Is there a coherent argument that loosening zoning laws will lead to affordable housing in DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hear this constantly asserted, as if it were self-evidently true, but cannot figure out how it could possibly be correct.

There's 700,000 people in the District. There's 5 million in the suburbs. If you add 30,000 housing units in DC, they will instantly be soaked up by people in the suburbs looking for shorter commutes.

As people move into DC from Falls Church and Rockville and Fairfax, their old places will open up for other people. Other people will move into those places from suburbs even further out, which will open up slots in places like Chantilly or Columbia or wherever else those people are coming from and that would put downward pressure on housing prices in the suburbs they've left.

But how does any of that lead to affordable housing in DC?

Increasing density will tend make housing more expensive, not less, because if you have a lot of people living in a small area, then businesses want to be there too. Once grocery stores and bars and restaurants and stores move into an area, then everyone wants to live there and prices go up accordingly. It's gentrification on steroids. Look at Navy Yard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Higher density on its own won't lead to affordable housing. Ideally, upzoning Ward 3 would also be accompanied by a major program of building high-quality affordable housing in the newly dense zones there; if it were up to me, the city itself would build and own it (cutting out the profit motive). You could do bigger buildings on places like Wisconsin Avenue and Connecticut Avenue and then still also allow for non-single-family homes on side streets without dramatically changing the "leafy character" of the neighborhood; things wouldn't look much different if you had, say, two duplexes on a lot replacing one big house. That would lead to more housing, period, which -- in combination with protecting existing rent controls, expanding the affordable housing quotas on new construction, preserving IZ policies and also building new HIGH-QUALITY public housing -- would definitely help ease the housing affordability problem in our city and in Ward 3.

(I live in Ward 3, so before my neighbors tell me to advocate for this in my own neighborhood, I am doing exactly that.)

The Office of Planning is pushing what they soothingly call "gentle density" that could lead, particularly within a half mile of Wisconsin Ave., to upzoning of single family residential streets by administrative (OP) decision. Gentle density calls for allowing up to 4 story multifamily buildings one quarter mile from any bus route and one-half mile from a Metro stop. Significant parts of the AU Park, Tenleytown, Chevy Chase DC, Cleveland Park, Cathedral Heights, McLean Gardens, Mass Ave. Heights neighborhoods could be impacted.

Great! That sounds like a good start.

Folks in those neighborhoods might beg to differ.

I would. I'm from DC and watched the 'gentrification" of Columbia Heights when new metro came in. It was so poorly done. Better before. And you can't undo the genie when it's out of the bottle. Could have been done nicely, but wasn't. Where's the petition. If NIMBYS fight every step of the way, may get done eventually, but better.

No one is “gentrifying” the neighborhoods near Wisconsin or Connecticut by adding density.

I think you missed my point...throwing up a bunch of buildings slapdash is not an awesome way to develop. Wisconsin Ave. in particular has seen a LOT of development in just the past couple of years, between Fannie Mae, homeless shelter, GDS, new Giant, new apartment building by metro, sidwell expansion coming. Development has been happening at a quick clip. I think it's OK to see how parking, traffic, cleanliness, etc. keep up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear this constantly asserted, as if it were self-evidently true, but cannot figure out how it could possibly be correct.

There's 700,000 people in the District. There's 5 million in the suburbs. If you add 30,000 housing units in DC, they will instantly be soaked up by people in the suburbs looking for shorter commutes.

As people move into DC from Falls Church and Rockville and Fairfax, their old places will open up for other people. Other people will move into those places from suburbs even further out, which will open up slots in places like Chantilly or Columbia or wherever else those people are coming from and that would put downward pressure on housing prices in the suburbs they've left.

But how does any of that lead to affordable housing in DC?

Increasing density will tend make housing more expensive, not less, because if you have a lot of people living in a small area, then businesses want to be there too. Once grocery stores and bars and restaurants and stores move into an area, then everyone wants to live there and prices go up accordingly. It's gentrification on steroids. Look at Navy Yard.

