Latest Comments

  • Greg on September 21, 2011 at 2:25 pm (MLK Library to close on Sundays, leaving none open)

    Rather than have the entire system closed on Sundays, has it been considered to close MLK instead on a day when other branch libraries are open?

    Another option to keep the main branch open 7 days a week would be to close other branch libraries each one day a week (one on Mondays, one on Tuesdays, and so forth) so as to achieve the necessary cost savings while minimizing the impact on the system at large.

  • aaa on September 21, 2011 at 2:17 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    Haha…the bums will always lose. NIMBY victory.

  • Anon13 on September 21, 2011 at 2:15 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    Not all front yards are public space! Depends on the street, lot, and original subdivision and building permit, whether projection permits were required or not. That is why police could no longer enforce the “chardonnay lady” caught drinking wine on her front porch (or even inside in her bay window, technically). Not sure of this particular property, but the public aspect is on a case by case basis, and requires some research before you post or write about these issues.

    And, they don't call Traceries “Cut and Pasteries” for nothing.

  • freely on September 21, 2011 at 1:55 pm (Breakfast links: Hike)

    @DC Res,

    Thank you for illustrating my point. Your inability to discuss things like an adult is duly noted.

    And since you started the “lets be a prick thread”, let me assure you that I, the jobs I provide, both professional and the continually useless summer jobs program I hate, but always give into, the dozens of college scholarships I've provided District graduates over the years and the and the millions dollars I contribute to the District bottom line every year are far more important, and have already have far more of an impact on this town than you will ever have. I contribute more civiclly, through volunteerism and financially to this town in one year than you will in your entire life. Hows that for snark?

    As I stated above, my contribution is the per capita tax burden of 663 DC citizens, so me alone leaving is actually 664 people leaving, or about 6 months worth of population grow that DC saw between 2000-2010.

    My last comment on the item will be this. There are 3 of the 6,000 living on my street. The other two, who have far more money than I both have vacation homes, in MD and VA respectively could with the simple stroke of a pen simply change their residency to the adjoining states and further deny the District the millions of dollars they provide it. From our discussions yesterday, it appears more likely to happen now than before. If I and 3 others of equal tax burden decide to make the simple move, then the city loses their new 20 million a year in revenue (or the equivalent of 3300 tax payers)and the utility of their tax increase will have been for naught.

    If you think only 4 of the 6,000 (let along the thousands more just below that threshold) are tired of being the Districts simultaneous benefactors and scapegoats, you are mistaken, sorely so if you think that folks of my economic stature have been, or are more likely now to move to the District.

    Back to your regularly scheduled programing…

  • ah on September 21, 2011 at 1:54 pm (Breakfast links: Hike)

    I don't take Freely to be complaining specifically about $875 (or so) in increased taxes but rather that the DC government's preferred approach to any fiscal concerns is to raise taxes rather than to look for ways either to reduce spending or to make spending more efficient. On either count, DC government has routinely fallen short.

    I don't know Freely but from the tone of his post he seems willing to pay his share of taxes but resents the regular misuse and waste of that revenue by the DC government.

  • David C on September 21, 2011 at 1:51 pm (Breakfast links: Hike)

    @freely, clearly you've never been to the third world. Have you ever been trapped in your home for months because in the rainy season the roads are unpassable? I have. Have you ever had to hike for three days to use the phone because there isn't one in your county? I have. Have you ever had to take schoolkids on a field trip to the county hospital so that they could see ice at the county's only freezer (and the only building with electricity)? I have. Ever have to get off a train and hike for a mile to another train because the bridge is out (and has been for years)? I have. Have you ever watched a man die in the street because there is no ambulance to call and no doctor in town? I have.

    So before you go around throwing terms like “crumbling infrastructure that is a shade away from being 3rd world” perhaps you should know what that means.

  • Anon2 on September 21, 2011 at 1:44 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    I'll throw in my 2 cents as well: thanks a lot Dupont NIMBYs…what could have been a publicly-accessible lodging option (call it a B&B, hotel, whatever) is now rapidly turning into the worst of all kinds of neighbors - those who don't care about the neighborhood, do as little as possible to keep up their property, and can ignore laws/regulations/etc. with impunity.

