Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think we can all agree that low density, originally middle class neighborhoods (and many still) like AU Park, CP, Mount Pleasant, the Mayor's pristine neighborhood, the neighborhood around CU should be preserved if , for nothing else, as historical artifacts of the 'way we lived". Do you enjoy visiting Colonial Williamburg? Would you want to see a blockish apartment building plopped in the middle of "America's most beautiful street" in San Francisco? #keepDCDC!

I don't agree with that at all.

Unless you're willing to ban cars from AU Park, CP, Mount Pleasant, etc? That would be historically authentic. Then I might have a different opinion. Would you want to see streets full of cars in these beautiful historic neighborhoods? I don't.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think we can all agree that low density, originally middle class neighborhoods (and many still) like AU Park, CP, Mount Pleasant, the Mayor's pristine neighborhood, the neighborhood around CU should be preserved if , for nothing else, as historical artifacts of the 'way we lived". Do you enjoy visiting Colonial Williamburg? Would you want to see a blockish apartment building plopped in the middle of "America's most beautiful street" in San Francisco? #keepDCDC!

I don't agree with that at all.

Unless you're willing to ban cars from AU Park, CP, Mount Pleasant, etc? That would be historically authentic. Then I might have a different opinion. Would you want to see streets full of cars in these beautiful historic neighborhoods? I don't.

Anonymous wrote:I think we can all agree that low density, originally middle class neighborhoods (and many still) like AU Park, CP, Mount Pleasant, the Mayor's pristine neighborhood, the neighborhood around CU should be preserved if , for nothing else, as historical artifacts of the 'way we lived". Do you enjoy visiting Colonial Williamburg? Would you want to see a blockish apartment building plopped in the middle of "America's most beautiful street" in San Francisco? #keepDCDC!

Anonymous wrote:I think we can all agree that low density, originally middle class neighborhoods (and many still) like AU Park, CP, Mount Pleasant, the Mayor's pristine neighborhood, the neighborhood around CU should be preserved if , for nothing else, as historical artifacts of the 'way we lived". Do you enjoy visiting Colonial Williamburg? Would you want to see a blockish apartment building plopped in the middle of "America's most beautiful street" in San Francisco? #keepDCDC!

Anonymous wrote:I think we can all agree that low density, originally middle class neighborhoods (and many still) like AU Park, CP, Mount Pleasant, the Mayor's pristine neighborhood, the neighborhood around CU should be preserved if , for nothing else, as historical artifacts of the 'way we lived". Do you enjoy visiting Colonial Williamburg? Would you want to see a blockish apartment building plopped in the middle of "America's most beautiful street" in San Francisco? #keepDCDC!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many of you are correct, no developer wants to build affordable housing. It costs a small percentage less to build, but the profits are significantly less.

Yet, building more does increase housing affordability.

For one, multi-unit buildings in DC do have to have a certain percentage of affordable units set aside by law. Often this is “workforce” housing priced to be affordable for people earning between 50 percent and 110 percent of the area median income (about $85k). If the developer fails to provide these units, they must pay into a housing fund.

The new units increase supply. While new housing units may cost a lot, they drive down the relative cost of older units. In my zip updated and gut-renovated homes are up 25 percent in value over the last five years, while unimproved homes are the same price as they were in 2014. With inflation, that’s effectively a price drop.

Today’s class A buildings will be class B buildings in 20-30 years. If we want an inventory of those Class B buildings, we need to start construction at some point. It might as well be now (a long-term stability of supply/price of substitutes issue).

The fallacy in your argument is that upzoning (and upFLUMMING, in the lexicon of the Office of Planning) puts pressure on these older buildings as they become juicy targets for developers to tear them down and build more market rate, typically upscale housing. Ward 3 has over 10,000 rent controlled units, most in older apartment buildings. Zoning changes likely will turn these buildings into teardown opportunities, which will reduce the supply of affordable housing, not increase it.

OMG again this fixation on rent controlled units in Ward 3.

Please spell out why this would happen?

