Andrew Trueblood, a former director of the D.C. Workplace of Planning, is the principal of Trueblood.metropolis, a housing, financial growth and land-use coverage agency, and a nonresident fellow on the City Institute.
Washington, D.C
Opinion | Reinvigorating downtown D.C. with a monumentally modest adjustment
We now have realized quite a bit for the reason that late 1800s, together with the right way to struggle fires in buildings taller than 12 tales. And whereas each different American and world metropolis moved on with time, D.C. has saved its peak restrict at 130 toes (about 12 tales) in most components of downtown, although buildings of as much as 160 toes are allowed alongside the north aspect of Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol and White Home. The Peak of Buildings Act turned regulation when the town was below congressional authority, and it was protected below federal regulation after the District gained house rule.
Over this time, a downtown that had three- to eight-story buildings (a few of which you’ll be able to nonetheless see on the 900 block of F Avenue NW) turned an expansive space of huge low-slung workplace buildings constructed to the federal restrict. This single-use industrial core has supplied vital property and gross sales taxes, buttressing D.C.’s fiscal stability and its capability to fund quite a few social packages over the previous few a long time. But, given the realities of immediately’s distant workplaces, it has shortly turn into a fiscal legal responsibility for the District and an much more desolate place.
In her third inaugural deal with, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) made downtown revitalization, together with the addition of 15,000 residents, a vital purpose. She adopted up with particulars in D.C.’s Comeback Plan, which incorporates proposals aimed toward serving to deal with the way forward for a central enterprise district that suffered considerably within the coronavirus pandemic and had been combating emptiness for years.
Extra housing downtown would assist enhance the vibrancy and financial system of the world, deal with the ailing workplace market and supply much-needed housing for the District and the encompassing area. It will assist meet the mayor’s broader housing targets and regional housing targets. And since D.C. is the middle of the area and wealthy in transit choices, it’s also the greenest approach to assist wanted progress given the comparatively decrease carbon footprint of dense city residing.
But the economics and logistics of changing workplace into housing imply that, with out coverage intervention, it is just taking place in choose, distinctive circumstances. That’s the reason the mayor’s Comeback Plan acknowledges {that a} vital obstacle to creating extra housing is that the core of the town is constructed out with workplace buildings to the utmost density achievable below the federal limits. It recommends “elevated density allowances, through modifications to zoning and federal statute, to allow buildings in focused areas to be as tall as current buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue, to encourage conversion or residential building and growth of vibrant residential nodes.”
The Peak of Buildings Act has lengthy acknowledged {that a} small quantity of extra peak alongside the enduring Pennsylvania Avenue highlights that hall as monumental. So fastidiously making use of this concept of extra peak to different main corridors and concrete parks would enhance the city design of the town with out impeding current views or considerably altering the skyline. (Folks can’t simply discern the 2 or three extra tales that will be attainable with 30 extra toes.) As essential, it might assist extra residents residing downtown, bettering the town the place we expertise it most: on the bottom stage.
The important thing to making sure broad advantages from that extra peak is to regulate zoning such that it might solely be accessible to residential buildings that meet (or exceed) the inclusionary zoning inexpensive housing necessities. Inclusionary zoning has been important in supporting inexpensive housing alternatives throughout D.C., nevertheless it has by no means utilized to downtown. It’s because this system was designed to offset the extra prices of making inexpensive items by means of permitting extra density on a venture, however the federal peak restrict prevented that extra density downtown. Further constructing peak would permit for the extra density, offering downtown properties for hundreds of recent residents, together with low-income residents.
Some would possibly argue that it’s unrealistic to get alignment from Congress, the D.C. Council and the Nationwide Capital Planning Fee. However in previous debates, the answer was not as easy or focused and there was not such a dire want. Given the potential advantages, with somewhat visualization, policymakers would come to see the worth of this strategy. For the primary time, we may make a regionally pushed choice to fastidiously form our constructing heights in a fashion that respects what has turn into an iconic skyline whereas sculpting it in a manner that helps a extra vibrant, equitable and sustainable downtown.