    From what I've read about it, the Toutorsky mansion had one of the best-preserved late-Victorian/Edwardian interiors in DC. If the Congolese are willing to do this to the yard, anyone care to imagine what they've done (or what will happen) to the interior?

    Thanks a lot, NIMBYs. I hope you're happy seeing this once proud building destroyed by neglect/negligence. Take a look at the Sierra Leone embassy at 19th/R if you don't believe me.

  • Falls Church on September 21, 2011 at 1:44 pm (Breakfast links: Hike)

    Freely,

    You make some good points. Personally, I don't see a lot of reasons for you to stay in Georgetown vs. a place like Courthouse. Your business would be easier to access by workers and customers compared to traffic-choked and metro-less g'town and you would be in a more business friendly locality/state. The main thing g'town has that Courhouse doesn't is some nice historic preservation.

    There's a reason why when businesses mature past the incubation stage, they typically move to VA/MD. DC is a great place when you're a tiny, fairly unprofitable startup but once you're big enough to pay significant income taxes and need better government services, it often makes sense to move, particularly if you're in a knowledge business.

  • I knew something like this would happen when the B&B proposal was quashed by local opposition. A sad loss of mature trees and grass there. Would have been much nicer if this historic property was converted into an inn as proposed, so the public could have access to the grand interior. Oh well.

  • andrew on September 21, 2011 at 1:42 pm (Breakfast links: Hike)

    @DC Res: Even though I largely agree with you, I think that your attack on Freely is bordering on ad hominem.

    Now, Freely, I think you're making numerous conflicting demands. I acknowledge that $875 might still seem like a lot to you (and, having formerly contracted for a number of Wall Street bankers with similar incomes, can confirm that this mindset is by no means uncommon—it shouldn't be surprising that thrift is often tied to success).

    However, if we come to the conclusion that we need additional revenue to fund priorities for the city, in a recession, the only morally conscionable way to do this is to affect the people for whom the extra tax burden will “sting” the least. Right now, that's your tax bracket. DC's highest tax bracket is absurdly low right now—about 40% lower than our average per-capita income. As Obama said; adding an extra backet isn't politics. It's math. And in DC's case, the math is extremely clear-cut.

    Now, I think that you're making some contradictory demands. You yourself identified places where DC could be better - our infrastructure could indeed stand for some major improvements, especially given our decades-long maintenance backlog. However, these things aren't free.

    You're welcome to criticize the council for its corrupt and often wasteful behavior. However, that's an entirely different argument, and not a reason to blindly oppose modest tax increases, or force the city to retreat into squalor.

    If I discover at the end of the month that I was a bit reckless with the credit card, I don't shrug my shoulders and refuse to pay the bill. I pay the damn bill, and make sure to be more responsible in the future.

  • WRD on September 21, 2011 at 1:40 pm (Housing is more than supply and demand)

    @Richard Layman

    The issue is that the marginal construction cost of a new housing unit is > the cost of an extant comparable housing unit constructed earlier, when inputs costs were less then, compared to today. (And this is irrespective of the other issue of calculating-generating profit over a total development vs. an individual unit.)

    My point is that this simply isn't the case in many cities around the country. The model of “house = marginal cost of construction of a new unit” holds up pretty well in places like Dallas, Houston, and Phoenix most famously. But it also holds up well in other places, too, like Charlotte or Atlanta.

    As another aside, let's not conflate real and nominal construction prices. While the inputs were cheaper in nominal terms years ago, the real cost may have increased, decreased, or stayed roughly the same.

    @AWalkerintheCity

    Certainly my metaphor of a suit wasn't perfect but hey, it was off the top of my head. Your example of moving costs is a great example of a transaction cost. Certainly the housing market has high transaction costs. Some are inherent (like the ones you listed). Others are created by the government (mortgage interest deduction, to name one that's not the zoning code).

    Housing isn't the only market to have high transaction costs. It doesn't suspend supply and demand.

    @gogurt

    the next step is to extend/incorporate the assumption of heterogeneous goods into the supply and demand framework

    But it already does include heterogeneous goods! Who ever looks at the market for Blue Ford Mustangs or Dole bananas from El Salvador? Market researchers, not micro-economists. This is why we're discussing the “housing” market together, not the rental market or the single-family homes market in isolation. The idea of substitution is handled by supply and demand models.