The proposed upzoning in most cases is modest - it doesn't take buildings that are 3 stories and suddenly put them in high density zones where you could build a 12 story building. But in a situation where that did happen the IZ units (which unlike rent control units are actually income screened) would almost certainly be greater in number than the rent controlled units they would replace.

But here is the thing and this is why we aren't going to lose these buildings & units - by law developers have to include the same number of rent control units in any new building. With a presumed one class upzoning of the lot there is probably no circumstance in which a developer is going to tear down a paid off 5 story building to replace it with an expensive new 7 story building that must keep the same number of units.

This fetishization about rent contol units in Ward 3 is both bizarre and ignorant.

What is proposed and planned in the Cleveland Park neighborhood undercuts your assertions. OP proposes to allow 12, even 13 story buildings in the CP historic district, where one to three story buildings predominate. Also, a current building on Connecticut Avenue with all rent controlled units is being emptied out and expanded, with 12 or 14 rent controlled units being eliminated and only 2 IZ units added. A good example of "smart growth math."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many of you are correct, no developer wants to build affordable housing. It costs a small percentage less to build, but the profits are significantly less.

Yet, building more does increase housing affordability.

For one, multi-unit buildings in DC do have to have a certain percentage of affordable units set aside by law. Often this is “workforce” housing priced to be affordable for people earning between 50 percent and 110 percent of the area median income (about $85k). If the developer fails to provide these units, they must pay into a housing fund.

The new units increase supply. While new housing units may cost a lot, they drive down the relative cost of older units. In my zip updated and gut-renovated homes are up 25 percent in value over the last five years, while unimproved homes are the same price as they were in 2014. With inflation, that’s effectively a price drop.

Today’s class A buildings will be class B buildings in 20-30 years. If we want an inventory of those Class B buildings, we need to start construction at some point. It might as well be now (a long-term stability of supply/price of substitutes issue).

The fallacy in your argument is that upzoning (and upFLUMMING, in the lexicon of the Office of Planning) puts pressure on these older buildings as they become juicy targets for developers to tear them down and build more market rate, typically upscale housing. Ward 3 has over 10,000 rent controlled units, most in older apartment buildings. Zoning changes likely will turn these buildings into teardown opportunities, which will reduce the supply of affordable housing, not increase it.

OMG again this fixation on rent controlled units in Ward 3.

Please spell out why this would happen?

The proposed upzoning in most cases is modest - it doesn't take buildings that are 3 stories and suddenly put them in high density zones where you could build a 12 story building. But in a situation where that did happen the IZ units (which unlike rent control units are actually income screened) would almost certainly be greater in number than the rent controlled units they would replace.

But here is the thing and this is why we aren't going to lose these buildings & units - by law developers have to include the same number of rent control units in any new building. With a presumed one class upzoning of the lot there is probably no circumstance in which a developer is going to tear down a paid off 5 story building to replace it with an expensive new 7 story building that must keep the same number of units.

This fetishization about rent contol units in Ward 3 is both bizarre and ignorant.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about we make DC less dense? More green space, more playgrounds, more parks. Fewer condos.

How about more green space, more playgrounds, more parks, less space devoted to cars?

Or how about less space for bike lanes? Since hardly anyone actually uses bike lanes? Talk about wasted space.

Whatever your position on bike lane usage (and according to the data, you're wrong that hardly anyone uses bike lanes), the fact is that bike lanes take up very little space and, in any case, use existing pavement that was previously allocated for general usage.

Street parking, on the other hand, is exclusively for cars. You could add an enormous quantity of green space if you converted half of the street parking spaces to parklets..

I'm just saying barely anyone uses the bike lanes. It's like buying a bunch of exercise equipment and then never using it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about we make DC less dense? More green space, more playgrounds, more parks. Fewer condos.

How about more green space, more playgrounds, more parks, less space devoted to cars?

Or how about less space for bike lanes? Since hardly anyone actually uses bike lanes? Talk about wasted space.

Whatever your position on bike lane usage (and according to the data, you're wrong that hardly anyone uses bike lanes), the fact is that bike lanes take up very little space and, in any case, use existing pavement that was previously allocated for general usage.

