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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]What’s wrong with developers? They build the buildings where you live and work!
What’s wrong with pharmaceutical companies? They make medicines that save lives!
What’s wrong with Big Tech? You use google and smartphones!
What’s wrong with Hollywood? You watch movies!
What’s wrong with Wall Street? You have a 401(k)!

The problem is MONEY IN POLITICS.

They LOBBY federal, state, and local politicians to give them tax breaks, deregulation and essentially write their own rules. That’s what’s wrong with them. And real estate developers is to local politics as Wall Street is to national politics. 
[/quote]

Of course money in politics is a problem everywhere impacting almost everything that is or should be regulated and though this accusation gets lobbed around a lot about developers buying their way to things in DC I don't really see a lot of evidence that this is true.

In DC at least development of multi-unit buildings at least is in fact quite difficult and highly regulated.  DC's Inclusionary Zoning requirements apply to almost all new multi-unit buildings and though the program is far from perfect (and is up for its fourth round of tweaks in November) it is a real cost that is essentially impossible for a developer to get around.

And DC has among the most stringent green building standards in the country and I am not aware of any complaints or examples of developers getting around those requirements and partly as a consequence of this DC has the second most LEED certified buildings in the country and that is a measure against other states so that is really quite extraordinary.

The DC Council (and the Zoning Commission alike) take excruciatingly long times to approve both projects and changes to the law or regulations - it is not uncommon for individual projects to take 2-3 years to get approval with individual hearings often stretching over months and the 2015 Zoning re-write and the current Comp Plan re-write both stretched out over 5 years and all of these processes involve multiple costly public hearings.

And I am not even going to get started on the Historic Preservation Review Process which in DC can be applied to almost any property generally and specifically applies to a significant percentage of the city that is historically protected and can require another round of reviews and hearings.

And the National Capital Planning Commission also gets to review and submit comments on any project that touches on Federal Land.

Now one area where I think there are some legitimate complaints about developers is around flips and pop-ups & sub-divisions on existing single family homes.  DCRA is not the nimblest agency and there are a lot of shady small-time developers trying to cut corners on the construction and permitting side of the equation and DCRA is an Executive Branch agency that is susceptible to pressure from the Mayor and the DC Council so it certainly would not surprise me if there are lots of instances of these developers who've tossed money around asking for help to weasel out of problems they've run into with DCRA.

But on balance it is simply not true that it is easy or inexpensive to build things in DC or that it is possible for developers to bribe their way around the many layers of requirements - in fact DC is probably one of the most difficult jurisdictions in the country in which to build something and at almost every step there is public input.

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