  • 7r3y3r on September 21, 2011 at 1:36 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    Yes, let's all blame the opponents of a different project for the wrongdoings of the Congolese. smh.

  • Richard Layman on September 21, 2011 at 1:34 pm (Housing is more than supply and demand)

    Alex B—one of the points I make about community planning is that it is set up to fail because the “city” planners in theory have a set of objectives concerning “citywide” issues, while residents in a particular area are focused on the “neighborhood” issues.

    While planners are supposed to address both, residents are not. Furthermore, mostly city planners do a piss poor job articulating and defining citywide issues in the context of neighborhood issues. So when citywide and neighborhood concerns conflict, it can be difficult to come to consensus and the residents believe that they are being screwed.

    This comes up with regard to new development all the time, such as housing. Especially because the time horizons people are thinking about are so different. The planners think in terms of decades, the residents in terms of “right now” or “since I've lived here.”

    It's worse when the citywide plans and objectives are inadequately defined or unfamiliar, such as a decent housing policy for a city, and the idea that neighborhoods to be resilient need a variety of housing types.

    E.g., wrt DC, I argue that rather than immediately jump into zoning revision following the Comp Plan approval process in DC, that instead OP should have gone on a deep and wide road show throughout the city to explain the citywide elements of the Comp Plan as well as the area elements, and if not to build consensus about it, at least awareness.

  • Oh Well.. on September 21, 2011 at 1:32 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    Shoulda/woulda/coulda. A B&B is not that bad now. Thanks a lot NIBY's

  • Adam on September 21, 2011 at 1:31 pm (Housing is more than supply and demand)

    Alex:

    There is one very rational side to NIMBYism. It's true that it is not in renters' interest for prices to rise, but I wonder how many NIMBY folk are renters (I ask this genuinely, as I have no idea).

    The case for NIMBYism for an owner is clear. Not only is construction a nuisance, and population density in their neighborhood means more noise and such, but they have a direct stake in restricting supply so that prices will go up. Simply put, if the price of their home goes up, they profit from it.

  • gcolgrove on September 21, 2011 at 1:25 pm (Is a Metro extension to Woodbridge a good idea?)

    Lets keep dumping scarce tax dollars and national debt in this mistake until there is no country left.

    THe only question that needs an answer, where will the money come from. Everyone working in the Ft. Belvoir campus will be getting “FREE” metro rides paid for by an ever smaller group of tax payers. Most of thei funding for this will come from debt.

    THe better question is can we eliminate a large portion of these workers by adopting efficiencies, eliminateingt overlapping programs, consolidating duplicative programs and simply eliminating old and out dated programs that no longer serve a purpose. If we can get th e wrokforce numbers down, then the bus system may be sufficient.

    We cannot afford any more public sector projects that feed public sector growth. The private sector in this country that pays for this mess is getting smaller and poorer.

    Government does not make money - it spends it. Adding to the transportation system for a bunch of spenders will only make things worse. Should have stayed where you were - next to the metro.

  • cminus on September 21, 2011 at 1:24 pm (Breakfast links: Hike)

    I just keep hoping that someone like Freely steps up to put their money where their mouth is. I know I would. Ragtag bloggers don't scare the current Counciljokes, but the idea of a primary challenger backed with enough independent expenditures to make it a fair fight sure would.

  • Jack Jacobson on September 21, 2011 at 1:20 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    Thanks for posting this, David. Unfortunately, there's little recourse for correcting this issue, as Joel has pointed out.

    I argued strenuously that the project should not be judged on what the Congolese witnesses put forth, but by how they treated their existing property at 16th and Colorado—which was in shambles.

    The entire Board of Zoning should be contacted regarding this as should the “expert” paid witnesses on behalf of the Embassy who gave assurances that were ultimately ignored by a client who wasn't properly vetted.

    Anyone with a client should conduct full due dilligence before agreeing to represent that client. In my opinion, future assurances by the Congolese Embassy's “experts” will be based on the reputation they garnered through this event.

  • charlie on September 21, 2011 at 1:14 pm (Housing is more than supply and demand)

    There is a classic externality argument hiding in here, somewhere.

  • charlie on September 21, 2011 at 1:09 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    Isn't there now a provision that a country will be denied (or delayed) new dip plates if there are outstanding tickets?

