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Fwd: News Alert: DC Zoning Commission Waives Notice Requirements & Forges Ahead to a “Rulemaking” Hearing (in 2024) About The Future of the Chevy Chase Commons

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News Alert: SAVEDCPUBLICLAND.org  (202) 854-1822
 
 

DC Zoning Commission Waives Notice Requirements & Forges Ahead to a “Rulemaking” Hearing (in 2024) About The Future of the Chevy Chase Commons

Ward 3, Washington, DC, Nov. 9, 2023 – In a stunning rebuke to written public comments asking for postponement, including a letter from three Chevy Chase ANC Commissioners asserting that setdown of the Office of Planning's proposed new zones should not proceed “without the expressed view of ANC3/4G,” the DC Zoning Commission chose to waive notice requirements and to set down ZC Case No. 23-25 as “rulemaking.”  

This decision by the Zoning Commission inches the mayor closer to privatizing public property currently occupied by the community center, library, and outdoor recreation facilities, even as ANC 3/4G continues to seek feedback from the community about the future of the site, via an ANC-devised survey. The majority of the members of the Zoning Commission are appointed by the mayor; and the Commission generally hews to the directives of the mayor's Office of Planning.  
 
November 9, 2023 — Zoning Commission Meeting setting down the Map Amendment for the Chevy Chase Commons, Video link: https://www.youtube.com/live/8A0ZQjAbjYs?feature=shared&t=6276
 

DC Zoning Commission Chairperson Anthony Hood opened the discussion of Case No. 23-25 by acknowledging that notice requirements had not been properly executed yet he proposed to waive them.
 
The Office of Planning said they were not aware that notice should come from them, as applicant for up-zoning the Chevy Chase Commons and other Connecticut Avenue-facing lots between Livingston and Chevy Chase Circle.  OP representative Maxine Brown-Roberts referenced an acknowledgement email she received from ANC 3/4G Chair Lisa Gore on October 20, 2023, as sufficient to indicate notice.

Zoning Commissioner and Vice Chair Robert Miller acknowledged “technical defects” but averred that “people know about this case going forward”. Chair Hood won unanimous approval from his fellow commissioners to waive the Commission's noticing requirements and procedures. 

Chair Hood explained he was aware of ANC3/4G's community survey, to close on November 12, and stated that the Zoning Commission would take into account what the ANC drew from the survey.
 
Then without discussion the Commission voted unanimously to set down OP's zoning application for the miscellany of map amendments, covering public and private properties, as a “rulemaking” case.
 
The Office of Planning is seeking to create a specific & unique zone for the Chevy Chase Commons — “NMU-4/CC2” (see images below).
 
The application will come up for a public hearing sometime in 2024; the significance of the Commission deeming this case a rulemaking is that the designation reduces public participation at the hearing.
 

Stills from the zoning meeting last night:


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Click here for Zoning Regulations on “Map Amendments.”

 
 
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Viewpoint: 

The two custom zones for which OP is seeking approval (one for the site of the Chevy Chase Commons; and the second for the other Connecticut Avenue-facing lots between Livingston and Chevy Chase Circle) enable any projects that meet that custom zone criteria to proceed directly to permitting, thus eliminating future zoning hearings for developers and community members to engage in negotiations.  Similarly, a “rulemaking” case is not subject to the vigorous public input that can take place with a “contested” case. These preemptive zoning actions are consistent with far-reaching text amendments proposed by the Office of Planning that squelch public participation in the zoning process (pending Zoning Case 22-25). — Andrea Rosen

Homelessness Grows At Record Pace Even As Oversupply Plagues High-End Multifamily Market

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The rising cost of housing is putting more Americans on the street than ever before.

The homeless population in the U.S. has increased by 11% this year compared to 2022, according to a preliminary data analysis by The Wall Street Journal. Though the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to release finalized data later this year, anything close to the WSJ's preliminary figure would represent a record since HUD began its current method of data collection in 2007.

The previous biggest single-year jump in homelessness was 2.7% from 2018 to 2019, excluding the 2022 increase driven by a pandemic-affected undercount in 2021, the WSJ reports. The data collection method used by the WSJ and HUD, called a point-in-time count, routinely undercounts the true homeless population, but this year's preliminary figure counted at least 577,000 unhoused persons.

