Why upzoning in gentrifying neighborhoods like Langley Park isn’t always a good idea

Editor’s note: See an opinion piece published in response to this article.

Last month, tenants in Langley Park held a press conference to oppose a Prince George’s County proposal to upzone their neighborhood. Langley Park’s tenants were joined by CASA, an immigrant advocacy organization, but they also got a verbal boost from the Coalition for Smarter Growth (CSG), a non-profit that usually advocates for upzoning in neighborhoods like Langley Park that are near public transportation.

Some advocates were surprised by the Coalition’s support, but they shouldn’t be. As Cheryl Cort, policy director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth told me: “Before we upzone, protections should be in place to not put residents at further risk.” Upzoning supporters increasingly recognize that upzoning isn’t right for every neighborhood. If increasing density limits are likely to increase rents, cause displacement, or disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, municipal governments should avoid it. Langley Park, in Prince George’s County, is one such neighborhood.

The argument for upzoning

When a government changes zoning rules to permit “higher value or more dense use” it’s called upzoning. In US cities upzoning usually refers to raising density limits in areas zoned for residential use. If a neighborhood zoned for single-family homes were upzoned, for example, developers could build duplexes, fourplexes, and apartment buildings.

Advocates of upzoning have varied goals. Environmentalists often see upzoning as a way to reduce greenhouse gases. Urban planners believe it will make suburban areas more walkable. YIMBYs (Yes in my backyard) think upzoning will solve two problems many metro areas face—inadequate supply of housing and affordability. YIMBYs believe the first problem begets the second because housing shortages disrupt filtering, the process by which homes become more affordable as they age and depreciate in value. When housing is scarce, higher-income folks end up buying/renting homes that lower-income people would usually take.

Many of these groups also believe low-density residential zones were created to benefit white homeowners at the expense of Black, Latinx, and Asian homeowners. When most modern zoning ordinances were written in the early 1900s, for example, white power brokers knew that non-white families tended to have lower incomes than comparably sized white families, so they zoned their neighborhoods to prevent more affordable forms of housing, like duplexes, from being built. For these groups, upzoning is a way to right an historical wrong.

Given these views, advocates often focus on upzoning white, wealthy neighborhoods. In Silver Spring, for example, proponents have pushed to upzone neighborhoods near downtown Silver Spring, like Woodside Park, where the average house sells for over $800,000.

Recalibrating upzoning

Many YIMBYs believe upzoning should occur in as many low-density residential neighborhoods as possible. And, they are willing to play bare knuckle politics to make it happen. But in their zeal, YIMBY’s sometimes earn the ire of some housing advocates who argue YIMBYs often refuse to engage with low-income residents who believe new housing in their neighborhoods will hasten displacement.

Some groups also take issue with YIMBY’s aggressive tactics because they can disrupt the delicate balance these groups must strike between city councils, affordable housing developers, and wealthier residents to protect affordable housing. Tenant groups also argue that YIMBYs often treat them as enemies, and point to cases where YIMBY activists have undermined tenant groups.

Underlying these disputes are demographic differences and lived experiences. YIMBYs are often white, young professionals while low-income tenants tend to be more diverse including older, black and/or Latinx populations. The term YIMBY is often used rather loosely, but some groups within this admittedly broad category have taken these criticisms to heart. Others, like the Coalition for Smarter Growth, have been sensitive to these issues for a long time.

Why upzoning isn’t right for Langley Park

To be fair, none of the above means that Prince George’s County is wrong to update its zoning codes. There are good reasons for the county and the region to make updates that favor upzoning. Although Prince George’s County has 15 metro stations, development around them has lagged behind other suburban jurisdictions in the metro area.

Upzoning will make development near metro stations easier and more attractive. It will also allow for more walkable neighborhoods in a county that remains car centric. Regionally, upzoning also will help the area meet what is currently a major housing shortage.

In many ways, Langley Park seems tailor made for upzoning. When the Purple Line is completed, it will lie between two purple line stations. It would, therefore, be an ideal place to build dense housing and cut down on car use in the region. The area is already walkable (and bustling with activity), so denser development would be good news for businesses that lost revenue during the pandemic.

