Reply to Say NO to Bowser on changing building height limits

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I support raising the height limit responsibly, but it feels like there's seriously no creativity or foresight

- Increasing the height limit _reduces_ pressure on neighborhoods outside the core like Cleveland Park (to take the prior example), it doesn't increase it. That's because taller buildings can substitute for the ever-expanding sea of 12 story boxes downtown that we currently have, and that threatens to engulf nearby neighborhoods.  And, we still have all the zoning tools to ensure that historic structures remain.
- Increased density downtown will also help to make most of the area more useful to residents for something other than workplaces. 
Downtown would easily support better shopping, better restaurants, etc if the height limit hadn't bid up rents so much.
- [b]Increased density downtown would reduce the number of firms locating in far flung suburbs that leads to truly terrible commutes for two-income households[/b].
- Increased density downtown would increase the tax base that can be used to pay for social services and affordable housing for poorer residents.

I get that people want to maintain the character of the city, but there are lots of ways that loosening the height limit can be done to maintain that.  For example, buildings over the old limit could require additional design review.  Or, we could make FARs tradable, so that a building that wants to go higher can only do so by purchasing the rights from a nearby building that then won't go as high.  Take a look at Boston (I think a better analogue than NY by far).  New tall buildings there are still contentious at times, but I don't think that anyone is arguing that the charm of Beacon Hill or the Back Bay has been destroyed by the tall buildings nearby.  Instead, the buildings help make those places more vibrant.

On a related note, folks have noted the NY Ave. corridor as a place that has lots of surplus capacity for building.  Fair, but most of NY Ave also has little to no transit access. Until that's fixed, there's no way that space can be fully developed.  That's true of the majority of useable spaces in the city at this point.[/quote]

Not true.  The reason that many firms locate outside DC is because that those locations are convenient to their execs and workers and they don't see the benefit of paying higher taxes and dealing with less business friendly government.  Economics are a factor for some firms in the suburbs, but they would be unlikely to locate in taller buildings in DC in any event.

Washington's "brand" is the prominence of its monuments, the long vistas, the open sky unencumbered by tall shadows, the human scale.  That's a huge selling point to attract businesses and residents to the city.  Lose that, and we're just another second-tier US downtown.[/quote]

I call bullshit.

- Execs live in Kalorama now
- In virtually every other tech industry hub in the country, that industry has is largely moving back into the city.  That includes New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle, none of which are exactly known for their business-friendly policies.  If downtown office space prices weren't totally distorted by the height limit, the same would be true here as well.
- Actually, the same is true here as well.  Remember that Forbes opinion piece that was convinced that Amazon was just dying to put HQ2 in Oatlands?  Yeah, there's a reason that guy looks ridiculous now.[/quote]

Well Amazon didn’t exactly choose the District, did it?  Possibly because they had been warned about Bowser’s pay to play schemes[/quote]

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