Basically you're saying that people want to live in dense neighborhoods, and businesses want to be in dense neighborhoods - so shouldn't we make it possible to have more dense neighborhoods?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear this constantly asserted, as if it were self-evidently true, but cannot figure out how it could possibly be correct.

There's 700,000 people in the District. There's 5 million in the suburbs. If you add 30,000 housing units in DC, they will instantly be soaked up by people in the suburbs looking for shorter commutes.

As people move into DC from Falls Church and Rockville and Fairfax, their old places will open up for other people. Other people will move into those places from suburbs even further out, which will open up slots in places like Chantilly or Columbia or wherever else those people are coming from and that would put downward pressure on housing prices in the suburbs they've left.

But how does any of that lead to affordable housing in DC?

Increasing density will tend make housing more expensive, not less, because if you have a lot of people living in a small area, then businesses want to be there too. Once grocery stores and bars and restaurants and stores move into an area, then everyone wants to live there and prices go up accordingly. It's gentrification on steroids. Look at Navy Yard.

Basically you're saying that people want to live in dense neighborhoods, and businesses want to be in dense neighborhoods - so shouldn't we make it possible to have more dense neighborhoods?

Basically, I'm saying increasing density drives housing prices up, not down, and speeds gentrification.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear this constantly asserted, as if it were self-evidently true, but cannot figure out how it could possibly be correct.

There's 700,000 people in the District. There's 5 million in the suburbs. If you add 30,000 housing units in DC, they will instantly be soaked up by people in the suburbs looking for shorter commutes.

As people move into DC from Falls Church and Rockville and Fairfax, their old places will open up for other people. Other people will move into those places from suburbs even further out, which will open up slots in places like Chantilly or Columbia or wherever else those people are coming from and that would put downward pressure on housing prices in the suburbs they've left.

But how does any of that lead to affordable housing in DC?

Increasing density will tend make housing more expensive, not less, because if you have a lot of people living in a small area, then businesses want to be there too. Once grocery stores and bars and restaurants and stores move into an area, then everyone wants to live there and prices go up accordingly. It's gentrification on steroids. Look at Navy Yard.

Basically you're saying that people want to live in dense neighborhoods, and businesses want to be in dense neighborhoods - so shouldn't we make it possible to have more dense neighborhoods?

Basically, I'm saying increasing density drives housing prices up, not down, and speeds gentrification.

You’re so very close to getting it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear this constantly asserted, as if it were self-evidently true, but cannot figure out how it could possibly be correct.

There's 700,000 people in the District. There's 5 million in the suburbs. If you add 30,000 housing units in DC, they will instantly be soaked up by people in the suburbs looking for shorter commutes.

As people move into DC from Falls Church and Rockville and Fairfax, their old places will open up for other people. Other people will move into those places from suburbs even further out, which will open up slots in places like Chantilly or Columbia or wherever else those people are coming from and that would put downward pressure on housing prices in the suburbs they've left.

But how does any of that lead to affordable housing in DC?

Increasing density will tend make housing more expensive, not less, because if you have a lot of people living in a small area, then businesses want to be there too. Once grocery stores and bars and restaurants and stores move into an area, then everyone wants to live there and prices go up accordingly. It's gentrification on steroids. Look at Navy Yard.

Basically you're saying that people want to live in dense neighborhoods, and businesses want to be in dense neighborhoods - so shouldn't we make it possible to have more dense neighborhoods?

Basically, I'm saying increasing density drives housing prices up, not down, and speeds gentrification.

It's not possible to "gentrify" Ward 3 D.C., which is already wealthy and expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Higher density on its own won't lead to affordable housing. Ideally, upzoning Ward 3 would also be accompanied by a major program of building high-quality affordable housing in the newly dense zones there; if it were up to me, the city itself would build and own it (cutting out the profit motive). You could do bigger buildings on places like Wisconsin Avenue and Connecticut Avenue and then still also allow for non-single-family homes on side streets without dramatically changing the "leafy character" of the neighborhood; things wouldn't look much different if you had, say, two duplexes on a lot replacing one big house. That would lead to more housing, period, which -- in combination with protecting existing rent controls, expanding the affordable housing quotas on new construction, preserving IZ policies and also building new HIGH-QUALITY public housing -- would definitely help ease the housing affordability problem in our city and in Ward 3.

