend that it's all about brining more affordable housing to the District.

You are projecting.

Some of us have been affordable housing advocates for many years, and were simply advocating under the tools available to create it. If you want more toold, then join with us to change the laws or get more funding. But throwing all of us together in one evil cabal does a disservice to all involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The problem is that the Urbanist Cult and DC Smart Growth Industry use "affordable housing" as a pretext and a smokescreen for a far-reaching, more laissez faire approach to zoning, planning and historic preservation. Their goal is a substantial increase in market rate density, particularly in areas that developers see as offering the highest potential profit opportunities. The paltry number of resulting IZ ("Inclusive zoning) units - which are not even truly "affordable" -- are grandly cited by the Smart Growth Urbanists to justify upFLUMming and up zoning on a massive scale. When the hollowness of DC's IZ program are pointed out, together with DC regulators' lax interest in even holding developers to their IZ promises, the Urbanists fall back on a lame trickle down theory that Build, Baby, Build! across DC will result in affordable housing. Trickle down was discredited as a general economic theory by the end of the Reagan years, and its application to housing markets, which are highly segmented and localized, is even more dubious. The only thing that is more outrageous than citing warmed over Reaganomics to justify their laissez faire development agenda is when DC Smart Growth, Inc. hires Trumpy GOP operatives to shamelessly pretend that it's all about brining more affordable housing to the District.

You are projecting.

Some of us have been affordable housing advocates for many years, and were simply advocating under the tools available to create it. If you want more toold, then join with us to change the laws or get more funding. But throwing all of us together in one evil cabal does a disservice to all involved.

DP, but I’ll be happy to join you when stop advocating policies that only serve developers’ profits. The tools available aren’t the ones that will get us more affordable housing. For that, we need land value taxes, truly finite timelines for project approvals, and high taxes on apartments or houses that are converted to short-term rentals. Upzoning is good too, but only close to rail lines because anywhere else it will cause an increase in car driving. And we should get rid of parking minimums near transit too. And stop building public parking lots.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the "bad faith" poster. I would be happy with hundreds of affordable units, and I don't think that would change the neighborhood, much less change it for the worse.

So thanks for confirm your quota of housing for poor people in your neighborhood. Just can’t have too many to alter the neighborhood character.

I would be happy with thousands. You are the one implying a quote. I put no such restrictions on it.

You said that a few hundred would not change the character of a neighborhood. Since you believe there is a threshold for changing character of neighborhoods, how many would that be? What’s the number?

Well, let's see. Each ANC holds roughly 2,000 people, so let's assume Tenleytown and Friendship Heights currently have about 3,000 people, rounding up for the sake of argument. I'm a different PP, and I'd be fine with adding more than 1,000 new affordable units in the neighborhood -- which would, assuming most of them are built to suit families, approximately double the current population. I think it'd probably be hard to fit many more units than that into the area, but it would be space, not the existence of more residents or their income levels, that would be my main worry about adding more than that.

The Tenleytown primary area had an estimated population of about 4000 when Planning did a SWOT analysis back in 2012. It’s undoubtedly higher now, but that’s a good number.

Currently Ward 3 has a poverty rate of 9%. By your own account you want to take the poverty rate of Tenleytown above 27%, which is 50% higher than the citywide poverty rate of 18% and according to you, this is unambiguously good and will not change the character of the neighborhood.

This is more bad-faith argument, since you initially started asking for upper bounds and are now taking them as minimums or goals. But yes, I think it'd be just fine. (Another poster here is also correct that not every single household that qualifies for affordable housing makes below poverty-level incomes, so your numbers are even more bogus than my ANC-based guess was, but that's beside the point.) I've lived in mixed-income neighborhoods before I lived in Tenleytown, so the idea that -- gasp! -- 1 in 4 of the people who live near me might be poor isn't really as horrifying to me as you seem to think it would be.

