Development in the District
- Posted by ryan on May 4th, 2008 filed in Cities
Rob Goodspeed has an interesting post and chart comparing transit-oriented housing and office developments across local municipalities. The District, interestingly, does not perform as well as Arlington on the housing scale. Some of this is due to the relative newness of some District Metro stations. The trajectory of development also has an effect, since most of Arlington is in the area’s “favored corridor,” while the eastern half of D.C. is not. But some District residents in some neighborhoods are also opposed to TOD and are successful at reducing allowable density.
Unfortunately, Brookland is one of those places. The effort to approve Brookland’s local area plan continues, and some residents are working to derail it. I have a very difficult time understanding the impulse to oppose new development around the station. Much of that land is barren–empty or home only to rotting warehouses. At some time or another, every Brooklander has complained about the local retail environment, which suffers because of the neighborhood’s low density. Calls for open space are numerous, despite the fact that the average lot size in Brookland is massive compared to the rest of the city, and that trees abound in the neighborhood’s residential areas, which wouldn’t be touched by new development. It makes no sense to me.
A discussion is taking place at the neighborhood listserv. A few excerpts:
- I guess whether you support the plan or not has a lot to do with what you want out of your neighborhood. I don’t care about not having sit down restaurants or more retail outlets. I am glad to have neighbors I know, family friendly housing and human scale buildings. I like the trees and the areas that are not developed. I don’t want more density. I have always found John Feeley, the Rooneys and Mary Pat and Phil’s concerns about community to align pretty well with mine. Susan Gushue, Brookland resident since 1981, mother of five, hope to live here until
at least 2058.- I have never understood the assumption in this town that new development and re-development are inevitable and necessary in a community. They are not. This is the only city in which I have ever lived or worked (including places in five states and the District of Columbia) where development has run rampant over preservation and the majority view of residents has been trampled as a matter-of-course.
“Change” is not always better. And there are better ways to manage tax dollars than to always think there needs to be more to spend. It’s sad that our nation’s capital sets such a poor example for the rest of the country and the world.
- Looks like we as a community are going to have to organize and fight these bureaucrats who think they can decide what to do with our neighborhood. Do we really think we can trust the city or politicians to protect our community’s interests. Some politicians may want to say they supported “affordable” housing; what is affordable to some is low income housing with all the problems that can bring to a community. Or maybe we will get super high priced apartments that they can’t all be rented. What may be in the city’s short term interests of pandering to developers, is certainly not in the city’s long term interests. The city is so proud of Columbia Heights. Frankly, I don’t think they did a very good job in allowing the kind of development that has taken over the streets and sidewalks. The apartments are built right up to the sidewalks. Few trees. Less parking. Very sterile. It could, and should, have been planned better. Fewer high rises, more trees etc. Bringing more people into Brookland doesn’t mean ugly development. Sure, high rises on every blade of grass allow developers to make mega bucks. But I bet they do not live where they build. And property owners have a right to protect their investments. We won’t become a Tenleytown with million dollar condos. If crime is a problem now, just wait for overcrowding that overdevelopment brings. No surprise that Columbia Heights just had 4 homocides, even with those new stores and gentrification. And the metro is already standing room only; parking by the metro is not easy today. What will it be with new apartments?
Count me in to join in the fight to give the community a say in how development will take place. Why did we spend so much time at those meetings just to be ignored?- What I have never understood is why D.C. residents have allowed this whole development/re-development insanity to be accepted as the norm. It’s a totally wrongheaded concept to assume that your community must stop being the community that you love in order to progress. Actually, that’s exactly the same destructive concept that this country often uses in war: Destroying the village to save it.
“Change” is not always for the better, but “change” can also mean returning to a past environment that was better. I grew up in an Ohio city that destroyed its vibrant downtown, and ultimately its economic life, by embracing the change that came with Urban Renewal redevelopment (also a concept that came out of D.C.).
There are other challenged cities in this country that are starting to abandon the “economic development” craze that has a stranglehold on D.C. Youngstown, Ohio, is one of them. In Youngstown (not my hometown, but near it), city leaders have given up on the failed promises of rampant economic development to fix crime/other urban problems. Instead, they have begun the “radical” process of returning to a more rural/open space environment by eliminating the entire infrastructure (condemned housing, city streets, etc.) of overly distressed neighborhoods — “downsizing” the city to deal with its reduced population, rather than continuing to build with the hope of significantly increasing the population to generate more tax dollars.