(I live in Ward 3, so before my neighbors tell me to advocate for this in my own neighborhood, I am doing exactly that.)

The Office of Planning is pushing what they soothingly call "gentle density" that could lead, particularly within a half mile of Wisconsin Ave., to upzoning of single family residential streets by administrative (OP) decision. Gentle density calls for allowing up to 4 story multifamily buildings one quarter mile from any bus route and one-half mile from a Metro stop. Significant parts of the AU Park, Tenleytown, Chevy Chase DC, Cleveland Park, Cathedral Heights, McLean Gardens, Mass Ave. Heights neighborhoods could be impacted.

Great! That sounds like a good start.

Folks in those neighborhoods might beg to differ.

I would. I'm from DC and watched the 'gentrification" of Columbia Heights when new metro came in. It was so poorly done. Better before. And you can't undo the genie when it's out of the bottle. Could have been done nicely, but wasn't. Where's the petition. If NIMBYS fight every step of the way, may get done eventually, but better.

No one is “gentrifying” the neighborhoods near Wisconsin or Connecticut by adding density.

I think you missed my point...throwing up a bunch of buildings slapdash is not an awesome way to develop. Wisconsin Ave. in particular has seen a LOT of development in just the past couple of years, between Fannie Mae, homeless shelter, GDS, new Giant, new apartment building by metro, sidwell expansion coming. Development has been happening at a quick clip. I think it's OK to see how parking, traffic, cleanliness, etc. keep up.

I live one block of Wisconsin, and I don't really care what the effect of new development is on parking. Or traffic. We need more housing in D.C. If it happens to make my life SLIGHTLY less convenient, that's fine with me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear this constantly asserted, as if it were self-evidently true, but cannot figure out how it could possibly be correct.

There's 700,000 people in the District. There's 5 million in the suburbs. If you add 30,000 housing units in DC, they will instantly be soaked up by people in the suburbs looking for shorter commutes.

As people move into DC from Falls Church and Rockville and Fairfax, their old places will open up for other people. Other people will move into those places from suburbs even further out, which will open up slots in places like Chantilly or Columbia or wherever else those people are coming from and that would put downward pressure on housing prices in the suburbs they've left.

But how does any of that lead to affordable housing in DC?

Increasing density will tend make housing more expensive, not less, because if you have a lot of people living in a small area, then businesses want to be there too. Once grocery stores and bars and restaurants and stores move into an area, then everyone wants to live there and prices go up accordingly. It's gentrification on steroids. Look at Navy Yard.

Basically you're saying that people want to live in dense neighborhoods, and businesses want to be in dense neighborhoods - so shouldn't we make it possible to have more dense neighborhoods?

Basically, I'm saying increasing density drives housing prices up, not down, and speeds gentrification.

It's not possible to "gentrify" Ward 3 D.C., which is already wealthy and expensive.

,You bet it is! Up zoning Puts more pressure on affordable rent controlled housing in Ward 3. Developers buy and tear down or upscale older apartment buildings that are rent controlled. The result is ongoing gentrification on a localized scale in Ward 3 and the eviction of people on more limited incomes who currently enjoy the advantages of living in upper Northwest. This puts more pressure on affordable rent controlled housing in W3. Developers by and tear down or upscale over apartment buildings that a rent controlled. The result is on doing gentrification on a localized scale in Ward three, and the evection of people on more limited incomes who currently enjoy the advantages of living in upper Northwest Ward 3 still has a fairly large stock of rent controlled housing, and it is vital that DC does all that it can to preserve this important source of affordable housing that exists today!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear this constantly asserted, as if it were self-evidently true, but cannot figure out how it could possibly be correct.