The single biggest driver of homelessness in the U.S. is rising housing costs, which persist even as inflation recedes from the rest of the economy. Shelter accounted for 90% of total inflation in July's consumer price index. Despite increased attention on the risk of homelessness for vulnerable populations, funding for support programs remains low.

Unhoused populations cluster in U.S. cities, but at varying rates. Denver's point-in-time count showed a 32% increase in homelessness, while Los Angeles recorded a 10% jump this year, the WSJ reports. New Orleans showed a 15% increase in homelessness, reversing improvements made in the first two years of the pandemic.

Despite affordable housing's scarcity, the overall supply of rental housing is increasing at a record pace, suppressing rent growth and imperiling some landlords that took out loans when the market was at its hottest. But that increased supply is vastly overweighted to the most expensive units, CoStar reports.

For at least seven consecutive quarters, over 70% of new U.S. apartment deliveries have been in the two most expensive rent tiers, CoStar reports. That trend is poised to continue this year, when over 500,000 more apartments are expected to deliver.

In those two most expensive tiers, rents decreased in the second quarter and vacancy rose to 9.1% after hitting a low of 6.5% in 2021, CoStar reports. In the Sun Belt, the reversal has been the most dramatic, with rents in the two most expensive tiers decreasing 4.5% in Austin, Texas, in Q2.

Contact Matthew Rothstein at matt.rothstein@bisnow.com

The Feds Want More Housing! But what type of housing? Videos.

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Marcia L. Fudge, Secretary of HUD on MSNBC, July 27, 2023, https://www.hud.gov/about/leadership/marcia_fudge,

Fudge: “Everybody in the country knows we have a crisis of affordable housing. But the only way to get costs down is to assist developers and builders in building more homes. If we don't put more supply on  the market the prices are not going to go down. …  Help us find ways to deal with our zoning and our restrictions, so we can streamline the process.”

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Questions:

  1. How does Ms. Fudge define “affordable” housing?  Doesn't HUD say that folks making  120% of the AMI could qualify for an “affordable” unit? In DC, an individual making more than $120k/yr could qualify for an “affordable” unit under HUD's definition. Why is this acceptable? 
  2.  Is it true that the ONLY way to get costs down is to build MORE housing? What kinds of housing? Housing for whom? How about decommodifying alternatives: Social Housing, CLT's, etc.
  3. When she says, “If we don’t put more supply on the market, the prices are not going to go down” what parts of the housing market is she talking about – Do we need more single family homes, or more of the steady increase in studios/one bedrooms?
  4. Her statement about finding “ways to deal with our zoning … restrictions” … Is that a euphemism of ending community input and just allowing “developers and builders” to just keep building whatever they want wherever they want per the status quo without any basic planning protocols in place?

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Contrast the above video, with this Adams Curtis video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAwH7R5ljo8

“This is the normal world. You go to work in a city. All around you are enormous new buildings. They look alike. You will never be able to afford to live in them because they are not really homes. They are blocks of money bought by global investors whose money has nowhere else to go.”

And, consider these points/analysis posts about housing production in DC:

    • How does DC Define “Affordable” Housing

      http://www.dc4reality.org/updates/687
     
    • Compare and Contrast: Growth & Displacement

    • YIMBY’s: D.C. “Desperately & Urgently” Needs More Housing
      http://www.dc4reality.org/updates/612
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Finally, please consider watching this telling video from DC Zoning Chairman, Anthony Hood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTFXDTg8KPg
“I can tell you, some of the concerns that I've had, not just with this case, I hear all this about affordable housing and we talk about it all the time and don't get me started. [I'm] really getting on this because from my standpoint, I've said this previously, [on] affordable housing, it seems like the more housing we get the more the price goes up.  I hear the argument Mr. Dettman, that if you increase the supply, [let me] make sure I got my economics right, if you increase the supply the cost comes down. [But] we increase the supply and [the price of housing] goes up. That's Anthony Hood's opinion. I'm a realist. I'm going about what I see, not what I hear, because if I go by what I hear, yea everything is affordable.”


The eclectic reality of development, racism, displacement, and dogma in DC: Supply & Demand Ain’t It

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Take a look at this brief list of DC stories on housing costs, rents, development, and displacement. 
 It's an eclectic list of information showing how dynamic the housing costs/displacement story in DC really is and how disconnected from these dynamics is the simple “supply & demand” dogma being projected by the #buildmore (without race and class analysis) troop.

