Breakfast links: Two Amazon hubs, two very different political responses
Image by Woogers licensed under Creative Commons.
Northern Virginia politicians are welcoming Amazon, unlike New York
City and state politicians in New York are publicly criticizing the deal to bring Amazon to Long Island City, while the Virginia legislature quickly passed a $750 million incentive progam for the tech company which Governor Ralph Northam signed on Tuesday. (Rachel Kurzius / DCist, Katie Arcieri / WBJ)
President Trump had no new details on infrastructure or transportation last night
At the 2019 State of the Union, the president only briefly said that he would be “eager to work” on new infrastructure legislation, without naming any projects to work on, setting aside any new funding, or laying out any policy priorities for Congress to follow. (Sam Mintz / Politico)
Silver Line Phase II is testing its rails with train cars
Train cars are being used to “polish” the third rail by rolling on the track around the Dulles Airport Station. It's the first of many tests leading up to the opening of the next segment of the Silver Line in 2020. (Max Smith / WTOP)
Upzoning is still an important part of growing a city
A recent study in Chicago called into question the effectiveness of upzoning in increasing housing supply and lowering costs. Reforming zoning alone cannot solve a housing crises, but it is a necessary tool for encouraging desired land uses and enabling other policies that make housing more affordable. (Alex Baca and Hannah Lebovits / CityLab)
Should DC have an independent housing authority agency?
DC Councilmember Brianne Nadeau put forward a bill to dissolve the Housing Authority and move public housing administration into the Mayor's office. DCHA recently admitted that many of its units are poor condition and need urgent or very urgent repairs. (Morgan Baskin / City Paper)
Developers in Mount Vernon Triangle want to swap housing units for a hotel
The developers of Capital Crossing in downtown DC want to turn the 150 apartments they had originally planned in the building into a hotel instead. They're offering to fund an existing project by another company to build 101 units of affordable housing at Buzzard Point in exchange. (Nena Perry-Brown / Urban Turf)
Fort Dupont will not lose funding and sports betting is speeding ahead
The DC Council agreed to skip the normal contract bidding process and give the city's new sports betting contract to Intralot, which runs the DC Lottery. The council also delayed a vote that would have taken money from the Fort Dupont Ice Arena to pay for a DCPS project, saying they would find funding for both. (Fenit Nirappil / Post)
A White Oak apartment building has thousands of code violations
Montgomery County housing inspectors found more than 2,500 housing code violations in the 829 unit Enclave building, including mold and mice problems. The owners have said they will fix everything. If they don't, the county can start fining them for each violation later this month. (Caitlynn Peetz / Bethesda Beat)
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