What's the point you're trying to make, exactly? First you implied people advocating for more affordable housing and density in Tenleytown weren't asking for enough. Now you're suggesting we want too much. If you just oppose adding any affordable housing to this neighborhood, you can just say so; you certainly fit in well with a large number of our neighbors, and at any rate, this forum is anonymous and nothing that gets posted here manifests itself into policy.

The point is that turning a low poverty neighborhood into a high poverty neighborhood is a pretty significant and important change and I think there is merit to having an open discussion about that rather than you folks trying to play both sides, demanding policy changes to favor higher density and more affordable housing while also claiming that it’s not a big deal.

Uh, how is that playing both sides? Neighborhoods can be denser, have more affordable housing, and also those changes not be a big deal.

The problem is that the Urbanist Cult and DC Smart Growth Industry use "affordable housing" as a pretext and a smokescreen for a far-reaching, more laissez faire approach to zoning, planning and historic preservation. Their goal is a substantial increase in market rate density, particularly in areas that developers see as offering the highest potential profit opportunities. The paltry number of resulting IZ ("Inclusive zoning) units - which are not even truly "affordable" -- are grandly cited by the Smart Growth Urbanists to justify upFLUMming and up zoning on a massive scale. When the hollowness of DC's IZ program are pointed out, together with DC regulators' lax interest in even holding developers to their IZ promises, the Urbanists fall back on a lame trickle down theory that Build, Baby, Build! across DC will result in affordable housing. Trickle down was discredited as a general economic theory by the end of the Reagan years, and its application to housing markets, which are highly segmented and localized, is even more dubious. The only thing that is more outrageous than citing warmed over Reaganomics to justify their laissez faire development agenda is when DC Smart Growth, Inc. hires Trumpy GOP operatives to shamelessly pretend that it's all about brining more affordable housing to the District.

Yes, you keep saying this. Some of us actually believe in the idea of adding more affordable housing though! You seem to be very sure that no one actually wants more density except "the Smart Growth Industry" or real estate developers. I'm not interested in adding affordable units through IZ or faux-affordability thresholds, and in fact, I would prefer that affordable housing and greater density came to my neighborhood without developers being involved at all, but I recognize that it's unlikely that we're going to be building public housing in Tenleytown anytime soon.

DC could build affordable housing on land it actually owns, to avoid the high cost of acquiring property, particularly the high price premium in Ward 3. Several housing advocates have suggested using a portion of the UDC site, which is transit accessible, for example the former swing space site used during Murch and Eaton renovations. In response, the DC government basically said to get lost. Bowser isn't really interested that much in providing real affordable housing, but she'll talk platitudes about affordable housing if it helps her cheerleader act for the private agendas of her big developer friends and contributors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the "bad faith" poster. I would be happy with hundreds of affordable units, and I don't think that would change the neighborhood, much less change it for the worse.

So thanks for confirm your quota of housing for poor people in your neighborhood. Just can’t have too many to alter the neighborhood character.

I would be happy with thousands. You are the one implying a quote. I put no such restrictions on it.

You said that a few hundred would not change the character of a neighborhood. Since you believe there is a threshold for changing character of neighborhoods, how many would that be? What’s the number?

Well, let's see. Each ANC holds roughly 2,000 people, so let's assume Tenleytown and Friendship Heights currently have about 3,000 people, rounding up for the sake of argument. I'm a different PP, and I'd be fine with adding more than 1,000 new affordable units in the neighborhood -- which would, assuming most of them are built to suit families, approximately double the current population. I think it'd probably be hard to fit many more units than that into the area, but it would be space, not the existence of more residents or their income levels, that would be my main worry about adding more than that.

The Tenleytown primary area had an estimated population of about 4000 when Planning did a SWOT analysis back in 2012. It’s undoubtedly higher now, but that’s a good number.

Currently Ward 3 has a poverty rate of 9%. By your own account you want to take the poverty rate of Tenleytown above 27%, which is 50% higher than the citywide poverty rate of 18% and according to you, this is unambiguously good and will not change the character of the neighborhood.

