Rules is Rules

Posted by on . 2 comments.

I really don’t see where BDC is going with this. I’m not saying that we should develop downtown and nowhere else in the city. I’m saying that a limit on density is a limit on density, whether it’s a zoning rule applying in single-family home neighborhood or the height limit. I think we should build more density everywhere in the District, and I’m bothered by rules that prevent this in all cases.

And I am not at all suggesting that “existing character” should be a factor in considering upzoning in some places and not in others. Please go back and read my post again. I’m suggesting that we can talk about how nice increasing density in the lowest density areas would be all we want, but if you try to change the rules such that a Brookland bungalow can be replaced with even a modest sized multifamily development, you will be greeted by the angriest mob you have ever met.

BDC believes that growth in one part of the city necessarily comes at the expense of growth in another part of the city, but there is quite simply no evidence that this is the case.

Comments

  1. BeyondDC says:
    June 25, 2009 at 1:56 pm

    I lied. Time for one more.

    I’m suggesting that we can talk about how nice increasing density in the downtown would be all we want, but if you try to change the rules to get rid of the height limit, you will be greeted by the angriest mob you have ever met.
    Not really sure how that’s different than what you said.

    And although you’re right that growth in one part of the city doesn’t necessarily disqualify growth from happening elsewhere…

    1) There may be enough growth demand to put it in more than one place, but as city planners we are faced with the decision of where and how to invest finite resources in infrastructure. Those investments have real effects on land use, as you know. We need these types of discussions to come to a conclusion about how to invest. Even if I’m wrong and downtown turns out to be the place to focus as much growth as possible, we can’t come to that conclusion without considering the alternates.

    2) There may indeed be plenty of demand, but demand isn’t infinite either. The District of Columbia currently has 116 million square feet of leasable office space (most of it downtown). There’s a further 80 million sf in suburban MD and 177 msf in Northern Virginia. Combined, our region has 373 msf of office space (which IIRC is 4th most in the US). If I’m correct in guessing the capacity of the underdeveloped sites near the regional core, we have room to double the regional total of leasable office space without going more than spitting distance from the Potomac River. I have a hard time believing our regional economy could fill that much supply in anything approximating short order. One might argue that the 116 msf currently in downtown Washington is artificially low, but am I wrong to assume that the 373 msf regional total is a close approximation of the actual regional demand for office space?

  2. Ben Ross says:
    June 25, 2009 at 2:00 pm

    I think you’re overlooking that for walkable urbanism, area matters. The cities we think of as really walkable – New York, San Francisco, Paris – have really large expanses where it’s enjoyable to walk around.

    When I moved to this area in the 80s, the area of downtown where it was pleasant to walk around consisted, basically, of what’s now called the Golden Triangle plus Georgetown, Dupont Circle, and Adams Morgan, plus maybe the tourist/government area and Capitol Hill. Now it’s much larger – something that wouldn’t have happened, at least to anywhere near the same extent, if new downtown office space had been created by building skyscrapers on Connecticut Avenue and K Street.