    In terms of street parking, I don't see why we give that to any embassy. Or charge them 10K a year for the privilege.

  • oboe on September 21, 2011 at 1:09 pm (Breakfast links: Hike)

    @freely:

    I don't ask for a “thanks” for those of you I support.

    That's probably for the best. Heh.

    In any case, this is a free-market democracy. If you find the benefits of living in DC to outweigh the negatives, you should stay. If not, we have liberal emigration policies here. Hopefully the venting makes you feel better, but by staying, you're letting us know things are hunky-dory.

  • gogurt on September 21, 2011 at 1:08 pm (Housing is more than supply and demand)

    I agree with commenter Adam above. If you start discussing things in a supply and demand paradigm, then at some level you are implicitly assuming that the goods are homogenous (“goods” in this case being units of housing). If you want to make the point that the goods are not homogenous, then you can't fault the supply and demand paradigm itself for not taking that into account.

    Now once you've pointed out that units of housing are not homogeneous, the next step is to extend/incorporate the assumption of heterogeneous goods into the supply and demand framework, which would yield a useful model for analytical use. It's not enough in policy circles to just point out problems and not try to solve them.

  • Lance on September 21, 2011 at 1:04 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    @Oboe, there aren't any curbcuts there ... At least not yet!

  • Lance on September 21, 2011 at 1:03 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    @Scoot “And also, why can't DC just ticket the cars that park in public space, or tow them?

    Ticketing them won't work because they'll just ignore it. Towing on the other hand might be effective. They'd probably get tired of having to go to the impound lot to retrieve them after a while. (And of course the impound lot won't releast them without getting their towing fee ... ) Yeah, they'd complain to State. But what could State do about it ... They can't legally tell the District not to enforce these laws ...

    Parking on the public space in Dupont is a very pervasive problem ... and it isn't limited to the embassies. Everyone from doctor's offices to apartment buildings ... (and even some single family homes) is doing it. The last time the police tried to enforce it, many 'people in charge' ... including our own ANC ... sided with the people/entities illegally using this public space for parking. It belongs to the city and it's given over to the adjacent property owners for very specific and very defined uses that act to beautify the city ... i.e., the uses spelled out in the legislation include 'greening the space' such as putting in gardens, and builing stairways and bay windows. They certainly don't include paving the space over and using it for parking. But until the powers that be, including our own ANC, lead the effort in getting this illegal parking stopped, it's not going to happen.

  • Pat on September 21, 2011 at 1:02 pm (Breakfast links: Hike)

    Freely,

    Thank you so much for your last comment. You hit the nail on the head.

  • oboe on September 21, 2011 at 1:00 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    DC should remove any curb cuts, and sign the curb as available for on-street parking. Problem solved.

  • Alex B. on September 21, 2011 at 12:59 pm (Housing is more than supply and demand)

    Rob, I think it's simpler than that (and hence why I don't buy your distinction): people oppose change, period. It's not a rational decision, but it is (at least in their mind) a risk-averse one which is really the fundamental issue of NIMBYism that Avent mentions.

    What's missing is the alternative: Some people oppose local development because it will raise costs, or because they won't benefit from the increase in aggregate supply. That might be true. But if the development doesn't happen and the neighborhood remains in demand, their rents will rise anyway. That's what is commonly missing from a NIMBY mindset. It misses on the dynamism of any urban place by assuming that the status quo can be maintained, and that not changing will maintain an equilibrium. That's a false assumption.

    To your larger point, if you're trying to say that Avent's argument that more housing on the regional level is necessary won't be a convincing argument to a local NIMBY, I don't disagree. I don't think Avent would, either. You're not likely to convince NIMBYs on a case-by-case basis. The problem isn't really one of individuals who are opposed, but one of policy. If those opposed can shape policy (as they have in our history), then we get restrictive policies. Avent's work aims to inform the policy makers to try and add some relief valves into the system to provide that regional perpsective to help balance out those local concerns.

    Think of something like a zoning budget, for example: http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/04/27/200745/balancing-the-zoning-budget/ You don't argue to the local, neighborhood opposition to adopt a zoning budget, you go to the city and convince them with your data on aggregate.

    As for addressing neighborhood-level concerns, you'd also need a broader set of tools to manage change (that's where something like IZ comes in, and the devil's in the details) - but we have to fight back against the idea that stopping development counts as management of change.