This is more bad-faith argument, since you initially started asking for upper bounds and are now taking them as minimums or goals. But yes, I think it'd be just fine. (Another poster here is also correct that not every single household that qualifies for affordable housing makes below poverty-level incomes, so your numbers are even more bogus than my ANC-based guess was, but that's beside the point.) I've lived in mixed-income neighborhoods before I lived in Tenleytown, so the idea that -- gasp! -- 1 in 4 of the people who live near me might be poor isn't really as horrifying to me as you seem to think it would be.

What's the point you're trying to make, exactly? First you implied people advocating for more affordable housing and density in Tenleytown weren't asking for enough. Now you're suggesting we want too much. If you just oppose adding any affordable housing to this neighborhood, you can just say so; you certainly fit in well with a large number of our neighbors, and at any rate, this forum is anonymous and nothing that gets posted here manifests itself into policy.

The point is that turning a low poverty neighborhood into a high poverty neighborhood is a pretty significant and important change and I think there is merit to having an open discussion about that rather than you folks trying to play both sides, demanding policy changes to favor higher density and more affordable housing while also claiming that it’s not a big deal.

Uh, how is that playing both sides? Neighborhoods can be denser, have more affordable housing, and also those changes not be a big deal.

The problem is that the Urbanist Cult and DC Smart Growth Industry use "affordable housing" as a pretext and a smokescreen for a far-reaching, more laissez faire approach to zoning, planning and historic preservation. Their goal is a substantial increase in market rate density, particularly in areas that developers see as offering the highest potential profit opportunities. The paltry number of resulting IZ ("Inclusive zoning) units - which are not even truly "affordable" -- are grandly cited by the Smart Growth Urbanists to justify upFLUMming and up zoning on a massive scale. When the hollowness of DC's IZ program are pointed out, together with DC regulators' lax interest in even holding developers to their IZ promises, the Urbanists fall back on a lame trickle down theory that Build, Baby, Build! across DC will result in affordable housing. Trickle down was discredited as a general economic theory by the end of the Reagan years, and its application to housing markets, which are highly segmented and localized, is even more dubious. The only thing that is more outrageous than citing warmed over Reaganomics to justify their laissez faire development agenda is when DC Smart Growth, Inc. hires Trumpy GOP operatives to shamelessly pretend that it's all about brining more affordable housing to the District.

Yes, you keep saying this. Some of us actually believe in the idea of adding more affordable housing though! You seem to be very sure that no one actually wants more density except "the Smart Growth Industry" or real estate developers. I'm not interested in adding affordable units through IZ or faux-affordability thresholds, and in fact, I would prefer that affordable housing and greater density came to my neighborhood without developers being involved at all, but I recognize that it's unlikely that we're going to be building public housing in Tenleytown anytime soon.

DC could build affordable housing on land it actually owns, to avoid the high cost of acquiring property, particularly the high price premium in Ward 3. Several housing advocates have suggested using a portion of the UDC site, which is transit accessible, for example the former swing space site used during Murch and Eaton renovations. In response, the DC government basically said to get lost. Bowser isn't really interested that much in providing real affordable housing, but she'll talk platitudes about affordable housing if it helps her cheerleader act for the private agendas of her big developer friends and contributors.

The fact that the only thing they have planned for RFK are some sport fields and low rise commercial office buildings says a lot about Bowsers commitment to affordable housing. Even with flood zone constraints, the opportunities are limitless and they have chosen not to exercise any of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the "bad faith" poster. I would be happy with hundreds of affordable units, and I don't think that would change the neighborhood, much less change it for the worse.

So thanks for confirm your quota of housing for poor people in your neighborhood. Just can’t have too many to alter the neighborhood character.

I would be happy with thousands. You are the one implying a quote. I put no such restrictions on it.

You said that a few hundred would not change the character of a neighborhood. Since you believe there is a threshold for changing character of neighborhoods, how many would that be? What’s the number?

