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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many houses in Ward 3 have front areas-setbacks. It sounds like the Mayor's Plan allows these houses to be raised and apartment buildings built up to the sidewalk. This would in effect eliminate a lot of green space in the area.

Density Bros call that vibrant Urbanism. Most people call it concrete.

"they took paradise and they made it a parking lot..la la"

Except they won't even give adequate parking...

You're the one insisting on parking lots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those look fine to me.

They all look fantastic. I think what PP is saying is that they would change the character of a neighborhood. Personally I don't have a problem with a bit of density, but I can admit that if you replace ten single family homes on a block and replace them with 80 units of housing in the same area, that will be a new character. Maybe not a bad character, but we cannot stand here and discuss this and not acknowledge it will be a new neighborhood.

It was a new neighborhood when those houses were built, too. Things change.

I don’t think that this gentle density upzoning is possible to do in a historic district of single family houses, is it?

Ultimately if these changes were made and then called 'by-right' you could make the changes you wanted to your single family home 'upzoning' it, however, you would simply have another step in the process, submitting the plans to HPRB (Historic Plans Review Board). You would end up with the outside shell and conservative architecture that fit the surroundings, but a 'historic' home cut up and divided into apartments inside.

Remember, the irony of dealing with HPRB is that as an individual they are prohibitive and expensive to deal with, however, as a developer, go in there with a conservative design protecting the facade and they have demonstrated that they are more than willing to allow an upzoning. (Example 1756 kilbourne pl nw)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many houses in Ward 3 have front areas-setbacks. It sounds like the Mayor's Plan allows these houses to be raised and apartment buildings built up to the sidewalk. This would in effect eliminate a lot of green space in the area.

Density Bros call that vibrant Urbanism. Most people call it concrete.

"they took paradise and they made it a parking lot..la la"

Except they won't even give adequate parking...

You're the one insisting on parking lots.

It's beyond funny to pave paradise and not even get a parking lot. Will miss looking at people's beautiful front gardens while strolling, and take walks trapped between apartment facades and circling cars and their fumes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many houses in Ward 3 have front areas-setbacks. It sounds like the Mayor's Plan allows these houses to be raised and apartment buildings built up to the sidewalk. This would in effect eliminate a lot of green space in the area.

Density Bros call that vibrant Urbanism. Most people call it concrete.

"they took paradise and they made it a parking lot..la la"

Except they won't even give adequate parking...

You're the one insisting on parking lots.

It's beyond funny to pave paradise and not even get a parking lot. Will miss looking at people's beautiful front gardens while strolling, and take walks trapped between apartment facades and circling cars and their fumes.

Your idea of paradise includes parking lots? Mine doesn't. If you build for cars, you get cars. I don't want to have cars around while I'm strolling, and neither do you. It's high time the city gave a lot of that car space back to people.

I'm laughing at your "trapped between apartment facades" thing, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many houses in Ward 3 have front areas-setbacks. It sounds like the Mayor's Plan allows these houses to be raised and apartment buildings built up to the sidewalk. This would in effect eliminate a lot of green space in the area.

Density Bros call that vibrant Urbanism. Most people call it concrete.

"they took paradise and they made it a parking lot..la la"

Except they won't even give adequate parking...

You're the one insisting on parking lots.

It's beyond funny to pave paradise and not even get a parking lot. Will miss looking at people's beautiful front gardens while strolling, and take walks trapped between apartment facades and circling cars and their fumes.

Let's not exaggerate now. Density Bros and Bras have a way to do all of this without increasing traffic. Hang tight, their explanation will be posted any moment. So far they have said that 'upzoned area is within walking distance to public transportation' so you won't need to own a car and the city will improve walkability and bikeability. So new owners will not want to come with their cars and will sell them at the border.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many houses in Ward 3 have front areas-setbacks. It sounds like the Mayor's Plan allows these houses to be raised and apartment buildings built up to the sidewalk. This would in effect eliminate a lot of green space in the area.

Density Bros call that vibrant Urbanism. Most people call it concrete.

"they took paradise and they made it a parking lot..la la"

Except they won't even give adequate parking...

You're the one insisting on parking lots.