  • Lance on September 21, 2011 at 12:56 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    And btw Joel, do you know how impossible it also is to get a business to follow the law in DC once it's up and running? Ask the people living near some of the 'bad players' such as on the 2100 block of P Street or on 18th just south of Dupont Circle. Enforcement in this city of agreements made (including Voluntary Agreements) is a difficult issue. I.e., You're idea of thinking that a hotel on that site would have been a better idea is not well thought out. As an adjacent neighbor, give me the choice of having to put up with the eyesore they've created of the front yard OR with a hotel and all the commercial-related activity that entails, and I'll gladly take the ugly yard over being trampled over by the hotel's activities.

  • Scoot on September 21, 2011 at 12:56 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    simply promise whatever residents and government agencies ask, get control of the property, then do whatever they wish.

    Sounds a lot like what leaders of Congo do in their own country, so why is anyone expecting anything different?

    And also, why can't DC just ticket the cars that park in public space, or tow them?

  • Lance: I was speaking in terms of pragmatism, reality, i.e. what the Embassy will claim, what the State Dept. will default towards, so forth and so on.

    But yeah, you have a letter.

    Again, update us in a few years.

  • Box on September 21, 2011 at 12:52 pm (Streetcar to GU should top Mayor Gray's jobs agenda)

    Forget renting a building, where is the contiguous space (50-60 acres) for a satellite campus in NE?

  • goldfish on September 21, 2011 at 12:50 pm (Housing is more than supply and demand)

    Rob P: The city which defines the context of your question, Washington, is growing and there is a need for more places to live. In housing, demand changes much faster than supply.

    You could put some of your supply-vs-demand questions to rest if you consider the opposite situation: a city with a contracting population and negative demand for housing, such as Detroit, where a family-sized house costs $20,000.

  • Steve S. on September 21, 2011 at 12:50 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    Are the trees in the tree boxes still intact? They'd be in jeopardy if they want to add curb cuts.

  • Lance on September 21, 2011 at 12:50 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    @Joel, Believe me I know about the problems of trying to get embassies to follow the law in this regards. It's just as hard as trying to get their diplomats to pay for the parking tickets they incur. That doesn't change the fact that you were incorrect in calling this public space 'Sovereign Territory' ... it's not.

  • Biker Dude on September 21, 2011 at 12:49 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    NIMBY advocates in that neighborhood are a bunch of lunatics. See, e.g, the the unnecessary and pointless battle against Hank's expansion.

  • Lance wrote: “Embassies are legally held to the same standards as their neighbors”

    HAHAHAHA. By whom, in what version of reality, and with what army? I note the photos above are by Rick Busch. Please call him up and float your theory of Embassy accountability. Rick is the man who had to hound the US State Dept for YEARS for some action on another Embassy property nearby.

    Good luck with it all, Lance. Send us an update in a couple years.

  • Tim Ernest on September 21, 2011 at 12:45 pm (Regional map data is expensive)

    Josh,

    First the courts have ruled that state and local governments can hold copyrights, the copyright law only prohibits the federal government from holding a copyright. Secondly courts have ruled in some cases (depending on individual FOIA laws) that GIS data can be copyrighted. VA FOIA still has this a bit grey but from a 2004 summary: “The [GIS] subcommittee next discussed the issue of copyrighting GIS information. A representative of the Office of the Attorney General indicated that copyright protection is not available for protecting fact; but compilations of fact are copyrightable.”

    They did not rule on it one way or the other and have yet to do so. That’s as far as the State has gone. Nothing in the VA FOIA law trumps copyright like it does in some other states (CA for example).

    As to Fact Vs. Creativity… anyone that wants to argue that GIS data is not copyrightable better go explain that to companies like GDT, Navtech, ESRI, Google, etc…

    What it boils down to is FOIA vs Copyright. We don’t believe they conflict based on the way the VA FOIA laws are currently written and the fact that the FOIA council has not yet ruled against it (even when given the chance back in 2004). Sure anyone can request the data under FOIA but the copyright laws prevent them from redistributing it. Personally I’d love to have the courts settle the issue one way or the other. They keep passing over it though.