Well, let's see. Each ANC holds roughly 2,000 people, so let's assume Tenleytown and Friendship Heights currently have about 3,000 people, rounding up for the sake of argument. I'm a different PP, and I'd be fine with adding more than 1,000 new affordable units in the neighborhood -- which would, assuming most of them are built to suit families, approximately double the current population. I think it'd probably be hard to fit many more units than that into the area, but it would be space, not the existence of more residents or their income levels, that would be my main worry about adding more than that.

The Tenleytown primary area had an estimated population of about 4000 when Planning did a SWOT analysis back in 2012. It’s undoubtedly higher now, but that’s a good number.

Currently Ward 3 has a poverty rate of 9%. By your own account you want to take the poverty rate of Tenleytown above 27%, which is 50% higher than the citywide poverty rate of 18% and according to you, this is unambiguously good and will not change the character of the neighborhood.

This is more bad-faith argument, since you initially started asking for upper bounds and are now taking them as minimums or goals. But yes, I think it'd be just fine. (Another poster here is also correct that not every single household that qualifies for affordable housing makes below poverty-level incomes, so your numbers are even more bogus than my ANC-based guess was, but that's beside the point.) I've lived in mixed-income neighborhoods before I lived in Tenleytown, so the idea that -- gasp! -- 1 in 4 of the people who live near me might be poor isn't really as horrifying to me as you seem to think it would be.

What's the point you're trying to make, exactly? First you implied people advocating for more affordable housing and density in Tenleytown weren't asking for enough. Now you're suggesting we want too much. If you just oppose adding any affordable housing to this neighborhood, you can just say so; you certainly fit in well with a large number of our neighbors, and at any rate, this forum is anonymous and nothing that gets posted here manifests itself into policy.

The point is that turning a low poverty neighborhood into a high poverty neighborhood is a pretty significant and important change and I think there is merit to having an open discussion about that rather than you folks trying to play both sides, demanding policy changes to favor higher density and more affordable housing while also claiming that it’s not a big deal.

Uh, how is that playing both sides? Neighborhoods can be denser, have more affordable housing, and also those changes not be a big deal.

The problem is that the Urbanist Cult and DC Smart Growth Industry use "affordable housing" as a pretext and a smokescreen for a far-reaching, more laissez faire approach to zoning, planning and historic preservation. Their goal is a substantial increase in market rate density, particularly in areas that developers see as offering the highest potential profit opportunities. The paltry number of resulting IZ ("Inclusive zoning) units - which are not even truly "affordable" -- are grandly cited by the Smart Growth Urbanists to justify upFLUMming and up zoning on a massive scale. When the hollowness of DC's IZ program are pointed out, together with DC regulators' lax interest in even holding developers to their IZ promises, the Urbanists fall back on a lame trickle down theory that Build, Baby, Build! across DC will result in affordable housing. Trickle down was discredited as a general economic theory by the end of the Reagan years, and its application to housing markets, which are highly segmented and localized, is even more dubious. The only thing that is more outrageous than citing warmed over Reaganomics to justify their laissez faire development agenda is when DC Smart Growth, Inc. hires Trumpy GOP operatives to shamelessly pretend that it's all about brining more affordable housing to the District.

Yes, you keep saying this. Some of us actually believe in the idea of adding more affordable housing though! You seem to be very sure that no one actually wants more density except "the Smart Growth Industry" or real estate developers. I'm not interested in adding affordable units through IZ or faux-affordability thresholds, and in fact, I would prefer that affordable housing and greater density came to my neighborhood without developers being involved at all, but I recognize that it's unlikely that we're going to be building public housing in Tenleytown anytime soon.

DC could build affordable housing on land it actually owns, to avoid the high cost of acquiring property, particularly the high price premium in Ward 3. Several housing advocates have suggested using a portion of the UDC site, which is transit accessible, for example the former swing space site used during Murch and Eaton renovations. In response, the DC government basically said to get lost. Bowser isn't really interested that much in providing real affordable housing, but she'll talk platitudes about affordable housing if it helps her cheerleader act for the private agendas of her big developer friends and contributors.

The fact that the only thing they have planned for RFK are some sport fields and low rise commercial office buildings says a lot about Bowsers commitment to affordable housing. Even with flood zone constraints, the opportunities are limitless and they have chosen not to exercise any of them.