It's beyond funny to pave paradise and not even get a parking lot. Will miss looking at people's beautiful front gardens while strolling, and take walks trapped between apartment facades and circling cars and their fumes.

Let's not exaggerate now. Density Bros and Bras have a way to do all of this without increasing traffic. Hang tight, their explanation will be posted any moment. So far they have said that 'upzoned area is within walking distance to public transportation' so you won't need to own a car and the city will improve walkability and bikeability. So new owners will not want to come with their cars and will sell them at the border.

Well, that's a relief as I thought new residents might bring cars. We will hang on to ours so we can drive out to the countryside occasionally and see trees and stuff.

[Anonymous]

Well, that's a relief as I thought new residents might bring cars. We will hang on to ours so we can drive out to the countryside occasionally and see trees and stuff.

I bought an electric car. I like the tech and just thought that I would do my tiny bit as I could. Remove one gas car and replace it with an electric car. Not trying to be preachy. I really don't care what you drive. Anyway, I had the car for six weeks before it got a sticker plastered on its windshield (beginning of pandemic) that said "Roads were not built for cars". Serves me right for not having parked it in the garage that day (another subject of debate in this thread I am sure). Anyway, I had always known it, but the densification lobby and bike lobby and in general 'make you feel guilty' lobby are all the same lobby and it is all about transferring your money into their wallets.

The "ask" is not going to end once you have upzoned your house, sold your cars and bought a bike. They will want to charge you a hookup tax to plug your solar onto the grid once you update your new Multi Family Housing Unit. You want to make it LEED certified. That does not mean it is efficient. That means you have paid an arbitrary certification board that shows up to examine your house in, you guessed it, a Toyota Tacoma.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Well, that's a relief as I thought new residents might bring cars. We will hang on to ours so we can drive out to the countryside occasionally and see trees and stuff.

That's fine. Store it on your property, or pay the market price for parking on public property or someone else's private property, it's up to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in AU Park and think it would look terrible if blocks were altered as shown in the diagram. It would totally change the character of this neighborhood. Moreover, adding so many new housing units would overwhelm Janney, which despite two big renovations in 15 years is overcrowded today.

Yes, if there were multi-family housing in the neighborhood, then it would no longer be exclusively a single-family-housing neighborhood. But would that be a bad thing?

It would definitely begin to feel more like an urban area rather than a semi-suburban one. That would be sad. And by the way, there’s already a lot of density and hundreds of units of multi family-housing to be constructed at the Ladybird (ex Superfresh site) and along Wisconsin Ave. Why then it is also necessary to add even more density and change the character of the green residential side streets?

Why do people in this thread keep making the argument that density is not green in either the literal or metaphorical sense when the opposite is the case?

What DC has floated would not change the existing lot occupancy or setback rules for AU Park or any other neighborhood. Since the vast majority of homes in AU Park were built on small lots after the existing single family zoning laws were enacted this proposal would likely have zero impact on the amount of green space in the neighborhood.

But since you purport to care about greenspace it would likely preserve it elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in AU Park and think it would look terrible if blocks were altered as shown in the diagram. It would totally change the character of this neighborhood. Moreover, adding so many new housing units would overwhelm Janney, which despite two big renovations in 15 years is overcrowded today.

Yes, if there were multi-family housing in the neighborhood, then it would no longer be exclusively a single-family-housing neighborhood. But would that be a bad thing?

It would definitely begin to feel more like an urban area rather than a semi-suburban one. That would be sad. And by the way, there’s already a lot of density and hundreds of units of multi family-housing to be constructed at the Ladybird (ex Superfresh site) and along Wisconsin Ave. Why then it is also necessary to add even more density and change the character of the green residential side streets?

Why do people in this thread keep making the argument that density is not green in either the literal or metaphorical sense when the opposite is the case?

What DC has floated would not change the existing lot occupancy or setback rules for AU Park or any other neighborhood. Since the vast majority of homes in AU Park were built on small lots after the existing single family zoning laws were enacted this proposal would likely have zero impact on the amount of green space in the neighborhood.

But since you purport to care about greenspace it would likely preserve it elsewhere.