- I would rather maintain more green, open space near my home, so I don’t need to use fuel to pollute the environment to get to the open space. I can walk there now. (Even public transit consumes fuel and pollutes.)
It is a fallacy to claim that D.C. needs more housing stock. Not too long ago, this city housed about 300,000 more people than it does now. Those residences have not all been demolished.
There are plenty of vacant housing units in D.C. that are still sturdy but have been allowed to fall into disrepair. They need to be made habitable, and they would be if the city government cared to start enforcing its laws.
It takes the same set of skills to repair, maintain and preserve existing buildings that it takes to build new ones. Building new ones takes a whole lot more new building materials, the production of which is destructive to the environment.
I’m usually game for responding to some of these posts on the listserv, but in many cases, we’re not even approaching the problem with the same set of facts. I think it’s important (and inevitable) that residents play a role in planning, but if that’s going to be the way planning is done, then a better effort needs to be made to either explain why the city is choosing to zone in such a way, or policies need to be altered to align resident incentives with the city’s goals. Brookland is miles away from breaking ground on any big projects, and if the city doesn’t work now to improve community buy-in, investment will be slow and the end results will be disappointing to everyone involved.
May 4th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
OMG, I don’t even know where or how to respond to those comments. Sure, we all want open space and great community feelings, but at the same time, we as a society are plowing out greenspace in the outser suburbs etc. etc. at a time when anyone under about 40 understands that compact development, particularly around metro stations should be a requirement for any jurisdiction in the country.
“Leading the way”?…I am proud that Mayor Williams and now Mayor Fenty understand not only the positive economic benefit, but also the broader societal responsibility that density around metro stations yields. Christ, this should have been done 25 years ago.
Leave the planning with residents? It think not. That sets up a scenario where every single zoning and planning decision yields a self-interested mano-a-mano fight to be the surpeme NIMBY.
No, better left to planning and zoning professionals who understand why and how these choices need to be made. If the citizens don’t like it, bring in a politician who caters to the squeaky wheel. Said politician will lose every time with this debate.
May 5th, 2008 at 9:31 am
“Leave the planning with residents? It think not. That sets up a scenario where every single zoning and planning decision yields a self-interested mano-a-mano fight to be the surpeme NIMBY.
No, better left to planning and zoning professionals who understand why and how these choices need to be made.”
There, in a nutshell, is the kind of attitude that fuels this kind of opposition. There’s nothing people like less than being told what to do. They really don’t like being told what’s good for them.
May 5th, 2008 at 9:53 am
It isn’t a matter of being told what it is good for you, it is a matter of doing what is best for our planet and for our children.
If you think that paving fields and increasing sprawl/ wasting resources encouraging more consumption of fossil fuels is better than the loss of a couple of acres of green space on top of a metro station, then vote for politicians who support that view.
As I said, that is a view that will lose every time at the ballot box in the current political and social climate.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Frustrating.
The one about Youngstown is particularly galling — to compare Brookland and DC to a city that is on such a deep decline of jobs and residents, that they are having to resort to downsizing to alleviate the burden of providing services to a once-concentrated now sprawled-out city due to vacancy, is just poor logic.
DC, housing crisis or no, is a burgeoning region with robust job growth, bringing new residents every day.
Youngstown…c’mon, really?
The comment about planners vs. citizens really does speak to the need for deep involvement in the planning process by citizens to a point where they can be taught about development without having to resort to fact-less knee jerk responses to any and all development.
Comments about the environment are especially alarming due to the cognitive dissonance it takes to claim care for the environment while slamming public transit and not thinking that keeping Brookland entirely unchanged and at the same low density won’t have an impact across the city on housing prices and availability — and overall emissions and fuel consumption.
…speechless
May 5th, 2008 at 11:04 am
As disappointing and frustrating as those comments are, it’s critical that we not dismiss them out of hand.
Planning cannot be a top-down exercise. There needs to be buy-in from the local level. It helps if the political powers that be are not entirely beholden to local anti-growth interests, but either way, planners need to take the opportunity to educate the public.
That education doesn’t need to be about what they should do, but rather about what the consequences of their proposed ideas would be.
I’ve had a chance to participate in several charrettes that aim to do just that. They offer information to residents and they do it in a non-confrontational manner. They then, in a workshop-like setting, allow the local citizens to offer up a plan in a sim-city sort of way - where would you put this? Where would you put that? Having them make these decisions, even in a hypothetical scenario, amongst their peers tends to lead to a discussion about the impacts of NIMBYism and the kind of selfishness it often entails.