Not to mention that all the folks screaming about density and upzoning just don’t seem to give a rats ass about the opportunities at RFK speaks volumes for what that movement is about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the "bad faith" poster. I would be happy with hundreds of affordable units, and I don't think that would change the neighborhood, much less change it for the worse.

So thanks for confirm your quota of housing for poor people in your neighborhood. Just can’t have too many to alter the neighborhood character.

I would be happy with thousands. You are the one implying a quote. I put no such restrictions on it.

You said that a few hundred would not change the character of a neighborhood. Since you believe there is a threshold for changing character of neighborhoods, how many would that be? What’s the number?

Well, let's see. Each ANC holds roughly 2,000 people, so let's assume Tenleytown and Friendship Heights currently have about 3,000 people, rounding up for the sake of argument. I'm a different PP, and I'd be fine with adding more than 1,000 new affordable units in the neighborhood -- which would, assuming most of them are built to suit families, approximately double the current population. I think it'd probably be hard to fit many more units than that into the area, but it would be space, not the existence of more residents or their income levels, that would be my main worry about adding more than that.

The Tenleytown primary area had an estimated population of about 4000 when Planning did a SWOT analysis back in 2012. It’s undoubtedly higher now, but that’s a good number.

Currently Ward 3 has a poverty rate of 9%. By your own account you want to take the poverty rate of Tenleytown above 27%, which is 50% higher than the citywide poverty rate of 18% and according to you, this is unambiguously good and will not change the character of the neighborhood.

This is more bad-faith argument, since you initially started asking for upper bounds and are now taking them as minimums or goals. But yes, I think it'd be just fine. (Another poster here is also correct that not every single household that qualifies for affordable housing makes below poverty-level incomes, so your numbers are even more bogus than my ANC-based guess was, but that's beside the point.) I've lived in mixed-income neighborhoods before I lived in Tenleytown, so the idea that -- gasp! -- 1 in 4 of the people who live near me might be poor isn't really as horrifying to me as you seem to think it would be.

What's the point you're trying to make, exactly? First you implied people advocating for more affordable housing and density in Tenleytown weren't asking for enough. Now you're suggesting we want too much. If you just oppose adding any affordable housing to this neighborhood, you can just say so; you certainly fit in well with a large number of our neighbors, and at any rate, this forum is anonymous and nothing that gets posted here manifests itself into policy.

The point is that turning a low poverty neighborhood into a high poverty neighborhood is a pretty significant and important change and I think there is merit to having an open discussion about that rather than you folks trying to play both sides, demanding policy changes to favor higher density and more affordable housing while also claiming that it’s not a big deal.

Uh, how is that playing both sides? Neighborhoods can be denser, have more affordable housing, and also those changes not be a big deal.

The problem is that the Urbanist Cult and DC Smart Growth Industry use "affordable housing" as a pretext and a smokescreen for a far-reaching, more laissez faire approach to zoning, planning and historic preservation. Their goal is a substantial increase in market rate density, particularly in areas that developers see as offering the highest potential profit opportunities. The paltry number of resulting IZ ("Inclusive zoning) units - which are not even truly "affordable" -- are grandly cited by the Smart Growth Urbanists to justify upFLUMming and up zoning on a massive scale. When the hollowness of DC's IZ program are pointed out, together with DC regulators' lax interest in even holding developers to their IZ promises, the Urbanists fall back on a lame trickle down theory that Build, Baby, Build! across DC will result in affordable housing. Trickle down was discredited as a general economic theory by the end of the Reagan years, and its application to housing markets, which are highly segmented and localized, is even more dubious. The only thing that is more outrageous than citing warmed over Reaganomics to justify their laissez faire development agenda is when DC Smart Growth, Inc. hires Trumpy GOP operatives to shamelessly pretend that it's all about brining more affordable housing to the District.

