Image courtesy of candidate's campaign.

Five candidates completed our survey for the at-large DC Council seat in play during the Democratic primary, a prerequisite to be considered for our endorsement. We were excited about the opportunity for forward-looking leadership, which this seat on the Council currently lacks. By design, at-large members should be more insulated from hyperlocal pressure points and freer to pursue a broader, citywide vision.

The answers–see all of them side by side here–didn’t fully live up to that potential. But the chance for DC voters to put a new Councilmember in a seat that has sat on progress for too long is not to be missed.

Greater Greater Washington is endorsing ANC 3/4G-01 Commissioner Lisa Gore, who offers the most on our core issues of housing, transportation, and land use, and demonstrates the greatest potential to improve on the performance of current at-large Councilmember Anita Bonds.

Gore’s background as an investigator for the Office of the Inspector General within the US Department of Housing and Urban Development prepares her well for an oversight role on the DC Council. Her responses to our questionnaire, while not always aligned with GGWash’s views, suggest she has weighed up barriers to progress on housing and transportation, and has the appetite to tackle some of them–especially when it comes to housing affordability. (While incumbent Councilmember Bonds is the chair of the Council’s housing committee, voters should remember that, should a challenger win, they will not inherit that role. Freshman councilmembers do not chair committees, and their appointments to other committees are at the discretion of the council chair.)

Housing

Gore’s focus on building subsidized, affordable housing throughout the District, particularly in high-opportunity neighborhoods that have added very few new homes, whether market-rate or subsidized, is crucial. Her thinking beyond inclusionary zoning to explore multiple tools, including changes to zoning as well as acquiring and developing more public land, demonstrates a fluency for how to tackle the challenge. Her willingness to end single-family zoning across the District suggests an interest in substantial change.

Notably, the GGWash elections committee felt, for all her strengths on subsidized affordable housing, and particularly housing for very low- and extremely low-income residents, Gore’s relative lack of discussion about the District’s overall housing shortage and the way it exacerbates the housing affordability crisis was a miss. Gore’s answers include almost all of the housing policies that receive broad agreement among the District’s progressive bloc (repairing public housing, incentivizing community land trusts, redefining area median income in the inclusionary zoning program, etc.). But she leaves out nearly any policy proposals that prompt skepticism from supply-crisis deniers (like addressing excessive public veto points for new housing, reducing the cost of new construction, or accelerating production of ADUs).

Prioritizing subsidized, affordable housing is more than appropriate given that construction of such units has disproportionately lagged behind overall production shortages. Failing to address the overall housing supply, however, will limit the impact of any subsidized housing strategy as well as leave tens of thousands of medium- to moderately-burdened residents with little relief in the face of rising rents and home prices. Gore’s lack of discussion of these issues in the survey leaves us wondering whether she is similarly skeptical of the link between supply and affordability, or is making a political calculation to avoid a divisive position. Either way, it’s disappointing.

Despite that, we are optimistic about the opportunity to work together. Gore would be a solid change to the at-large seat’s status quo, even without a committee chairperson role. Councilmember Bonds has chaired the housing committee since 2015, coinciding with an acute acceleration of the housing crisis. Yet, Bonds’s legislative output on this issue has been light, particularly in the last two council periods, and lacking any bills commensurate with the scope of the problem.

Bonds’ seeming inability to differentiate between Local Rent Supplement Program vouchers and federal vouchers distributed to D.C. residents, a distinction essential to housing affordability at the local level, and her outing of a whistleblower are recent, significant missteps. Further, the committee has functionally abdicated any attempt at meaningful oversight as scandals and mismanagement have plagued agencies that touch the District’s housing policy; behold, its FY23 budget report, particularly regarding the Department of Housing and Community Development, which makes extremely marginal, basic recommendations that the committee should have legislated years ago.

While some of Councilmember Bonds’ answers on the survey did support policy we’d love to see, such as ending single-family housing zoning and removing height and mass from the purview of historic review, we view those nods as too little, too late compared to the full body of evidence from her time on the Council.

Transportation

On transportation, Gore’s support for road pricing, bus priority lanes, and protected bike lanes, and her commitment to the “15-minute city” vision offer alignment with GGWash’s priorities.

Her idea to use a share of potential road pricing (also known as congestion pricing) revenue as “funding for businesses to thrive in a car-free environment” shows an alignment with the ultimate goal of reducing car trips as well a pragmatic instinct for how to proactively clear potential political hurdles.

We were thrilled to see her selection of Martin Luther King Avenue SE as a candidate for a comprehensive safety redesign, including new pedestrian, bus, and bike improvements. Despite seeing a disproportionate share of drivers injure or kill others compared to other parts of the District, Ward 8 continues to lag in safe-streets infrastructure, in large part because of the direct disapproval of Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White. Interest in road safety from at-large members could help mediate this.

Overall, each candidate’s responses had some strengths and some weaknesses, but Gore showed the most consistency and alignment on our issues to earn a clear nod over her competitors.

Visit our 2022 elections hub, where you’ll find candidates’ responses to our questionnaire, information about who we are endorsing, how we arrived at our decision, recordings of our candidate forums (including an at-large candidate forum!), and ways you can get involved.