It’s also critical that such a process happen within a larger framework. In this case, both DC and WMATA need to step forward and really push TOD around Metro stops.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:32 am
DC has a pretty poor history with charrettes. What’s the point of getting public input if you’re going to completely ignore it and opt for a developer who knows all the right people?
I can’t fathom how people can live next door to a Metro and not expect development. This is the same attitude that’s holding up development around Tenleytown and Friendship heights, except in those cases, it’s predominately the affluent crowd who don’t want their property values to go down because of more affordable housing in their market.
This reminds me of the folks who moved into $900k condos on 17th Street in Columbia Heights and were shocked, SHOCKED that there bars and restaurants on 18th Street that were actually loud! Who knew?
May 5th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
“It isn’t a matter of being told what it is good for you, it is a matter of doing what is best for our planet and for our children.”
Actually, being told what is “best for our planet and our children” by an outside source is pretty close to a dictionary definition of “what is good for you.”
Slate is all over this kind of thing, and they identify it (correctly) as self-defeating. I’m all for it - but really, the whole point of urban planning is not just to tell people what to do. Rejecting persuasion for the use of government force is not, I think, the corner we really want to find ourselves in, is it?
http://www.slate.com/id/2190378/
May 5th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Eh, those people are nothing compared to the Falls Churchians in today’s posts who want to block the building of a hotel on Broad Street (the main street through town) because it’s near a school and will therefore become a safehouse for pedophiles. Also, hotels are apparently magnets for crime in general.
May 5th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
One reason Arlington’s density is greater than Washington’s is because they don’t face the same height limits as the District. Many of the residential buildings along the Orange and Blue lines simply could not be built in DC because the federal government would not allow it.
May 12th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Ryan has very carefully snipped out the most anti-development comments from the brookland listserve. Comments have varied and consensus at meetings in the community have accepted that some development will happen here but have requested that it be on scale with the community.
The community has asked that there be some preservation of green space, and with over 13 acres in the proposed area the fact that the plan doesn’t require some preservation of green space is over the top. The law is they are supposed to listen to the community, and this was the number one issue raised at community meetings, requested by 80% of participants.
We’ve also asked that the development scale up with smaller buildings, say 2-3 story town homes be built near existing single family homes, and that the 7-8 story buildings proposed be placed the furthest distance from the existing homes. This seems to be more than the office of planning seems capable of doing, even when the comprehensive plan for the city calls for being sensitive to existing single family homes. Opposition has arisen because the communities concerns, expressed at meeting after meeting have been ignored. Would preserving the tree filled half block on tenth between Newton and Otis, next to the Kiss and ride and another half block elsewhere be too much to ask. The office of planning seems to think so.
May 12th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
I’m certainly not suggesting that the entire neighborhood is anti-development. I have received numerous emails stating agreement with my opinions on the listserv.
The naysayers on this plan need to recognize that having a Metro station confers certain responsibilities on a community, including the need to accommodate transit-oriented development. I understand exactly why the city is reluctant to include much green space so close to the Metro; there are very few parcels in Brookland that can handle more density–most of it is residential, single-family neighborhood that can’t and won’t be upzoned.
And I think that the city is also well aware of what this kind of development has done to home values elsewhere in the city, namely, increased them significantly.
It is also my understanding that there will be green space preserved around Brooks Mansion, and that buildings will scale down toward the residential areas.
May 13th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
The property that Brooks Mansion sits on is not part of the Small area plan. To claim that it exists with a yard, that could be changed in purpose means the plan is preserving greenspace, would be like saying not developing any yard in the neighborhood that the Office of planning has no jurisdiction over is maintaining greenspace. It just doesn’t count. This has been pointed out to the Office of Planning folk at the three meetings I’ve been to. They look sheepish and admit that they have no jurisdiction. They have stopped suggesting that parks elsewhere in the neighborhood not adjacent to the plan count as maintaining green space, which is a step forward.
May 13th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Those places are green, are they not? Isn’t that the point? Who cares why it remains green, so long as it remains green?
There is still no recognition that keeping green space near Metro is incredibly costly. Not just to the city or to developers, but to you and I and the environment. There are very important reasons behind the city’s emphasis on transit-oriented development. There are plenty of other places in the neighborhood where trees can be planted, but there’s only one place to do transit-oriented development in Brookland, and that’s near the Metro station.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
I would like to point out that there is a lot of land nearby for dense development along the tracks. The open space requested is not that much and falls into what would be required for any developer of private land. Why the need for the over the top building. Any urban planner will tell you that there should be a scale down to the existing community.
