The corner of 14th and U streets NW by Tim Brown licensed under Creative Commons.

As part of its sweeping District-wide planning overhaul process, DC Council took a vote Tuesday that could set the stage for more housing along the U Street Corridor.

The Council voted unanimously Tuesday to pass the first of two votes for a long-awaited update to the Comprehensive Plan, the document that guides growth and land use across the District.

During that session, Ward 1 councilmember Brianne Nadeau introduced an amendment to the Future Land Use Map (FLUM), which doesn’t change zoning but does guide future zoning and land use decisions. Her amendment, which passed 12-1, changes the land use designations for some DC-owned properties along U Street to allow for dense housing development.

Nadeau said in the council session that the move could open the door to building desperately needed deeply affordable housing, affordable and available to residents with very low incomes.

“We have a limited but critical opportunity to utilize District-owned land along U Street in one of the most rapidly gentrifying zip codes in the country,” Nadeau said.

Two sites were amended Tuesday to allow for more density: the Engine 9 fire station and Metropolitan Police 3rd District headquarters at 17th and U Streets; and the Housing Finance Agency headquarters where U Street meets Florida Avenue NW.

Those two amended sites join the Reeves Center at 14th and U Street, which already got a density boost in the committee print. According to Nadeau’s amendment, all three sites are slated for redevelopment.

One more site, the former Shaw Middle School at Garnet-Patterson, was nixed after council members raised objections, though Nadeau indicated she might bring it back for the second vote after allowing for further community discussion.

Why upping the density on these sites matters

Boosting density on District-owned land has the potential to create more affordable housing than on private property.

It’s not just that owning the land gives DC more control over development projects. It’s that by law, multifamily housing construction on District-owned land has to include at least 30% permanently affordable housing.

A portion of that housing is required to be affordable to very low-income households, those making less than 30% of the area median income. Housing construction for that population is sorely needed; according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, DC only has 50 available and affordable homes for every 100 very low-income households.

Nadeau said upping the density could also make it easier for DC to build combination public facilities and housing — a library with affordable housing on top, for example.

Councilmembers said building affordable housing takes on particular meaning around U Street, where gentrification has rapidly changed the corridor once known as Black Broadway. At-large Councilmember Elissa Silverman said she was “shocked” to see the change in the neighborhood during a recent visit to nearby Shaw.

“If we really want an inclusive, affordable city for everyone, including Black families, Latino families, families who make wages at the CVS at the corner of 11th and U … then we’ve got to build housing for these families,” Silverman said.

Council chair Phil Mendelson was the only member to vote against the amendment, saying the higher density would be “out of scale” with surrounding buildings. But Nadeau argued that variations in scale are an “essential component” of that part of DC, and Silverman pointed out that more density makes sense for a major commercial corridor.

What this vote means for the future of U Street

The Comp Plan amendment process isn’t quite over yet. The Council has to vote on it a second time before it heads to the mayor’s desk.

But even once all is said and done, higher FLUM density designations don’t mean a ten-story building is going to pop up on U Street tomorrow. Think of it as necessary, but not sufficient: you can’t get dense housing construction approved unless it’s in the Comp Plan first, but the Comp Plan itself doesn’t make it happen.

“It’s not like a glass block is going to get dropped on these sites,” Councilmember Charles Allen said of Nadeau’s amendment. “We’re not even changing the zoning, we’re allowing the possibility.”

It’s also not clear that the sites would necessarily be as dense as the FLUM allows, because they would be subject to other guidance around setbacks and concentrating density toward U Street.

But supporters argued that given DC’s affordable housing shortage, the District shouldn’t be limiting how much housing it can build on the limited parcels of land it owns.

“I don’t want to look back a couple years from now and realize I could have done more to advance the cause of affordable housing in Ward 1,” Nadeau said.