Inter-related post :: REDEFINING “AFFORDABILITY” & MORE PRODUCTION
The issue: Housing in DC, “Affordable” for who?
The definition of “affordable housing” vis-a-vis the DC Municipal Regulations, and governing DC Code, is significantly askew, the results of which benefit only a fraction of DC’s longtime families and residents who need affordable housing, and who need it now.
DC Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), Inclusionary Zoning Program, Webpage >> www.dcaffordability.com
First, the term “affordable” must be uniformly defined across all applicable DC regulations, including the zoning regulations.
The DC Office of Planning has stated their staff has been working on the Zoning Regulations Rewrite (ZRR) for more than six years, during which the crisis in housing was rising dramatically in the District. Despite the housing alarm bells going off, it is surprising that of the 1000+ pages of changes being proposed in the ZRR by OP, none of the changes directly contend with “affordability’ and production of IZ units. And, the Office of Planning has not yet moved to redefine the definition of “affordable” unit. This signals a complete and utter failure of current planning officials to contend with the number one crisis in the District right now, the lack of affordable housing.
The Definition of Affordability is Currently Based on the Area Median Income (AMI) Metric
Planning officials in the District believe that the Federal HUD funding for DC’s “affordable” housing can only be based on an Area Median Income (AMI) metric (which includes Fairfax and Montgomery Counties), versus using the DC “State” Median Income metric.
DC4RD cannot find a citation showing that DC must use the AMI, and not the DC-only income metric. Neither the Zoning Commission nor the Office of Planning staffers have offered any citations demonstrating that DC’s applicable income metric for IZ and affordable units must be the Area-Media Income metric. And, at least one zoning commissioner has declared it unfair.
Zoning Commission Case #08-06a (ZRR) Transcript dated, November 19, 2013, page 148 to 149. ZONING COMMISSIONER MARCIE COHEN “… the issue of using a metropolitan statistical area for housing income levels, it’s a federal issue,” an issue which “…discriminate[s] against inner cities.”
In response to the Commissioner Cohen, ANC Commissioner Renee Bowser, emphasized how, “… important [it is] to really reduce the 50 and 80 percent [AMI levels],” so that the City gives, “…subsidies to a working-class person that really needs it, someone that makes — for example — the minimum wage.”
Cohen told Bowser, “I don’t disagree with you.”
So just for the sake of argument only, assuming that HUD funding requires DC’s housing to be tied to an AMI metric, we can offer solutions through revisions to the regulatory rules that govern IZ and affordable units which will provide significant impact assistance for our most vulnerable residents in the District.
And, all applicable DC affordable housing regulations must change to reflect much higher required levels of affordable housing production, and ensure units are sized for families, and available for all residents living at incomes across a spectrum of affordability.
Production of More Affordable Units Needed
In DC, developers are currently required to include 8% to 10% of the just the residential gross floor area in new buildings, not calculating any of the commercial space, must be “affordable” units. See 11-DCMR-2600.
As a added bonus, the City allows the developer to build taller and denser buildings with even more “market-rate” units. See DCMR 11-2603 — IZ Bonus Density.
If developers get a bonus density, then DC really ought to truly create more deeply affordable housing units for many more DC residents.
DC planning officials must move the bar up on required affordability production levels in order to meaningfully contend with our local severe affordable housing crisis.
Also, consider this, as of right now an individual making more than $60,000/yr can qualify for a developer’s new “affordable” studio/one-bedroom unit, set at about $1500 a month in rent.
Given DC’s current regulations and definitions regarding “affordability,” one can better understand why average DC rents nearly match that of NYC, with absolutely no units available in the market for less than $800 a month.
Washington Post, DC Politics Section, dated March 12, 2015, by Aaron C. Davis, “Study: No inexpensive housing is left on open market in D.C.” — The report concludes that, “… the nation’s capital has almost no apartments left on the open market that rent for less than $800 a month. The number of such units nearly matches the city’s stock of public and heavily subsidized housing, the institute found, meaning that, in effect, only those receiving public assistance are renting for less than $800 a month.”
It is DC’s Office of Planning (OP) who has decided set the bar so low for actual production of affordable units and allowed the eligible-income targeting to be so high, and thus OP’s planners have set a tone for the future of housing, and who gets to live in our City.
DC could really become a sad city without economic and cultural diversity, without the poor, and without working families.
The City planners tone has been sour and derisive as seen in the results of failed development concepts, like New Communities or Hope VI, which have permanently displaced thousands of low-income DC families and longtime residents.
Washington City Paper, Housing Complex, dated September 9, 2014, by Aaron Weiner, “Report: D.C. Should Redevelop Public Housing Without Replacing Units First” — The failed New Communities program has only produced, “… 1,070 housing units that are either complete or under construction,” however, “…a quarter of these are market-rate units and half are affordable units for moderately low-income households, rather than the heavily subsidized units intended to replace the public housing being demolished.”
We are connecting the dots that displacement of large tracts of affordable housing is demonstrated in the surging levels of homelessness.
Case Study in Bad Planning & Displacement: Barry Farm, Ward 8
The City’s bad planning continues to uproot our peoples. Take for instance, the Barry Farm community in Ward 8.
Recently, OP’s officials, expressed strong support for DC Housing Authority’s (DCHA) application to the DC Zoning Commission to tear down the existing community at Barry Farm.6
Barry Farm is public housing serving 400+ families with three-, four-, and six-bedroom truly affordable housing units. DCHA is using a lack of on-going maintenance, of this public property, as an excuse to demolish all of it.
Barry Farm is land directly relevant to the oppression and freedom represented by enslavement of humanity in the United States of America.7 It cannot simply be discarded at the whims of unaccountable “planners” and commissioners.
DCHA’s says that in as many as five or more years, a new humongous suburban-style mixed-use projecting is proposed to be built at Barry Farm, largely consisting of market-rate studio & one-bedroom units and some mixed-use commercial left to be discussed publicly in a collaborative way. And, 20+ acres of public land would be privatized, giving away our land for almost no money and challenging our Constitutional rights, among other problems.
What all of this means, is that if a BF family is displaced from the many current three-, four, and six-bedroom units now at Barry Farm, they won’t be able to move back to the smaller sized new “affordable” units after the proposed multi-year construction project is complete.
This would seem to suggest a fundamental planning miscalculation, whereby planning officials are not prioritizing the future of the people who live here now. Instead these planning officials are threatening our neighbors and longtime District families with permanent displacement from their home, an historic site for African-Americans that live there and otherwise.
This is gross malfeasance on its face across all City agencies involved in the project — OP, DMPED, DCHA, DHCD, in that order.
So after reading all this, do you think DC’s current rules and definitions of “affordability” actually helps the people we are struggling to help? If the answer for you is no, please consider the following solutions:
[penned by Chris Otten for DC for Reasonable Development]