I believe planning folks assume that the people livng west of 12th street will be driven out by the increased zoning along 12th street and their houses will be torn down anyway and the step down will occurr as you progress east of 12th street.
The proposed zoning changes to the 12th street corridor will remove all needs for dev. to respect their existing neighbors. lets talk about what it really is, using ‘eminent domain’ to give money to conected people.
to equate the small number of people the increased density would accommadate akin to saving the planet is simplistic at best. Also the suburbs are being built out for families who want schools. families aren’t going to live in the buildings. you want to reduce sprawl? fix our schools.
oh, and leave it to the zoning/planning officials, come on have you even read the reports? they would get an F in any first year Architecture class. and they clearly have never taken a statistics class. the analysis is extremely poor and distorted.
May 15th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
There is a scale down to the community.
You may believe that about the homes west of 12th, but it’s not at all realistic. One, it would be incredibly difficult for the city to change the zoning along those streets without striking some sort of comprehensive deal with the owners; it’s just not going to happen. Two, this kind of development elsewhere in the city has not driven people away. Not even close. It has been great for property values, and the increased retail options have made such homes more desirable. Have a look at sales data.
No, it’s not eminent domain. The government isn’t taking property from owners. It’s allowing property owners to build more densely, if market conditions are such that building more densely makes sense. The onus is on you, I think, to explain why property owners shouldn’t have the right to make reasonable improvements to their land.
Next, it wouldn’t necessarily be a small number of people. If a few hundred new residences are built around the station, that’s significant. Imagine the space a few hundred automobiles occupy, or the gas they consume. The point is that planning decisions like this must be made around the city. If all neighborhoods acted as selfishly as Brookland, the city would miss a huge opportunity to reduce vehicle trips, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. This, actually, is what NIMBY is all about. Good policies for everyone else, but special treatment for me.
And you’re dead wrong about suburban growth. It has very little to do with school quality. Arlington has fantastic schools and isn’t sprawling, so why doesn’t everyone just live there?
Because the limiting factor is housing availability. It’s much easier to build in the exurbs than in the city (thanks to anti-development groups) so more homes are built there accommodating more population growth in suburbs and less in the city. Since you’ve found my blog, you might try searching through it a bit, and having a look at the research discussed here.
The facts are not on your side, my friend. There is a reason that the planners and environmentalists and economists weighing in on issues like these universally despise NIMBY groups; they fail to take into account the costs of their truculence to others and to themselves.
I could see battling this proposal if it swept away existing residences en masse, or if it proposed construction on a downtown scale, or if it included, say, a power plant. It doesn’t. Believe it or not, the city wants Brookland to develop well and in a quality manner, because that’s good for the city. Doesn’t mean they don’t need feedback, but it does mean that this kind of silly opposition is uncalled for.
May 15th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
ryan,
the comprehensive plan does include rezoning of twelth street.
I have not proposed limiting anyones right to develop their land to current limits. currently C1 zoning requires respect for the impact and closeness of construction to adjacent property owners, the new changes would remove that. I use the term emenent domain correctly because they are taking existing rights aways from the property owners. I never said anything about not allowing reasonable improvements.
Property values have increased everywhere massively. the neighborhoods you are thinking of were completely run down so of course there would be an increase. we are not in the same state. we have high home values. for example, do you believe the houses in tenleytown would really increase that much if they were next door to a mega development.
Like it or not most people who move to the exurbs do so for more space and better schools, i.e. families. families also pack more people into a dwelling unit.
The increase in density is not a few hundred. it is a few dozen. it is not a zero sum game. remember no one is against development, so we would assunme that the few additional units gained from the lost space are not attributed the benefits of the whole project. i find it sad that you don’t even do us the service to hear the arguement. your research just confirms what we both already agree on, denser development near transit, I would like you to look at the plans proposed on both sides and not be so simplistic. The proposed deck over the staion was proposed by the community, not the gov’t or developers and it shows very dense development. A lot of effort has gone into this on both sides and a reasonable compromise should be easy.
We actually live and raise our families here, we are part of the non-car cummuting solution.
your view to me is comparable to the people who want nothing at all built. fringe extremism.
