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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There are all sorts of 8 story buildings on Connecticut, Mass and Wisconsin Avenue. What is so sacrosanct about Tenleytown and Friendship Heights?[/quote]

The zoning.  Upper Wisconsin is zoned for continuous commercial uses of varying intensities (with higher densities in the blocks adjacent to the Metro stations), while most of Connecticut Avenue is zoned for higher-density residential, interspersed with small scale commercial nodes for neighborhood-serving retail.  (Van Ness is the notable exception to this pattern).  Upper Connecticut Avenue was envisioned as a predominantly residential street, whereas upper Wisconsin was envisioned as a more commercial and institutionally-oriented thoroughfare.  Basically, different kinds of densities are envisioned in different places.  Tenleytown attracts thousands each day with its mix of schools (Janney, Deal, Wilson, St Columba's, Sidwell, GDS, AU), churches, library, retail, and services (often housed in small office buildings).  Friendship Heights is a regional shopping and employment center which does include taller buildings e.g. Chevy Chase Pavilion, which has an office tower and a hotel on top of the mall.

On a person per SF basis, residential uses are relatively less dense than commercial office uses (e.g. a typical 1 bedroom apartment is larger than a typical cubicle or two) and that's one of the reasons why areas zoned for multifamily residential may allow higher heights than areas zoned for commercial (which includes office) uses.  Institutional uses are also more dense than residential and often involve everybody coming/going at approximately at the same time, which presents its own set of problems.  Basically, zoning is a mechanism for balancing/limiting/prioritizing these various demands at specific locations and that's why it matters that zoning is enforced.  [/quote]

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