There's 700,000 people in the District. There's 5 million in the suburbs. If you add 30,000 housing units in DC, they will instantly be soaked up by people in the suburbs looking for shorter commutes.

As people move into DC from Falls Church and Rockville and Fairfax, their old places will open up for other people. Other people will move into those places from suburbs even further out, which will open up slots in places like Chantilly or Columbia or wherever else those people are coming from and that would put downward pressure on housing prices in the suburbs they've left.

But how does any of that lead to affordable housing in DC?

Increasing density will tend make housing more expensive, not less, because if you have a lot of people living in a small area, then businesses want to be there too. Once grocery stores and bars and restaurants and stores move into an area, then everyone wants to live there and prices go up accordingly. It's gentrification on steroids. Look at Navy Yard.

Idiocy.

“Let’s not build in desirable places because then more people will want to live there!!!”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear this constantly asserted, as if it were self-evidently true, but cannot figure out how it could possibly be correct.

There's 700,000 people in the District. There's 5 million in the suburbs. If you add 30,000 housing units in DC, they will instantly be soaked up by people in the suburbs looking for shorter commutes.

As people move into DC from Falls Church and Rockville and Fairfax, their old places will open up for other people. Other people will move into those places from suburbs even further out, which will open up slots in places like Chantilly or Columbia or wherever else those people are coming from and that would put downward pressure on housing prices in the suburbs they've left.

But how does any of that lead to affordable housing in DC?

Increasing density will tend make housing more expensive, not less, because if you have a lot of people living in a small area, then businesses want to be there too. Once grocery stores and bars and restaurants and stores move into an area, then everyone wants to live there and prices go up accordingly. It's gentrification on steroids. Look at Navy Yard.

Basically you're saying that people want to live in dense neighborhoods, and businesses want to be in dense neighborhoods - so shouldn't we make it possible to have more dense neighborhoods?

Basically, I'm saying increasing density drives housing prices up, not down, and speeds gentrification.

It's not possible to "gentrify" Ward 3 D.C., which is already wealthy and expensive.

,You bet it is! Up zoning Puts more pressure on affordable rent controlled housing in Ward 3. Developers buy and tear down or upscale older apartment buildings that are rent controlled. The result is ongoing gentrification on a localized scale in Ward 3 and the eviction of people on more limited incomes who currently enjoy the advantages of living in upper Northwest. This puts more pressure on affordable rent controlled housing in W3. Developers by and tear down or upscale over apartment buildings that a rent controlled. The result is on doing gentrification on a localized scale in Ward three, and the evection of people on more limited incomes who currently enjoy the advantages of living in upper Northwest Ward 3 still has a fairly large stock of rent controlled housing, and it is vital that DC does all that it can to preserve this important source of affordable housing that exists today!

Idiocy.

“Ward 3 is becoming less affordable when we only let developers tear down *affordable* housing to build new housing!!”



Answer: upzone everywhere in Ward 3 and let us build anywhere in Ward 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I hear this constantly asserted, as if it were self-evidently true, but cannot figure out how it could possibly be correct.

There's 700,000 people in the District. There's 5 million in the suburbs. If you add 30,000 housing units in DC, they will instantly be soaked up by people in the suburbs looking for shorter commutes.

As people move into DC from Falls Church and Rockville and Fairfax, their old places will open up for other people. Other people will move into those places from suburbs even further out, which will open up slots in places like Chantilly or Columbia or wherever else those people are coming from and that would put downward pressure on housing prices in the suburbs they've left.

But how does any of that lead to affordable housing in DC?

Increasing density will tend make housing more expensive, not less, because if you have a lot of people living in a small area, then businesses want to be there too. Once grocery stores and bars and restaurants and stores move into an area, then everyone wants to live there and prices go up accordingly. It's gentrification on steroids. Look at Navy Yard.

Basically you're saying that people want to live in dense neighborhoods, and businesses want to be in dense neighborhoods - so shouldn't we make it possible to have more dense neighborhoods?

Basically, I'm saying increasing density drives housing prices up, not down, and speeds gentrification.