Yes, you keep saying this. Some of us actually believe in the idea of adding more affordable housing though! You seem to be very sure that no one actually wants more density except "the Smart Growth Industry" or real estate developers. I'm not interested in adding affordable units through IZ or faux-affordability thresholds, and in fact, I would prefer that affordable housing and greater density came to my neighborhood without developers being involved at all, but I recognize that it's unlikely that we're going to be building public housing in Tenleytown anytime soon.

DC could build affordable housing on land it actually owns, to avoid the high cost of acquiring property, particularly the high price premium in Ward 3. Several housing advocates have suggested using a portion of the UDC site, which is transit accessible, for example the former swing space site used during Murch and Eaton renovations. In response, the DC government basically said to get lost. Bowser isn't really interested that much in providing real affordable housing, but she'll talk platitudes about affordable housing if it helps her cheerleader act for the private agendas of her big developer friends and contributors.

The fact that the only thing they have planned for RFK are some sport fields and low rise commercial office buildings says a lot about Bowsers commitment to affordable housing. Even with flood zone constraints, the opportunities are limitless and they have chosen not to exercise any of them.

Not to mention that all the folks screaming about density and upzoning just don’t seem to give a rats ass about the opportunities at RFK speaks volumes for what that movement is about.

I'm all for redeveloping RFK into a dense housing and commercial neighborhood. (I do also like the soccer fields.) But (a) I live in Tenleytown, so I feel like I have more of a stake in -- and more authority to opine about -- what happens here than what happens in RFK, (b) there's no reason you can't build affordable housing next door to my house and also build it at the RFK site, and (c) I recognize that the D.C. government appears more interested in building a football stadium at RFK than in doing something useful for the people who live in D.C.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the "bad faith" poster. I would be happy with hundreds of affordable units, and I don't think that would change the neighborhood, much less change it for the worse.

So thanks for confirm your quota of housing for poor people in your neighborhood. Just can’t have too many to alter the neighborhood character.

I would be happy with thousands. You are the one implying a quote. I put no such restrictions on it.

You said that a few hundred would not change the character of a neighborhood. Since you believe there is a threshold for changing character of neighborhoods, how many would that be? What’s the number?

Well, let's see. Each ANC holds roughly 2,000 people, so let's assume Tenleytown and Friendship Heights currently have about 3,000 people, rounding up for the sake of argument. I'm a different PP, and I'd be fine with adding more than 1,000 new affordable units in the neighborhood -- which would, assuming most of them are built to suit families, approximately double the current population. I think it'd probably be hard to fit many more units than that into the area, but it would be space, not the existence of more residents or their income levels, that would be my main worry about adding more than that.

The Tenleytown primary area had an estimated population of about 4000 when Planning did a SWOT analysis back in 2012. It’s undoubtedly higher now, but that’s a good number.

Currently Ward 3 has a poverty rate of 9%. By your own account you want to take the poverty rate of Tenleytown above 27%, which is 50% higher than the citywide poverty rate of 18% and according to you, this is unambiguously good and will not change the character of the neighborhood.

This is more bad-faith argument, since you initially started asking for upper bounds and are now taking them as minimums or goals. But yes, I think it'd be just fine. (Another poster here is also correct that not every single household that qualifies for affordable housing makes below poverty-level incomes, so your numbers are even more bogus than my ANC-based guess was, but that's beside the point.) I've lived in mixed-income neighborhoods before I lived in Tenleytown, so the idea that -- gasp! -- 1 in 4 of the people who live near me might be poor isn't really as horrifying to me as you seem to think it would be.

What's the point you're trying to make, exactly? First you implied people advocating for more affordable housing and density in Tenleytown weren't asking for enough. Now you're suggesting we want too much. If you just oppose adding any affordable housing to this neighborhood, you can just say so; you certainly fit in well with a large number of our neighbors, and at any rate, this forum is anonymous and nothing that gets posted here manifests itself into policy.

The point is that turning a low poverty neighborhood into a high poverty neighborhood is a pretty significant and important change and I think there is merit to having an open discussion about that rather than you folks trying to play both sides, demanding policy changes to favor higher density and more affordable housing while also claiming that it’s not a big deal.