Tony
May 15th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Mega development. That’s just not even a serious statement.
I’m sorry you feel that supporting a development far more modest than seen at most District Metro stations, and supported by the city and by most of the planning and environmental professionals I know, is fringe extremism. With that attitude I think it will be difficult for us to come to any understanding.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
If all neighborhoods acted as selfishly as Brookland, the city would miss a huge opportunity to reduce vehicle trips, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. This, actually, is what NIMBY is all about. Good policies for everyone else, but special treatment for me.–
I wrote about this on the Brookland listserve. You are assuming, wrongly, that the people who would live in the proposed new units would choose a car-free lifestyle. Why? Have you not noticed the massive problem with street parking in other apartment dense parts of the District where public transport is readily available (take a look at Adams Morgan)? There are thousands and thousands of people who live in DC neighborhoods where a car is not necessary yet they own cars. And they even drive their cars. Just because these people will live near a metro station does NOT mean they will not drive giant gas guzzlers. There is no proposed rule that would require the new residents to live a low-car-impact lifestyle. So please stop arguing that Brooklanders are standing in the way of the ability of people to save the planet.
May 16th, 2008 at 7:08 am
I actually know people who have chosen not to buy houses in Tenleytown because of the dearth of good retail/eating opportunities.
Sure, the houses in Tenleytown are expensive and demand is high, but it is higher in places with even better retail options.
Indeed, even the NIMBYs in Tenleytown ask for more retail opportunities (an ANC Commissioner recently suggested adding a bowling alley). However, in order to attract these better retail opportunities, there needs to be more residential density and street vibrancy to support it.
This is where the Tenleytown development opposition falls short. They often cite the “downscale” Connecticut Avenue commercial districts. While it is true that Woodley Park, Cleveland Park, Forest Hills and Chevy Chase commercial strips have mostly one and two story structures, however, they are supported by blocks and blocks of high-rise condos and apartments, both right on Connecticut Avenue, and in some case, the blocks off of Connecticut.
Sure, better retail options are always desired, but few developers or business owners will consider staking a claim to an area where the opportunity doesn’t have enough residential density or destination cache to support them.
May 16th, 2008 at 9:06 am
And Julie, I responded to one such argument by posting data on station usage, which clearly showed that the most utilized stations were those that had developed the land around them well, with plenty of residential units. And there’s a difference in owning a car and driving it only occasionally, because you live above Metro and can take it to work every day, and living well away from a station and responding to the inconvenience by commuting by car.
You stop ignoring the data. I’m sorry it makes you feel bad to have a negative effect on the environment, but that’s the position you’ve chosen.
And Adams Morgan doesn’t have a Metro station.
May 20th, 2008 at 8:07 am
The problem with C1 zoning is that it is designed to promote automobile use, allowing parking in front of buildings. It could even allow drive throughs, I don’t remember, but I think it does, and I remember dealing with one property owner who was eager to lease to a Wendys…
C2 is the kind of commercial zoning typical of residential abutting commercial districts, particularly in R4 rowhouse districts.
The reason to allow for higher buildings is to be able to better create a successful commercial district, where buildings can have multiple revenue streams despite small footprints.
If it weren’t for the CVS, even more than the hardware store, there’d be no reason for Brookland’s commercial district to exist. Even so, the asking prices for rent in Brookland exceed $30/s.f.!!!!!!!!!!! which is double what the spaces are worth–but what is charged given that most buildings are small, without upper stories. And people wonder why the retail isn’t successful?
But maybe people don’t really want a commercial district there. If so, they need to be upfront about their choices. In the meantime, commercial development is happening elsewhere in the Ward, and will impact Brookland regardless.
I haven’t looked at the final plan, but I don’t remember 7-8 story buildings being considered, although maybe this is the case immediately abutting the railroad tracks.
The one thing I do think is that the block between 9th, 10th, Newton and Otis could remain green, as a kind of public square, in addition to the Brooks Mansion square.
My reaction about Brooks Mansion is completely different from the other poster. I thought that OP had some guts to say that the building should be used as a community supporting building, rather than a nonprofit office building. And the city owns it, so yes, different things _can_ be done with it. WHy should they ever be sheepish about this. Planning is “indicative” — it is supposed to raise ideas, and better ways of doing things, especially with assets that the city controls.
Plus, if an arts-supportive retail core were created along Monroe Street as part of the CUA “south campus” development, it likely would work better for DCTV to relocate to that kind of space.