You need to go back a few pages and look at the plans. The apartments could be be built up to the street, over existing green space. What is confusing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Well, that's a relief as I thought new residents might bring cars. We will hang on to ours so we can drive out to the countryside occasionally and see trees and stuff.

I bought an electric car. I like the tech and just thought that I would do my tiny bit as I could. Remove one gas car and replace it with an electric car. Not trying to be preachy. I really don't care what you drive. Anyway, I had the car for six weeks before it got a sticker plastered on its windshield (beginning of pandemic) that said "Roads were not built for cars". Serves me right for not having parked it in the garage that day (another subject of debate in this thread I am sure). Anyway, I had always known it, but the densification lobby and bike lobby and in general 'make you feel guilty' lobby are all the same lobby and it is all about transferring your money into their wallets.

The "ask" is not going to end once you have upzoned your house, sold your cars and bought a bike. They will want to charge you a hookup tax to plug your solar onto the grid once you update your new Multi Family Housing Unit. You want to make it LEED certified. That does not mean it is efficient. That means you have paid an arbitrary certification board that shows up to examine your house in, you guessed it, a Toyota Tacoma.

Electric cars while being marginally better than gas cars are far more about virtue signalling than actual virtue.

If you care about the virtue part there are a lot of things more meaningful (and cheaper) than buying an electric car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are in AU Park and think it would look terrible if blocks were altered as shown in the diagram. It would totally change the character of this neighborhood. Moreover, adding so many new housing units would overwhelm Janney, which despite two big renovations in 15 years is overcrowded today.

Yes, if there were multi-family housing in the neighborhood, then it would no longer be exclusively a single-family-housing neighborhood. But would that be a bad thing?

It would definitely begin to feel more like an urban area rather than a semi-suburban one. That would be sad. And by the way, there’s already a lot of density and hundreds of units of multi family-housing to be constructed at the Ladybird (ex Superfresh site) and along Wisconsin Ave. Why then it is also necessary to add even more density and change the character of the green residential side streets?

Why do people in this thread keep making the argument that density is not green in either the literal or metaphorical sense when the opposite is the case?

What DC has floated would not change the existing lot occupancy or setback rules for AU Park or any other neighborhood. Since the vast majority of homes in AU Park were built on small lots after the existing single family zoning laws were enacted this proposal would likely have zero impact on the amount of green space in the neighborhood.

But since you purport to care about greenspace it would likely preserve it elsewhere.

Where exactly? Pray tell us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You need to go back a few pages and look at the plans. The apartments could be be built up to the street, over existing green space. What is confusing?

Building multi-family housing in the city is anti-environmental because it will reduce the number of yards that belong to single-family-detached houses with yards.

Oh wow.

[Anonymous]

“It got a sticker plastered on its windshield (beginning of pandemic) that said "Roads were not built for cars".

Nor were roads built for those eff-ing little electric scooters. Idiots who have apparently never used such a thing can’t (or won’t) control them on sidewalks where pedestrians are riding and then they also ride them on roads, darting and weaving, with the driver helmet-less and oblivious to warning sounds because he’s wearing earbuds.. Then the myopic little twits just drop them, blocking the sidewalk, even a crosswalk ramp, or someone’s driveway, or they plant them on top of flowers in the tree box. Kudos to my neighbor who heaved a scooter abandoned in front of his walk into a dumpster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“It got a sticker plastered on its windshield (beginning of pandemic) that said "Roads were not built for cars".

Nor were roads built for those eff-ing little electric scooters. Idiots who have apparently never used such a thing can’t (or won’t) control them on sidewalks where pedestrians are riding and then they also ride them on roads, darting and weaving, with the driver helmet-less and oblivious to warning sounds because he’s wearing earbuds.. Then the myopic little twits just drop them, blocking the sidewalk, even a crosswalk ramp, or someone’s driveway, or they plant them on top of flowers in the tree box. Kudos to my neighbor who heaved a scooter abandoned in front of his walk into a dumpster.

Huh. When I encounter a scooter that's blocking the sidewalk, what I do is move it to the side.

I agree that scooters don't belong on the sidewalk. But people are going to ride scooters on the sidewalk when it's not safe to ride in the road due to people driving cars. On every multi-lane road in the city, the city should convert one lane on each side to protected lanes for people on bikes and scooters.