Uh, how is that playing both sides? Neighborhoods can be denser, have more affordable housing, and also those changes not be a big deal.

The problem is that the Urbanist Cult and DC Smart Growth Industry use "affordable housing" as a pretext and a smokescreen for a far-reaching, more laissez faire approach to zoning, planning and historic preservation. Their goal is a substantial increase in market rate density, particularly in areas that developers see as offering the highest potential profit opportunities. The paltry number of resulting IZ ("Inclusive zoning) units - which are not even truly "affordable" -- are grandly cited by the Smart Growth Urbanists to justify upFLUMming and up zoning on a massive scale. When the hollowness of DC's IZ program are pointed out, together with DC regulators' lax interest in even holding developers to their IZ promises, the Urbanists fall back on a lame trickle down theory that Build, Baby, Build! across DC will result in affordable housing. Trickle down was discredited as a general economic theory by the end of the Reagan years, and its application to housing markets, which are highly segmented and localized, is even more dubious. The only thing that is more outrageous than citing warmed over Reaganomics to justify their laissez faire development agenda is when DC Smart Growth, Inc. hires Trumpy GOP operatives to shamelessly pretend that it's all about brining more affordable housing to the District.

Yes, you keep saying this. Some of us actually believe in the idea of adding more affordable housing though! You seem to be very sure that no one actually wants more density except "the Smart Growth Industry" or real estate developers. I'm not interested in adding affordable units through IZ or faux-affordability thresholds, and in fact, I would prefer that affordable housing and greater density came to my neighborhood without developers being involved at all, but I recognize that it's unlikely that we're going to be building public housing in Tenleytown anytime soon.

DC could build affordable housing on land it actually owns, to avoid the high cost of acquiring property, particularly the high price premium in Ward 3. Several housing advocates have suggested using a portion of the UDC site, which is transit accessible, for example the former swing space site used during Murch and Eaton renovations. In response, the DC government basically said to get lost. Bowser isn't really interested that much in providing real affordable housing, but she'll talk platitudes about affordable housing if it helps her cheerleader act for the private agendas of her big developer friends and contributors.

Yes, all that is true, and I agree with all the critiques of the Bowser administration's housing policy. Not sure why some people in this thread seem to think that saying Muriel Bowser advances bad policies for affordable housing is supposed to be some great argument against those of us who want her to advance better ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the "bad faith" poster. I would be happy with hundreds of affordable units, and I don't think that would change the neighborhood, much less change it for the worse.

So thanks for confirm your quota of housing for poor people in your neighborhood. Just can’t have too many to alter the neighborhood character.

I would be happy with thousands. You are the one implying a quote. I put no such restrictions on it.

You said that a few hundred would not change the character of a neighborhood. Since you believe there is a threshold for changing character of neighborhoods, how many would that be? What’s the number?

Well, let's see. Each ANC holds roughly 2,000 people, so let's assume Tenleytown and Friendship Heights currently have about 3,000 people, rounding up for the sake of argument. I'm a different PP, and I'd be fine with adding more than 1,000 new affordable units in the neighborhood -- which would, assuming most of them are built to suit families, approximately double the current population. I think it'd probably be hard to fit many more units than that into the area, but it would be space, not the existence of more residents or their income levels, that would be my main worry about adding more than that.

The Tenleytown primary area had an estimated population of about 4000 when Planning did a SWOT analysis back in 2012. It’s undoubtedly higher now, but that’s a good number.

Currently Ward 3 has a poverty rate of 9%. By your own account you want to take the poverty rate of Tenleytown above 27%, which is 50% higher than the citywide poverty rate of 18% and according to you, this is unambiguously good and will not change the character of the neighborhood.

This is more bad-faith argument, since you initially started asking for upper bounds and are now taking them as minimums or goals. But yes, I think it'd be just fine. (Another poster here is also correct that not every single household that qualifies for affordable housing makes below poverty-level incomes, so your numbers are even more bogus than my ANC-based guess was, but that's beside the point.) I've lived in mixed-income neighborhoods before I lived in Tenleytown, so the idea that -- gasp! -- 1 in 4 of the people who live near me might be poor isn't really as horrifying to me as you seem to think it would be.