It's not possible to "gentrify" Ward 3 D.C., which is already wealthy and expensive.

,You bet it is! Up zoning Puts more pressure on affordable rent controlled housing in Ward 3. Developers buy and tear down or upscale older apartment buildings that are rent controlled. The result is ongoing gentrification on a localized scale in Ward 3 and the eviction of people on more limited incomes who currently enjoy the advantages of living in upper Northwest. This puts more pressure on affordable rent controlled housing in W3. Developers by and tear down or upscale over apartment buildings that a rent controlled. The result is on doing gentrification on a localized scale in Ward three, and the evection of people on more limited incomes who currently enjoy the advantages of living in upper Northwest Ward 3 still has a fairly large stock of rent controlled housing, and it is vital that DC does all that it can to preserve this important source of affordable housing that exists today!

Why do anti development nuts keep trotting this ridiculous argument out?

Ward 3 does not have a fairly large stock of rent controlled housing - rent control units are a small percentage of rental units in DC and the share of rent control units in Ward 3 is proportional to the rest of the city.

The rent control units in Ward 3 (and DC in general) are not income screened and almost no new rent control units are being generated in any DC neighborhoods. So rent control units are of really pretty marginal value when it comes to affordable housing and they are serving no constructive role when it comes to expanding the number of affordable units.

Also the law requires any rent control units be replaced if a building with rent control units is torn down.

And there happens to be exactly a single example of this happening in Ward 3. And that building, as required, will be replacing the rent control units with new units.

Since this hasn't happened in Ward 3 it is not a factor in any gentrification in Ward 3.

And the suggestion that Ward 3 is going to be gentrified is just absurd - the ward is overwhelmingly white and wealthy.

You, or others, keep making this absurd argument and I, and others, keep debunking your absurd arguments which you never bother to clarify or back up with any citations or evidence or even basic sound arguments.

But really there is no need to do more than point out the absurdity of your point about Ward 3 being under threat to gentrification.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not driving out existing rent control is another obvious way to hang on to affordable housing.

No. One. Is. Driving. Out. Existing. Rent. Controlled. Units.

In fact the biggest threat to rent control units is not building enough supply of new housing to meet demand which will make rent control units very appealing for rehabs to chase the same dollars.

In any case DC is not NY and the number of rent control units in DC is not that great and the units are not income screened and very few additional units are being created.

This whole rent control argument from NIMBY's sounds really appealing and progressive but under any scrutiny it completely falls apart.

Planning Director Andrew Trueblood (and soil) says that rent control is meaningless and won’t even discuss it in the mayor’s housing plan. Yet Council Member Anita Bonds says that rent control is the most effective affordable housing lever in DC.

Anita Bonds says this because she might be the only person willing to publicly discuss housing who is as stupid and confused as you are.

And rent control really is pretty meaningless when it comes to expanding the number of available affordable housing units in DC so I'm glad Trueblood is not wasting time on a program that does not even screen incomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's not quite what they say. They say it will lead to *affordable* housing in the District. They say it endlessly, but no one can seem to explain how that will work.

Please cite some examples.

Google it. It's fundamental to the mayor's housing plans, and it makes no sense. Here's her from October:

“I’m discouraging any developer that has the opportunity to build more units so that we can have more affordable housing, to be scared away from the process,” Bowser said. “These units have been held up for too long, and we can’t continue to hear residents across our entire city be concerned about affordability without doing everything that we can to get more units.”

Ah. In that context, presumably it means that the development project will include some affordable units. That's how it will work.

Generally the way it works is the mayor gives the developers a blank check to do whatever they want, the developers give her lots of campaign contributions and everyone agrees to throw in a couple affordable housing units as a fig leaf so everyone can pretend this is really all about making housing affordable.

Actually that's not how it works at all.

Affordable housing units aren't "thrown-in" they are required.