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DC for Reasonable Development
(202) 854-8327‬
www.dc4reason.org

#BuildMore :: Without Any Race or Class Analysis

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We find it kinda funny, We find it kinda sad . . . that the people piping up in support of giving away public land for more (vacant) luxury housing are those affiliated with bankers, the banking industry, and cohorts in real estate or of similar interests.
In the past ten years of #buildmore championing, Ward One has lost another 25% of our Black friends, neighbors, and families (~~19k people). This level of gentrification is brought on by the luxury over development that drives up land values, taxes, and thus housing costs.

Source: US Census, DC, Ward Level analysis
Why do we continue to accept DC officials defining “affordable” housing as an Inclusionary housing unit available for those making $50/yr, when the living wage in DC is about $35k/yr?  And, why is it acceptable that someone making $80k/yr can qualify for an IZ unit?
Why is it any surprise to anyone given the huge wealth inequalities and structural income disparities in this city, that most working class people of color cannot afford the so-called “affordable” housing in DC.

How is any of this acceptable to you Greg or for anyone holding any of the levers of power to change things immediately, why isn’t it getting done?  Meanwhile the harm persists and you want to rail against those pointing it out and trying to find solutions.  Make it make sense. Please.

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How does DC Define “Affordable” Housing

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In trying to parse the efficacy of DC's affordable housing programs, we  first must understand how DC defines what an “affordable” housing unit is.
The three points below and sources help us understand the definition of “affordability” in DC.
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1. DC's premier affordable housing program, Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) in its ten years of existence has produced less than 2000 housing units, most of them studio/one bedrooms and most for single professionals making about $75,000 annual income.  To contrast, the families and individuals making the living wage in DC will earn about $35,000/yr and there are 30,000 DC people/families on the housing wait list seeking affordable housing.

Sources:
* Report, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, “Inclusionary Zoning Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2021” dated January 9, 2023, https://lims.dccouncil.gov/downloads/LIMS/52021/Introduction/RC25-0002-Introduction.pdf
* Article, Washington Business Journal, “D.C.'s inclusionary zoning program not benefiting lowest-income households, report finds” by Tristan Navera, February 6, 2023, https://archive.ph/ghkMx

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2. Beyond the IZ fail, recent reports show that DC's Housing Production Trust Fund has been similarly serving for the most part moderate income single professionals making $60,000+/yr.  And, this fact stands in the face of law requiring that the majority of the HPTF monies are to subsidize housing for the lowest income earners (aka those making the living wage annually or less).

Sources:

* Article, Washington Post, “D.C.’s housing fund falls short of requirement to aid lowest-income renters. It’s the first Housing Production Trust Fund annual report filed by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s administration in seven years” by Meagan Flynn, April 3, 2023, https://archive.ph/XFmnK
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3. In addition to the above two points, the bluest city-state in the nation actually extends the definition of affordability to those making $120,000/yr.  Yes, according to DC's regulations “affordability” is based on the ever growing Area Median Income (AMI), or the functionally equivalent Median Family Income (MFI) of incomes in the DMV as a region, including two of the wealthiest counties in the United States — Montgomery County and Fairfax County. This is why the developer for the highly subsidized Wharf Waterfront redevelopment in Southwest D.C. was able to (unjustly) qualify their “affordable housing units” as studio/one bedrooms for single professionals making upwards of $120k/yr.

Sources:
* DC Zoning Commission Case Nos. 11-03, A-K (https://app.dcoz.dc.gov/Home/ViewCase?case_id=11-03)
* Tweet, DC for Reality, “Let's not get it confused. When anyone (the Mayor; Developers, anyone) touts a project has 'affordable housing it may likely mean housing for individuals making $80-$120k a year as currently defined! DC needs to do better” dated February 10, 2023, https://twitter.com/dc4reality/status/1624111925494706177

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  • It's these stats that show why in DC “affordable” housing isn't actually affordable and why many of our residents are vulnerable to displacement and why many folks have to set up homes in tents.
  • There are solutions to DC's malformed definition of “affordability”  — one such is the Social Housing model.  Another, perhaps faster solution is for DC policy to be clearly shifted to define affordability as a percentage of DC-only incomes.
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