What's the point you're trying to make, exactly? First you implied people advocating for more affordable housing and density in Tenleytown weren't asking for enough. Now you're suggesting we want too much. If you just oppose adding any affordable housing to this neighborhood, you can just say so; you certainly fit in well with a large number of our neighbors, and at any rate, this forum is anonymous and nothing that gets posted here manifests itself into policy.

The point is that turning a low poverty neighborhood into a high poverty neighborhood is a pretty significant and important change and I think there is merit to having an open discussion about that rather than you folks trying to play both sides, demanding policy changes to favor higher density and more affordable housing while also claiming that it’s not a big deal.

Uh, how is that playing both sides? Neighborhoods can be denser, have more affordable housing, and also those changes not be a big deal.

The problem is that the Urbanist Cult and DC Smart Growth Industry use "affordable housing" as a pretext and a smokescreen for a far-reaching, more laissez faire approach to zoning, planning and historic preservation. Their goal is a substantial increase in market rate density, particularly in areas that developers see as offering the highest potential profit opportunities. The paltry number of resulting IZ ("Inclusive zoning) units - which are not even truly "affordable" -- are grandly cited by the Smart Growth Urbanists to justify upFLUMming and up zoning on a massive scale. When the hollowness of DC's IZ program are pointed out, together with DC regulators' lax interest in even holding developers to their IZ promises, the Urbanists fall back on a lame trickle down theory that Build, Baby, Build! across DC will result in affordable housing. Trickle down was discredited as a general economic theory by the end of the Reagan years, and its application to housing markets, which are highly segmented and localized, is even more dubious. The only thing that is more outrageous than citing warmed over Reaganomics to justify their laissez faire development agenda is when DC Smart Growth, Inc. hires Trumpy GOP operatives to shamelessly pretend that it's all about brining more affordable housing to the District.

Yes, you keep saying this. Some of us actually believe in the idea of adding more affordable housing though! You seem to be very sure that no one actually wants more density except "the Smart Growth Industry" or real estate developers. I'm not interested in adding affordable units through IZ or faux-affordability thresholds, and in fact, I would prefer that affordable housing and greater density came to my neighborhood without developers being involved at all, but I recognize that it's unlikely that we're going to be building public housing in Tenleytown anytime soon.

DC could build affordable housing on land it actually owns, to avoid the high cost of acquiring property, particularly the high price premium in Ward 3. Several housing advocates have suggested using a portion of the UDC site, which is transit accessible, for example the former swing space site used during Murch and Eaton renovations. In response, the DC government basically said to get lost. Bowser isn't really interested that much in providing real affordable housing, but she'll talk platitudes about affordable housing if it helps her cheerleader act for the private agendas of her big developer friends and contributors.

The fact that the only thing they have planned for RFK are some sport fields and low rise commercial office buildings says a lot about Bowsers commitment to affordable housing. Even with flood zone constraints, the opportunities are limitless and they have chosen not to exercise any of them.

Not to mention that all the folks screaming about density and upzoning just don’t seem to give a rats ass about the opportunities at RFK speaks volumes for what that movement is about.

I'm all for redeveloping RFK into a dense housing and commercial neighborhood. (I do also like the soccer fields.) But (a) I live in Tenleytown, so I feel like I have more of a stake in -- and more authority to opine about -- what happens here than what happens in RFK, (b) there's no reason you can't build affordable housing next door to my house and also build it at the RFK site, and (c) I recognize that the D.C. government appears more interested in building a football stadium at RFK than in doing something useful for the people who live in D.C.

We should only talk about and advocate for issues in our own neighborhood? That’s a great rule.

Also didn’t realize that you don’t seem too fussed that you think the city should prioritize using your tax dollars for a football stadium over affordable housing. So in terms of priorities you will advocate for they are very even. Cool, cool.