Just abolish SFH-only zoning and stop making it illegal to build duplexes, triplexes, apartments. Please. It’s not difficult

In which the term "Green New Deal" becomes even more vague than it already was

It’s been three years working in the 100yards of Madison dr NW by the National Art Gallery East building, but yeah I’m sure they can overhaul housing lol

Green new deal just means it's never leaving committee.

I agree that encouraging new housing supply in general will help with affordability

At this point any new housing helps so i guess I'm not opposed to this but i doubt that the DC government has the resources or expertise to run enough public housing to solve this problem. So sure this can help but we really need to build much much more housing and the private sector will most likely be the best option for most of that building.

Yeah, even if this passes the cynic in me thinks DC would overpay to contract out all the construction work to some connected firm.

The article also doesn’t share details on how big these projects would be, the tenant split between market-rate / low income and how much the market rate tenants would have to pay (I assume a premium) to subsidize the lower income neighbors and pay back taxpayers.

>The article also doesn’t share details on how big these projects would be, the tenant split between market rate/ low income and how much the market rate tenants would have to pay

Yeah those are key issues. And given the US governments history with these programs I'm not optimistic they'll get them right.

I really want the council to get rid of all single family zoning and incentive private companies to reserve a small percentage of their units for people with vouchers by giving them taxes breaks and further relaxation of zoning laws.

The city government is inefficient as is. Who wants to trust them managing and maintaining more housing?

Have you seen the state of the repairs needed in the current low income housing projects?

The DC gov could never operate a program like this. I don't know if it's a good idea or not but I know that DC does not have the capacity to pull it off.

Cities will do anything except make it legal for the market to build more housing

Not enough graft in that.

Never ask how the government can solve a problem; instead ask how the government caused it and how we can extricate government meddling to resolve the issue.

I'm sure the contracts to build and manage these projects would be fairly bid as well! /s

It’s an idea worth exploring but probably doesn’t pencil out

https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/green-new-deal-housing-testimony/

> Under these affordability requirements, the remaining third of households must pay a monthly rent of $4,386—$2,316 for the prevailing rent, and $2,070 for the necessary cross-subsidies. Households that could afford this rent correspond to those who earning 137 percent of Median Family Income. According to ACS data, renters with this level of household income are about 6 percent of all households and 13 percent of renter households.3 And at this rent, there are many competing units, as well as opportunities to own, making it likely that the units set aside for this group will have a hard time attracting tenants at such high rents, or won’t be able to command the type of rent that would generate sufficient operating subsidies to cover for the operating costs and debts from development costs.

> Therefore, it is unlikely that these projects can be financially sustainable without government subsidies, and therefore most likely they won’t be able to raise funds from debt markets without the full faith and credit of the District of Columbia, as proposed in the bill.

and it keeps going

Ugh

unless they're ditching the height limit it's all just talk

Yeah, it’s not realistic to ask people to pay ~$4,400 rent to fund “affordable housing” for their neighbors

That’s how you buy votes. Crazy idea with no leg but gives people free stuff -> if you dont like it you are a bad person -> get elected -> do nothing bc crazy idea with no leg -> blame failure on whatever the flavor of the week is -> get re-elected…

DCHA gonna run this program?

How about getting the city agencies to the point where they can actually function before starting new programs?

DC’s Certified Business Enterprises (CBEs) can legally charge 12% over retail for supply contracts but often charge significantly more if the contract administrator doesn’t pay attention.

I’m not sure about service or construction contracts, but I am aware of at least one construction contract that was DOUBLED because the private firm had to work under a CBE. And many CBEs are District businesses in name only. It’s a good idea but horribly executed. in its current state.

I thinks that’s a good idea but those duplexes and triplexes are gonna cost what a single family home did a few years ago, and hence it’s still not gonna be affordable.

I don’t know what the solution is. But IMO the duplexes and triplexes creates a slightly less expensive home but way smaller and the price per sq foot is gonna be much higher.

Also those are gonna be new construction and new construction always costs a huge premium. So right away those places aren’t going to be affordable and it would take 5-10 years, if ever, for all housing costs to go down. As we’ve seen costs basically never go down no matter what, and wages never really rise more than costs.

Terrible freaking idea they can’t even maintain what they already got

> I don’t know what the solution is. But IMO the duplexes and triplexes creates a slightly less expensive home but way smaller and the price per sq foot is gonna be much higher.

There are probably households who would choose a duplex or triplex in Tenleytown (or similar neighborhood) over a rowhome flip Brightwood (or similar neighborhood) relieving pressure on the latter. In some ways, it’s probably about 30 years too late, but better now than never.

Yea there’s def no good solution. And over time the duplexes and triplexes would increase supply, but it’s possible not by very much or new people moving in / population growth would negate the effects.

