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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.)[/quote]

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.[/quote]

Great! That sounds like a good start. [/quote]

Folks in those neighborhoods might beg to differ.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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

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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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