A mayor in the pocket of developers would be eliminating the IZ requirements not strengthening them which is what the Mayor has done though of course just to highlight your ignorance of how things work it is actually the DC Council that passes the laws but this proposal to strengthen the IZ law came from the Office of Planning which is an executive branch agency that reports to the Mayor!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Higher density on its own won't lead to affordable housing. Ideally, upzoning Ward 3 would also be accompanied by a major program of building high-quality affordable housing in the newly dense zones there; if it were up to me, the city itself would build and own it (cutting out the profit motive). You could do bigger buildings on places like Wisconsin Avenue and Connecticut Avenue and then still also allow for non-single-family homes on side streets without dramatically changing the "leafy character" of the neighborhood; things wouldn't look much different if you had, say, two duplexes on a lot replacing one big house. That would lead to more housing, period, which -- in combination with protecting existing rent controls, expanding the affordable housing quotas on new construction, preserving IZ policies and also building new HIGH-QUALITY public housing -- would definitely help ease the housing affordability problem in our city and in Ward 3.

(I live in Ward 3, so before my neighbors tell me to advocate for this in my own neighborhood, I am doing exactly that.)

The Office of Planning is pushing what they soothingly call "gentle density" that could lead, particularly within a half mile of Wisconsin Ave., to upzoning of single family residential streets by administrative (OP) decision. Gentle density calls for allowing up to 4 story multifamily buildings one quarter mile from any bus route and one-half mile from a Metro stop. Significant parts of the AU Park, Tenleytown, Chevy Chase DC, Cleveland Park, Cathedral Heights, McLean Gardens, Mass Ave. Heights neighborhoods could be impacted.

Great! That sounds like a good start.

Folks in those neighborhoods might beg to differ.

I would. I'm from DC and watched the 'gentrification" of Columbia Heights when new metro came in. It was so poorly done. Better before. And you can't undo the genie when it's out of the bottle. Could have been done nicely, but wasn't. Where's the petition. If NIMBYS fight every step of the way, may get done eventually, but better.

No one is “gentrifying” the neighborhoods near Wisconsin or Connecticut by adding density.

I think you missed my point...throwing up a bunch of buildings slapdash is not an awesome way to develop. Wisconsin Ave. in particular has seen a LOT of development in just the past couple of years, between Fannie Mae, homeless shelter, GDS, new Giant, new apartment building by metro, sidwell expansion coming. Development has been happening at a quick clip. I think it's OK to see how parking, traffic, cleanliness, etc. keep up.

Nothing gets thrown up in DC slapdash - DC has among the most stringent building standards in the country and some of the lengthiest approval processes.

And the list of horrors you refer to is a fraction of the new housing going up in other Wards. In fact there are single development projects in other wards that include more new housing units than your complete list includes.

So no development has not been happening at a quick clip in Ward 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

That's not quite what they say. They say it will lead to *affordable* housing in the District. They say it endlessly, but no one can seem to explain how that will work.

Please cite some examples.

Google it. It's fundamental to the mayor's housing plans, and it makes no sense. Here's her from October:

“I’m discouraging any developer that has the opportunity to build more units so that we can have more affordable housing, to be scared away from the process,” Bowser said. “These units have been held up for too long, and we can’t continue to hear residents across our entire city be concerned about affordability without doing everything that we can to get more units.”

Ah. In that context, presumably it means that the development project will include some affordable units. That's how it will work.

Generally the way it works is the mayor gives the developers a blank check to do whatever they want, the developers give her lots of campaign contributions and everyone agrees to throw in a couple affordable housing units as a fig leaf so everyone can pretend this is really all about making housing affordable.

Actually that's not how it works at all.

Affordable housing units aren't "thrown-in" they are required.

A mayor in the pocket of developers would be eliminating the IZ requirements not strengthening them which is what the Mayor has done though of course just to highlight your ignorance of how things work it is actually the DC Council that passes the laws but this proposal to strengthen the IZ law came from the Office of Planning which is an executive branch agency that reports to the Mayor!

Mayor Bozo-Bowser hasn’t touched IZ requirements and if you talk with OP staff they will tell you that there is no political will to increase requirements because of developer push back. That’s why large developments, even PUDs, are averaging about 8 percent IZ.