    Dmitry,
    The example of a KML that allows someone to access the data would not be allowed I suspect since someone can download the data, but an ArcGIS map service where they couldn’t download the data would be fine or anything of a similar nature. If you were to purchase data from vendor and use it like that what restrictions would you have (I’m actually curious since we don’t have any)?

    On a side note we want to set up some ArcGIS map services for people to access but ESRI still has a major bug between ArcGIS server and ArcGIS Online that prevents us from moving forward with this.

  • Lance on September 21, 2011 at 12:44 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    @Joel “Good luck trying to convince a nation to change recent work done on their sovereign territory.”

    Like the Conservancy's letter (in the link) points out, this is DC PUBLIC SPACE where this occured ... i.e., this is NOT their sovereign space. Besides, the idea of sovereign spaces does not extend to the area of building codes (and permits), zoning uses, etc. It's strictly limited to diplomatic purposes. Embassies are legally held to the same standards as their neighbors ... including B&B's. And incidentally .. B&B's are allowed as a matter of right ... i.e., you don't need a variance to put in a B&B ... you just need to fit DC's definition of a B&B ... including that the owner/manager must live on the premises and that there be no more than 6 (or maybe it's 7) rooms rented out. This was a hotel that was being proposed for the site ... not a B&B. The fact that the idea got painted as a “B&B” should tell you something about the trust you could put into the proposal ...

  • DC Res on September 21, 2011 at 12:41 pm (Breakfast links: Hike)

    Freely,

    A couple things: if you moved your residence, how are you going to do that? You're going to sell your house. And who can afford the price you'd surely insist upon? They'd have to make a lot of money! So go ahead and move, your departure will make no difference to the net turnover in DC residents.

    Second, sure you can leave you Georgetown office space and move. But again, your space would simply be filled with another business willing to pay the rent to Richard Levy or whoever owns your building. Hell, maybe it'd be more profitable.

    You're not that important to DC. The tiny vacuum you'd leave if you move to Arlington would be filled in a second with someone with pretty much the same economic characteristics.

    Also, Hillandale is not Georgetown. It's a tacky subdvision full of bland 1960s homes that are expensive only because they appeal to that particularly paranoid personality that feels the need to hide behind a gate even though they live in a safe neighborhood. It should've stayed a park like the rest of Glover Archbold Park.

  • Michael on September 21, 2011 at 12:34 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    I'm going to go on a farther limb and say that nothing will EVER come of this.

  • Josey23 on September 21, 2011 at 12:31 pm (Congo embassy paves over front yard, breaking promises)

    “any zoning applications for locating embassies will have no meaning; any foreign government can simply promise whatever residents and government agencies ask, get control of the property, then do whatever they wish.”

    Uh, I guess I assumed that was how things worked. It's a shame but I'm going to go out on a limb and say the front yard will still be paved a year from now.

  • Too bad NIMBYs were so adamant in causing headache for the other proposed usage of this building: a bead and breakfast. Good luck trying to convince a nation to change recent work done on their sovereign territory, v. the leverage neighbors would have had, say, over a B&B.

    I believe the NIMBYs were worried about…wait for it…too many vehicles?

  • John on September 21, 2011 at 12:26 pm (Breakfast links: Hike)

    Guthrie is a class act. The O's never score enough runs for him. Nice to see his name.

  • Rob P on September 21, 2011 at 12:22 pm (Housing is more than supply and demand)

    I guess the point of all of this is that none of the arguments Rob presents really addresses the core of Ryan Avent's argument. You can't mistake neighborhood-level change with the broader patterns.

    Alex, I'm with you 90% here. I should have done a better job fleshing out the point that city-wide and metro-wide, markets behaves much differently.

    But the key is this: people oppose development because it's in their neighborhood, not because it's in their metro area. Unless you're developing greenfields, the only way you're going to change the metro area market is by simultaneously changing one (or some) of the neighborhood markets.

  • Kat on September 21, 2011 at 12:21 pm (Is a Metro extension to Woodbridge a good idea?)