Also I’m shocked all apartments everywhere are so expensive. Even some older ones. I remember 2013-2015 rents in Clarendon were getting over $1000 a month and I thought that was expensive at the time. Now they’re more than double at like $2000-$2500 (1 BR) and that’s been basically 7-8 years. DC is even more too.

Will they double again and be $4000+ by 2030 (again 1 BR)? What will wages even look like, and wouldn’t even wanna look what wages are compared to inflation which shows no sign of slowing.

It’s gonna be very interesting what happens if the economy does crash and there’s mass layoffs. We’re already seeing layoffs in tech of all sectors. 2023 will be an interesting year.

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Lame wall of text with no numbers. Typically McMansion is $1,500,000 at 4,000 square feet. That can be subdivided into 4 condos at $375,000 units at 1,000 SF. This would be massively affordable to a lot of middle class people.

Yup. Used to live in one building and it was roach infested and falling apart. Every week they had to shut water off to fix leaks in the building. Y

I like the height limit. Keeps the streets sunny and from feeling like dark and gloomy Gotham city. Feels more like a European city.

And besides current high density buildings aren’t building to the limit right now so it’s not a height limit problem

In DC the elephant in the room is changing the hight restrictions that can only be changed by Congress. The second best option is what was proposed in the article to take land that is less desirable above Metro stops and make them apartments.

Building high density apartments near public transportation has been around for hundreds of years. It was why retail had apartments above it on roads with street cars. 100 years ago. America ignored this solution when building nightmare suburbs that require a car to get anywhere and shop any where.

Better than some made up numbers lmfao. How would a 1.5 mil mansion just be divided by 4 into 4 units at 375k?! Please explain, Makes absolutely no sense.

You need 4 full kitchens, 4 sets of full bathrooms, 4 master bed rooms. 4 living rooms next to the kitchens at an absolute minimum. That’s the Bare minimum for 4 1BR condos. The bedrooms need big windows to crawl out of for emergency, so a basement room usually can’t count as a legit room. The original house will have at most 2 full bathrooms, one master bedroom, one kitchen, and massive renovations to just separate the units.

You need to spend a ton of money to retrofit even a big house. They’re not designed to be easily converted into anything leastwise 4 separate units, and it could even be cheaper to tear it down and build from scratch.

Also there are no 1000 sq feet 1 BR condos, most are 700-800 sq feet and if theyre a newer building ain’t anywhere near as cheap as 375k. So these ‘affordable’ 1 BR condos would end up easily costing 500K+, which is much less affordable than existing 1 BR condos available.

Good point

Yep have a 20+ year old 812/sqft condo and it would resell for $550k with a $450/hoa.

Statements like the one above yours says a mcmansion is $1.5m/4000 sqft. That's $375 a square foot. Prices in the district are over $500.

https://www.redfin.com/city/12839/DC/Washington-DC/housing-market

DC does a very good job at adding new housing . We are consistently one of the top cities for infill and new housing construction per square mile.

High density development don't require skyscrapers. Just look at Paris, or Columbia Heights.

Ok the other hand, we could also be as dense as Paris or Barcelona if we wanted to (4-5x denser)

Edit: my point is that we should be comparing ourselves to top, world class cities, not other North American cities that have draconian zoning laws.

Haha yea stuff is real expensive now. Love these actual accurate numbers too 😉🙃

I strongly suspect that DC could meet most of its housing needs by eliminating SFH zoning, without even touching the Height Act. I haven't run the numbers and I could be wrong here, but I strongly suspect it.

The Height Act is a Federal law, and since we are not a state we have no way to get rid of it. Changing the Height Act is completely out of the control of the DC Council.

In the meantime, I'm alright with the Council trying parallel approaches to reduce our housing shortage.

Well intentioned but poorly conceived that will result in fewer lower income people ultimately getting housing.

Also pushing all the NIMBYS into the Pit on 1600 M St SE.

Height act and SFH zoning didn't block MacMillan for years, or the Adams Morgan SunTrust plaza, stupid NIMBY boomers did.

I want homes in NW to pay a land value tax. They get away with lower taxes because their land is underdeveloped and it's bs.

But I guess asking people to pay their fair share for the resources that they consume isn't a winning platform eh?

Wrong thread

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DC zoning rules are often more restrictive than the Congressional height limit, so there is plenty of space to improve using just what is within DC’s own power to change.

Just looking at Columbia Heights, for example, all of those RA-2 areas are limited to 50 ft, which is why you have all those 4-5 story buildings between 14th and 16th. The height restriction is 90ft for those blocks, which means we can almost double the available volume just by fixing the zoning.

The bigger question is whether to let denser apartments encroach into the townhouses. You could add a lot of housing to that neighborhood simply by expanding RA-4 to 13 between Girard and Park.

It's like the "Uber of ____" but for government.

Those should become illegal to build altogether. Build apartment buildings there instead.

We can only dream, sadly.