Do Something: The week of January 29, 2024

HousingGGWash PolicyBy Alex Baca (DC Policy Director), Dan Reed (Regional Policy Director) January 31, 2024

Image by Dan Reed.

Weekly, Regional Policy Director Dan Reed and DC Policy Director Alex Baca will share with you an action you can take in the immediate future that has the potential, sometimes great and sometimes small, to increase the number of homes in our region, decrease the trips people take by car, make all of it safer, and not screw people over in the process.

If you have any questions, email dreed@ggwash.org about Maryland and Virginia Do Somethings, and abaca@ggwash.org about Washington, DC, Do Somethings—or, about whatever you want to talk about. This week: supporting tenants who want to redevelop their building and parking reform in DC; counting building permits and a new approach to rental assistance in Maryland; and accessory apartments move forward in Virginia.

DC

I spent last Saturday in Takoma, with residents who live near the Metro station, talking about zoning, and what makes for compelling testimony to the zoning commission. When their building, Elm Gardens was put up for sale in 2021, they exercised their rights under the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, ultimately assigning them to a developer—who, in 2022, proposed a map amendment to rezone the site, from RA-1 and MU-4 to RA-3. This would have enabled the redevelopment of Elm Gardens, which is currently 36 units, into about 110 units for households earning between 30 and 80 percent of the median family income. The zoning commission, likely swayed by opposition from residents of a nearby co-op, was not so hot on this. So, in August 2023, the development team submitted a reworked project as a planned unit development necessitating a rezoning to RA-2. Considering the circumstances, this is also great—though the RA-2 designation will only allow for about 80 units, 30 fewer units than the RA-3-map-amendment version.

(That’s a considerable loss for Takoma, and the District overall. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s goal for there to be 36,000 units of new housing built here by 2025, 12,000 of which are to be income-restricted and subsidized, is broken down by planning area. Elm Gardens is in the Rock Creek East planning area, which is 70.7 percent of the way to meeting its share of income-restricted, subsidized units. That’s nothing to sneeze at, but there still needs to be 440 income-restricted, subsidized units built in Rock Creek East to meet its affordable-housing target of 1,500.)

It was very cool for me to meet some of the Elm Gardens residents, who are working on their testimony to the zoning commission in support of the PUD. They’re understandably proud of where they live, and excited about the redevelopment. Though they’ll have to temporarily move, when the project is done, they’ll have brand-new, net-zero homes with a bunch of things that don’t exist in their current building—like sprinklers, and an elevator.

The zoning commission will meet on the Elm Gardens PUD, ZC 23-19, on Thursday, February 15, 2024, at 4 pm. If you live nearby and support the project, you should submit a comment to the record saying so; either use the IZIS system, or email zcsubmissions@dc.gov. You must submit comments to the record no later than 24 hours in advance of the commission’s meeting, so your deadline is Wednesday, February 14, at 4 pm. (Do not do this if you do not live nearby!)

Also last weekend, we had our first Mid-City/Near Northwest/Rock Creek West happy hour of the year, at Grand Duchess in Adams Morgan. We hold these every other month, and Grand Duchess, which Dan can confirm is a great bar, graciously hosts us. I changed the name to reflect the relevant planning areas around Grand Duchess, which is in Mid-City and accessible to Near Northwest and Rock Creek West, because I am determined that everyone will begin to think in planning areas (which are the non-political boundaries that the District uses for, uh, planning purposes). I’ll share the date of our next MC/NN/RCW happy hour as soon as I have it.

Then, last night, I, and other supporters of the map amendment to upzone 1617 U Street, NW, and 1620 V Street, NW, testified to the zoning commission on it. I am very proud of everyone who showed up, and you can watch a recording of the meeting here. The next meeting on ZC 23-02 will be on Monday, February 12, at 4 pm; parties in opposition and opponents will testify then. If you’d like to see 1617 U upzoned from MU-4 to MU-10, there aren’t going to be any more opportunities to testify in person, but you can submit a comment to the record for as long as the case is open, through IZIS or by emailing zcsubmissions@dc.gov. Again, your comment is much more helpful if you live nearby.

Last zoning-commission thing: Next Monday, February 5, 2024, the commission will meet to consider ZC 23-17, which proposes to “reduce parking requirements for publicly assisted affordable dwelling units.” This is a good idea, and I’m planning to submit written testimony before 4 pm on Sunday, February 4, 2024. Follow the above instructions to do so yourself. Since this is a zoning text amendment, not a map amendment, it doesn’t really matter where you live! Though this would only apply to buildings that use public funding to subsidize the cost of income-restricted units, it’s a strong step to requiring less parking in new multifamily developments.

All this zoning stuff is going on at the same time as the DC Council’s performance oversight process, to which I am looking forward to redirecting my energy. Last week, I held a performance oversight training; you can watch the recording here, and I’ll get a recap up of it on the blog soon. Use the council’s new hearing management system to see hearing dates and sign up to testify for agencies’ oversight hearings.—AB

Maryland

I went to the Mid-City/Near Northwest/Rock Creek West happy hour last weekend. To be honest I felt a little sheepish about it, living in Maryland and all, but I was already in Adams Morgan and Grand Duchess is a bar worth going to if you have an excuse and Sunday from 3 to 5 pm is a fantastic time for a happy hour. See you next time?