    I say it is about time the metro was extended to Woodbridge! As a life long resident of the area, this is not the first time I have heard mention of this project & yes, many of these plans have all been bandied about. As far back as the mid-80's - prior to the extended HOV lanes, prior to the expanded VRE routes, prior to the Springfield metro station - Woodbridge was promised it's station on the line. Many residents of Prince William County may not realize that a penny tax was added to the price of their gas at the pump in 1986 with the “Then” reasoning that it was going into a fund to bring metro to Woodbridge. As the way with many taxes, if it is not absolutely pinned down and made law, that money gets used other ways. However, that was the rationale I was given on a June day in 1986 when I asked why the gas had gone up overnight, midweek. It was to pay for that expansion. I think it is high-time the Woodbridge station on the metro-line was finally built. When it was touted that the Springfield station was a great accomplishment, I for one was not impressed, I asked where & when the Woodbridge station was going to be finished. When is the Woodbridge station going to be built? Where is the Manassas station for that matter? They would have made my commute the last 25 years a lot less stressful.

  • Alex B. on September 21, 2011 at 12:13 pm (Housing is more than supply and demand)

    Rob is conflating a couple of different geographies here.

    Housing most certainly behaves like a commodity at the regional level - Adam cited the stats from The Gated City about the PHX and SF metro areas and their new housing units. You can't expect for one to add 60,000 and another to only add 5,000 and not see some constraints of supply.

    Rob attempts to rebut this with a neighborhood-level example, but that's not really disproving Avent's point. The neighborhood-by-neighborhood price dynamics are much more complicated. As TheAMT notes, policies like IZ are meant to try and address that on a case by case, project by project basis. We can argue if they're successful or not, but that's the goal. That doesn't change the fundamental need at the functional economic area of the 'city' - which is the region.

    Richard is exactly right about the need to differentiate the submarkets, both in geography and in terms of unit type.

    I guess the point of all of this is that none of the arguments Rob presents really addresses the core of Ryan Avent's argument. You can't mistake neighborhood-level change with the broader patterns.

    I'd also note that you don't have to knock everything down to add more supply. Accessory dwelling units, English Basements, alley dwellings, etc - all of those are nice and easy ways to add units without fundamentally altering the physical landscape of an established neighborhood.

  • Jason on September 21, 2011 at 12:12 pm (Housing is more than supply and demand)

    Steel and concrete construction with underground parking in a booming amenity rich neighborhood should not be expected to be of the low rent variety. That is the most expensive type of housing stock to build.

    But if enough of that “luxury” stock can be built it can satisfy a great deal of currently unmet demand. Then the older apartment stock or new “stick built” housing in adjacent neighborhoods have a better chance of having stable pricing rather than rising swiftly with the tide. Continue to build hi-rises in Noma/Navy Yard but encourage stick built in Fort Totten, Anacostia, Trindidad and Deanwood…

  • I'll be at the Thursday meeting. We NEED a strong, functioning historical society in the city.

  • HogWash on September 21, 2011 at 12:10 pm (Breakfast links: Hike)

    @Freely, since I've never seen you have anything good to say about DC, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to consider moving you and your business across one of two local state lines.

    Really, at this point it's like listening to an obese person complain that they are..well..obese..as they sit before their 3rd personal “platter” @Carmine's (of all places)! GEEZ!

  • AWalkerInTheCity on September 21, 2011 at 12:05 pm (Housing is more than supply and demand)

    1. re not a commodity. yes its true that other goods and services have complex quality distinctions and are not “commodities” (wheat itself happens to be relatively complex comapared to corn - wheat has different gluten levels, protein levels, etc - corn, at least feed corn which is most of the market, is relatively homogeneous, at least it was pre GMO) The issue with housing are the high costs of moving - both the actual physical move, the search costs, and the loss of the non market provided externalities - all the neighbors you know, etc. If for some reason I need to switch from buying black suits to buying blue suits, its no big deal. If my (lets say rental) house Clarendon is torn down for a hirise, and I have to move to Fairfax, not only is that a big chunk of money and time, but it may take me years to recreate in Fairfax the community I had in Clarendon. Thats a very rational reason for resistance to change. Its ALSO an argument for IZ.

    Richard points out that in places without height limits, IZ financed through density bonuses should be easier. Well guess what, here in NoVa, where, IIUC, Arlington and I think Fairfax do just that, theres ideological opposition. “OMG! Poor people are getting luxury amenities! Now those lazy bums will have no incentive to work!” Opposition to affordable housing programs, INCLUDING those based on density bonuses is now, IIUC, the official position of the Fairfax County GOP.

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