But, upzoning isn’t right for Langley Park

Langley Park is a low-income neighborhood with a large, socially vulnerable population. Upwards of 80% of its residents are Hispanic or Latino, and many of those are undocumented. Almost 90% of households speak a language other than English. Over 45% of the population under 65 does not have health insurance. And, the area’s poverty rate (19%) is more than double the county’s rate (8%).

Langley Park’s tenants are also vulnerable because many residents live in aging buildings that suffer from disinvestment from landlords. I’ve written severalposts about Bedford and Victoria Station apartments tenants’ struggle with their absentee landlord who refuses to fix ongoing leaks, treat rodent infestations, and replace broken heating and cooling systems. In July several residents of the complex filed suit against the owners of their building claiming the Bedford and Victoria Station apartments homes “have been neglected as part of a systemic confluence of policies to commoditize and harvest profits in low-income neighborhoods while delaying reasonable management or maintenance of properties until strategically and financially beneficial to shareholders, all to the detriment of the tenants.”

And while the residential apartment buildings in Langley Park are in poor shape, the land underneath them has value and will likely increase once Purple Line stations are completed. If the area is upzoned, the value of the land will be even greater. As a result, potential buyers would have even more incentive to raze the existing garden style apartments and replace them with new apartment buildings with more total units.

There are good reasons not to upzone Langley Park right now. If Langley Park’s tenants lose their homes en-mass and within a short time frame, it will have dangerous knock-on effects for the county, including homelessness, increased poverty, education loss for young people, and increasing domestic violence. There’s also a moral argument to be made. Langley Park’s tenants have been asking the county do something about its slumlords for years.

While they waited, their landlord has charged them as much as $1,500 a month to live in rodent infested units with collapsing ceilings, broken appliances, and mold. The county didn’t create this problem, but it hasn’t fixed it either, and arguably let it get worse as a consequence. Upzoning would amount to a pile on these tenants don’t deserve.

How to fix this mess

In the heated debates about upzoning between NIMBYs and YIMBYs, it’s often easy to lose sight of a bigger picture. Upzoning isn’t right for Langley Park tenants right now, but preventing it won’t solve their problems either. The county needs a multi-pronged approach to help these tenants and other vulnerable residents like them.

The Coalition for Smarter Growth recommends that as part of the county’s new zoning maps (the Countywide Map Amendment or CMA) approval, two areas with designated local transit centers — the Takoma/Langley and Landover — should be be put into zones that roughly correspond to their existing zone density. These zones could then be changed after the county develops an affordable housing strategy.

So, how to do this while also helping Langley Park’s current tenants. For starters, Prince George’s needs to beef up its housing enforcement office with more staff. It also needs to sharpen its enforcement tools. Prince George’s County has a rent escrow program for tenants living in properties with major housing code violations, for example, but it lacks teeth. It should model its program on the one run in Los Angeles. There, properties with major code violations are automatically enrolled in the program. And until their properties are brought up to code, tenants’ rent not only go into escrow, but are also discounted (between 10 and 50%).

The county may also want to consider lawsuits. DC Attorney General Karl Racine just successfully sued to have a Columbia Heights landlord pay $640,000 in restitution to tenants living in deplorable conditions. And, he used consumer protection laws to make it work. Bedford and Victoria Stations tenants are currently suing their landlord, but they shouldn’t have to bear the legal burden alone.

As the county pursues more equitable development, they should also consider how tax receipts from increasing land and real property taxes are distributed going forward. Right now, the dominant mechanism for redistribution is inclusionary zoning, but that isn’t sufficient to solve the problem. Prince George’s County might decide to use community land trusts, for example, or amend its right of first refusal law (ROFR)to include a process for demolition permits (this would allow the county to step in when an owner intends to demolish a low-income building and assign the rights to a qualified developer who will replace or refurbish low-income units). The county could also increase funds allocated to its new Housing Trust Fund.

The time is ripe for change. As the Coalition’s Cheryl Cort told me, “we can’t get back the density given away and lower cost apartments lost near the Prince George’s Plaza [metro stop]. Most of it’s gone now. But, [we] can do something in Langley Park.”