Street parking, on the other hand, is exclusively for cars. You could add an enormous quantity of green space if you converted half of the street parking spaces to parklets..

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about we make DC less dense? More green space, more playgrounds, more parks. Fewer condos.

How about more green space, more playgrounds, more parks, less space devoted to cars?

Or how about less space for bike lanes? Since hardly anyone actually uses bike lanes? Talk about wasted space.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about we make DC less dense? More green space, more playgrounds, more parks. Fewer condos.

I missed what greenspace in DC has been converted to condos? Can you provide even a single example?

In my neighborhood the new condos have almost entirely been put on lots that used to be covered by surface parking lots.

In any case DC is blessed with a lot of greenspace, most of it parkland (both Federal and local) that will not ever be developed. That greenspace (and DC's good transit infra) is one of the most compelling reasons for why DC should be densifying.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many of you are correct, no developer wants to build affordable housing. It costs a small percentage less to build, but the profits are significantly less.

Yet, building more does increase housing affordability.

For one, multi-unit buildings in DC do have to have a certain percentage of affordable units set aside by law. Often this is “workforce” housing priced to be affordable for people earning between 50 percent and 110 percent of the area median income (about $85k). If the developer fails to provide these units, they must pay into a housing fund.

The new units increase supply. While new housing units may cost a lot, they drive down the relative cost of older units. In my zip updated and gut-renovated homes are up 25 percent in value over the last five years, while unimproved homes are the same price as they were in 2014. With inflation, that’s effectively a price drop.

Today’s class A buildings will be class B buildings in 20-30 years. If we want an inventory of those Class B buildings, we need to start construction at some point. It might as well be now (a long-term stability of supply/price of substitutes issue).

The fallacy in your argument is that upzoning (and upFLUMMING, in the lexicon of the Office of Planning) puts pressure on these older buildings as they become juicy targets for developers to tear them down and build more market rate, typically upscale housing. Ward 3 has over 10,000 rent controlled units, most in older apartment buildings. Zoning changes likely will turn these buildings into teardown opportunities, which will reduce the supply of affordable housing, not increase it.

OMG again this fixation on rent controlled units in Ward 3.

Please spell out why this would happen?

The proposed upzoning in most cases is modest - it doesn't take buildings that are 3 stories and suddenly put them in high density zones where you could build a 12 story building. But in a situation where that did happen the IZ units (which unlike rent control units are actually income screened) would almost certainly be greater in number than the rent controlled units they would replace.

But here is the thing and this is why we aren't going to lose these buildings & units - by law developers have to include the same number of rent control units in any new building. With a presumed one class upzoning of the lot there is probably no circumstance in which a developer is going to tear down a paid off 5 story building to replace it with an expensive new 7 story building that must keep the same number of units.

This fetishization about rent contol units in Ward 3 is both bizarre and ignorant.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many of you are correct, no developer wants to build affordable housing. It costs a small percentage less to build, but the profits are significantly less.

Yet, building more does increase housing affordability.

For one, multi-unit buildings in DC do have to have a certain percentage of affordable units set aside by law. Often this is “workforce” housing priced to be affordable for people earning between 50 percent and 110 percent of the area median income (about $85k). If the developer fails to provide these units, they must pay into a housing fund.

The new units increase supply. While new housing units may cost a lot, they drive down the relative cost of older units. In my zip updated and gut-renovated homes are up 25 percent in value over the last five years, while unimproved homes are the same price as they were in 2014. With inflation, that’s effectively a price drop.

Today’s class A buildings will be class B buildings in 20-30 years. If we want an inventory of those Class B buildings, we need to start construction at some point. It might as well be now (a long-term stability of supply/price of substitutes issue).

The fallacy in your argument is that upzoning (and upFLUMMING, in the lexicon of the Office of Planning) puts pressure on these older buildings as they become juicy targets for developers to tear them down and build more market rate, typically upscale housing. Ward 3 has over 10,000 rent controlled units, most in older apartment buildings. Zoning changes likely will turn these buildings into teardown opportunities, which will reduce the supply of affordable housing, not increase it.