Anyway: this has been a big week in Maryland. Taylor Swift came to Baltimore. The governor shotgunned a Twisted Tea. And I had my very first op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, co-written with our friends Jonathan Robinson and Ben Shnider, arguing that Governor Moore’s Moore Housing plan should also make it easier to build market-rate homes, not just subsidized, income-restricted affordable housing. We need both, especially given the constraints of building affordable housing and the need to build *at least* 96,000 homes to fix our housing shortage.

Let’s say it again: 96,000 homes. It’s a big number! But when will we build them, or where should they go? Moore Housing can’t happen unless Maryland holds the entities that approve housing–county and city governments–accountable. So Delegate Vaughn Stewart is sponsoring HB 131, which would require counties with over 250,000 people (aka the “Big 8”) to track how many homes they’re approving and report it to the state.

This may not sound like a big deal, but Montgomery County literally can’t do this right now. Still, we think the bill could go further and include actual housing targets for each jurisdiction, with teeth, in case a county executive decides he just doesn’t like the number. DC has a target of 36,000 homes by 2025, and is dutifully tracking its progress. It’s working. (Alex, is it working!?) Here’s our testimony.

Two more bills you can Do Something about:

HB 428/SB 370, sponsored by Stewart and Baltimore County senator Shelly Hettleman, would create a $10 million rental assistance fund that would be distributed in public schools, for students whose families are experiencing financial hardship. Moving is bad enough for a kid: new school, new teachers, new routines. It’s worse when a family moves because they can’t afford the rent. High “mobility rates” in a school are shown to hurt academic performance even for the kids who remain there. It’s a reminder that everything is a housing issue. Here’s our testimony.

HB 283/SB 333, sponsored by Hettleman and Montgomery County delegate Julie Palakovich-Carr, builds on a bill they passed two years ago making it easier for the state to use land it owns for income-restricted, affordable housing, but it didn’t say where. Their new bill directs the state to pick properties in “Priority Funding Areas.” PFAs were created in the 1990s to stop suburban sprawl: Maryland would help counties pay for things needed to support new development, like roads, but only if they were in or near already-developed areas. This bill will make sure that when new affordable housing is built, it’ll be in places where the residents can access things they need, like transportation or groceries or schools. Here’s our testimony.

SB 370 already had a hearing on January 31, but if you’d like to submit comments on these bills, here’s when to do that:

For all of these bills, just follow these 9 sort of easy steps. All you have to say is “I think [SUCH AND SUCH BILL] is good, and the [COMMITTEE IT’S IN] should give it a favorable report.”–DR

Virginia

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my brief time tracking the Virginia General Assembly, it’s that things move really really fast. Of the four bills we’re supporting alongside the Commonwealth Housing Coalition, I’ve got some good news and (sort of) bad news.

First, the bad(ish) news: SB 233–the Yes In God’s Backyard bill–got written up in the New York Times. But after a lively debate last Wednesday, the bill was referred to the General Assembly’s Housing Committee, which will make recommendations, but that’s basically it for this session. SB 430, sponsored by suburban Richmond senator Schuyler VanValkenburg, would have allowed residential or mixed-use buildings anywhere you can build shops or offices today. It’s been carried over to 2025–it’s not dead, thankfully, giving advocates another year to build support.

The good news: SB 195, also carried by VanValkenburg, would direct the government to figure out how to legalize “single-stair” apartment buildings. It’s headed to the Senate floor Wednesday, January 31 for a vote. The House version, HB 368, is still waiting for a committee hearing, which means you have a chance to show your support in the future.

And this week, House and Senate committees will review HB 900/SB 304, which would legalize accessory apartments anywhere you can build a single-family home. On Thursday, February 1 at 7 am (!), the Cities, Counties, and Towns subcommittee #2 will review the House bill, sponsored by Loudoun County delegate Kannan Srinivasan. And Monday, February 5 at 1 pm, the Local Government committee will review the Senate bill, sponsored by Fairfax County senator Saddam Salim.

If you’d like to Do Something, here are four (pretty easy) steps:

  1. Find your delegate or senator, and see if they sit on one of those two committees.
  2. If they do, email or call them to vote yes. Here are talking points and an email or call script, and contact information for both committees.
  3. If they don’t, email or call them to vote yes in the future, and you can use the links above for talking points.

When you’ve done all of that, email andrew [at] yimbyaction [dot] org (and cc me at dreed [at] ggwash [dot] org, if you can!)–DR

Your support of GGWash enables us, Dan and Alex, to do our jobs. Our jobs are knowing how development and planning works in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. If it’s appropriate to take action to advance our goals, which we hope you share, we can let you know what will have the most impact, and how to do it well. You can make a financial contribution to GGWash here.