The Shaw neighborhood in DC by Ted Eytan licensed under Creative Commons.

On Thursday, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser sent the full set of her administration’s final Comprehensive Plan amendments to the council. Office of Planning officials had previously stated that they would have amendments to the Comp Plan ready by mid-April, so the city has met its own deadline.

The package includes OP’s final amendments to the document and the Future Land Use Map, as well as a staff report and copies of public review comments and ANC resolutions. You can access everything on planddc.dc.gov (scroll down to the bottom right for links to all of the above).

As you’ve maybe, possibly read on GGWash before, this cycle of amending the Comp Plan started during Bowser’s first term, under then-planning director Eric Shaw. After nearly two years; many, many hours of public discussion, including a monster hearing; Shaw’s departure from OP, which is now headed by Andrew Trueblood; and a very long rest at the council, the council voted unanimously in favor of an amended Framework element of the Comprehensive Plan in October 2019.

The majority of lawsuits against new developments in DC rested on text from the “old” Framework, as well as definitions and designations on the Future Land Use Map. Those lawsuits stalled the delivery of several thousand housing units, which, regardless of whether you believe that new construction makes a place more affordable or not, is not something that any mayor of any American city in the late aughts would be in favor of. Coincidentally, the Comp Plan was opened for amendments in 2017, and OP and, subsequently, the council, took up the Framework specifically.

The amended Framework’s language favors development, recognizes that development is essential to making housing more affordable, and requires the city to consider the implications of development, including displacement, on District residents. Yes, of course, we like it.

But the Framework isn’t the only part of the Comp Plan, and the process of amending the Comp Plan didn’t end when the Framework passed. In addition to the Framework, there are 11 citywide elements and 10 area elements, the FLUM, and the Generalized Policy Map.

This is a very fun and easy-to-read document, which I love very much and find very compelling. Just kidding! Actually, I’m not kidding. OP released its proposed amendments to the existing Comp Plan last October; I read through and wrote about the proposed amendments to the housing, land use, and historic preservation sections throughout the fall and winter.

GGWash submitted comments on those proposed amendments by the deadline for public comments in January. We also signed onto comments submitted by the Housing Priorities Coalition. A good number of GGWash readers sent in commentsif you did, I can’t thank you enough. And Advisory Neighborhood Commissions had until Feb. 14 to submit their resolutions.

OP modified its proposed amendments based on that public input. A final version of OP’s amendments is what the mayor sent to the council.

What’s next?

The council will take up the Comp Plan at, um, some point. It was already questionable whether the council would hold a hearing for it before or after the budget, which is typically released in April, or before or after summer recess, which starts in June. Covid-19 has totally screwed up that timeline, as well as DC’s fiscal resources. Understandably, the council is likely to be focused on getting a functional budget passed, rather than line-editing close to a thousand pages of land-use wonkery.

But at some point, there will be another hearing, and councilmembers will be able to meddle with the text based on what they believe, and what they hear from constituents. There will, of course, be pressure to meet the mayor’s stated goal of 36,000 new units of housing by 2025 (which researchers from Howard University and the District’s Office of Revenue recently concluded could “save an additional $1,932 in housing costs in 2025 relative to the counterfactual of a much slower annual increase in the housing supply”).

And, since comprehensive plans are guiding documents, many of the themes that are addressed in the Comp Plan will have an particular relevance now that we are looking at a downturn.

Chief among those themes are resiliency, which is more than just natural disasters, and equity. OP released a “crosswalk” analysis of both those themes, which identify how they are situated throughout all chapters of the Comp Plan. Also of interest right now is how the Comp Plan describes economic development, which has not historically been executed in a way that accounts for the racial, economic, and geographic disparities in access and wealth both in the US and in the District specifically.

Actions that the city takes, especially with regard to land use, development, and housing, cannot conflict with the Comp Plan. So while the Comp Plan can’t really do anything on its own, because it’s not a self-executing document, what it says matters a great deal to whether we hamstring future policy, or not. That’s even more intense now that the most conventional way of addressing a contentious issue—paying for it with a line item in a budget—is out of reach.

So, as always, it’s important that you contact your councilmember right away to say what you’d like to see in the Comp Plan text, as well as the Future Land Use Map (you can read about why the FLUM matters on its own here).

Feel free to take cues from things that we’ve written previously; we’ve, for several years, focused on asking OP and the council to eliminate language in the Comp Plan that protects historically privileged parts of the city from new development. We also believe the proven link between building more places for people to live, which requires some low-density areas to accommodate some higher-density new construction, and more modest rents and home prices. Finally, we think that the city should explicitly acknowledge what in its past land-use policies has forced people out, restricted their access, or otherwise caused harm, and redress that to the extent that it can in a document like the Comp Plan.

Or, just write what you feel. Email early, and often.

Also released by OP yesterday was a report on single-family zoning in the District. This report was required by an amendment made to the text of the Framework bill by Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, which said:

Upon submission of amendments to the Land Use Element of the Comprehensive Plan, the Office of Planning shall provide to the Council additional guidance on the following:

  1. Options for increasing the variety of housing types in areas zoned for single-family detached and semi-detached housing; and
  1. The implications on equity and affordability of allowing small multifamily buildings in all residential zones

I have not yet read everything that OP has put out, but I’ll be writing about it as I do, and will also be working on what we’ll ask the council to add or subtract from OP’s amendments. In the meantime, you can read Alex Koma’s thorough story for the Washington Business Journal.

We’ll share with you how we’re taking action soon. In the meantime, feel free to email your councilmember, as well as Chairman Phil Mendelson and at-large councilmembers Anita Bonds, David Grosso, Elissa Silverman, and Robert White, to let them know your thoughts, and suggest that they and their staff read OP’s report on single-family zoning in full.

Alex Baca is the DC Policy Director at GGWash. Previously the engagement director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth and the general manager of Cuyahoga County's bikesharing system, she has also worked in journalism, bike advocacy, architecture, construction, and transportation in DC, San Francisco, and Cleveland. She has written about all of the above for CityLab, Slate, Vox, Washington City Paper, and other publications.