Category Archives: Data

Development analysis, reporting, data sheets, surveys, facts.

DC’s Unaffordable “Affordable” Housing Problem

Leave a reply

In this post, we will explore why DC’s “affordable” housing is not affordable for most working families and residents in DC.

In DC, “affordability” presents us a math problem that most people just don’t have the time or care to figure out. We hear the word “affordable” and everything must be all good. It’s not.

What is DC’s affordability problem?

DC’s “affordability” is calculated using the Area Median Income (“AMI”) or the functional equivalent Median Family Income (“MFI”).

The AMI is based on the incomes of working residents in the DMV region including the District of Columbia, Northern Virginia, and parts of Maryland.

In fact, the AMI includes incomes of some of the wealthiest people in the United States like residents in Fairfax County, VA and Montgomery County, MD. And more and more wealthy people are moving into the region and they are making more and more take home money every year.

Thus in 2023-2024, the AMI for our region is $152k/yr for a family of four. For a household of one (a single person), the AMI is $106k/yr.

Source: Webpage, “2023-2024 Inclusionary Zoning Maximum Income, Rent and Purchase Price Schedule” at the DC Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) Wesbite, https://dhcd.dc.gov/publication/2023-2024-inclusionary-zoning-maximum-income-rent-and-purchase-price-schedule

There are three critical issues (among others) using DMV’s AMI to calculate DC’s “affordable” housing:

The AMI increases annually, thus DC’s overall affordability decreases each year.

  • In 2017, a single person household making $62k/yr could qualify for one of DC’s “affordable” studio/one bedrooms. Now in 2023-24, an individual making $85k/yr can qualify for an “affordable” studio/one-bedroom housing unit in DC. Thus, the limited pool of “affordable” units becomes less and less accessible by lower-income residents.

Source: Testimony in Zoning Case 23-02, Exhibit No. 558, at page 4, by Save DC Public Land, citing to the DHCD affordability matrices from 2017 and 2022 contrasting annually decreasing affordability, https://app.dcoz.dc.gov/CaseReport/ViewExhibit.aspx?exhibitId=331135

The city is producing housing that is unaffordable for most people and non-existent for families, yet calling it all affordable housing.

  • More than half of DC’s “affordable” units are for individuals making 80% of the AMI and by the math problem this mean “affordable” housing for individuals making $85k/yr.
  • The vast majority of “affordable” units in DC are for single residents (studios/one-bedrooms), with almost no units for families of three or more.

Source: Report, “Inclusionary Zoning Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2022” published by the DC Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) and submitted to the DC Ctiy Council by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser on April 12, 2023, https://dhcd.dc.gov/node/1655696

The AMI doesn’t consider DC’s minimum wage or immense racial wealth gap.

  • DC residents making the minimum wage are making about $33k/yr.
  • The median household income for DC’s white residents, at $149k/yr, is over three times higher than the median income of DC’s Black residents, which is $50k/yr (pre-pandemic).

Source: Report, “D.C. Racial Equity Profile for Economic Outcomes” published by the DC Council Office on Racial Equity and the DC Policy Center dated January 2021, https://www.dcracialequity.org/dc-racial-equity-profile

Conclusion: DC’S “AFFORDABILITY” POLICY IS BROKEN!

DC’s Affordability Policy Based on the “AMI” is Broken

Leave a reply

During the pandemic in 2022, GGW’s Libby Solomon covered how DC’s “affordability” index is based on the DMV’s ever increasing Area Median Income (“AMI”). See here: https://ggwash.org/view/81935/here-are-dcs-new-affordable-housing-income-limits-for-2021

However, what GGW consistently forgets to do is make some solid conclusions that may help the people struggling to stay in their hometown of DC. For example, using Ms. Solomon’s insights and links in her post above combined with the data points below (all cited and sourced to original DC government reports), we conclude:

DC’S AFFORDABILITY POLICY IS BROKEN

  1. Any “affordability” policy in DC that relies on the annually increasing Area Median Income (“AMI”) or functional equivalent Median Family Income (“MFI”) is broken;
  2. The policy and results become more and more broken as wealthy residents in the region become wealthier and as the DMV welcomes more and more new wealthy people.
  3. As the AMI continues to trend upwards, DC becomes less affordable and gentrification increases. This means the growing displacement of lower income residents which pushes up the AMI even faster fueling even more gentrification.

Looking at the AMI Numbers — DC’s affordability is becoming less and less affordable as the AMI increases annually

See the following data points over time:

Year; AMI
2011; 106,100
2013; 107,300
2015; 108,600
2018; 117,200
2020; 126,000
2021; 129,000
2022; 142,300
2023; 152,100

Conclusion:

Between 2013 to 2023, the AMI has increased $44,800, a 42.2% increase over ten years. This means the available pool of “affordable” units becomes less and less accessible by those who need it most as wealthier DC residents (those making more than two to three times the minimum wage) can qualify for DC’s limited supply of so-called “affordable” housing units.

The U.S. Census numbers show the results: A substantial number of lower income families and residents have been displaced from the city (60,000 Black residents over the past two decades) under DC’s current broken “affordability” policy based on the ever increasing “AMI.”

Ward One leads in Black displacement, with 25% of the Black population made gone over the past ten years as the AMI is really just starting to soar.

AMI Sources:

Colby King

Colby King on Black Displacement from Washington D.C.

Leave a reply

“The most destructive force to strike my native District of Columbia in my lifetime has been displacement: the forced removal of Black families and their community-binding activities and institutions from areas such as the Foggy Bottom and West End neighborhoods of Northwest D.C. and the southwest side of town. Displacement of thousands from places they had lived for generations to make room for new housing, better buildings and ultimately more affluent and privileged people.”  

Opinion, “D.C. shoved Black neighborhoods aside. It’s still paying the price” by Colbert I. King, published in the Washington Post on January 19, 2024, https://archive.ph/5gxwK

The city's “poor folk [are being forced] out of their neighborhoods” by the city's “active role in development, selling or leasing publicly owned land, changing zoning laws, closing alleys and providing developers with inducements to construct new — or refurbish old — buildings … with resultant racial and class tensions.”

Opinion, “Quit the posturing in the Banneker-Shaw school dispute” by Colbert I. King on May 24, 2019 in the Washington Post, https://archive.ph/OSHig

“The city's growing tax base of middle-class couples and singles makes D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams giddy. The sight of “undesirable” neighborhoods being rapidly transformed into places where wealthier folks want to live makes Williams go weak in the knees. These changes are just what the mayor, his economic planners and his business friends ordered. Besides, there's no time for the displaced. The mayor's too busy with the National League of Cities and, when he's home, being wined and dined in glitzy downtown restaurants, Georgetown salons and the homes of folks he never thought he would meet when he was laboring as an Agriculture Department bureaucrat. The whole thing has turned his head. So what if booming property values and a richer downtown cultural life aren't doing much for renters or the evicted?”  

Opinion, “Turning a Deaf Ear to the Displaced” by Colby King dated January 8, 2005, published by the Washington Post,  https://archive.ph/ps8ft#selection-949.33-949.846




Sources:

Census 2020 :: Black Displacement from DC by Ward

DC Census Shocker: Ward 1 Shows Profuse Black Displacement While Ward 3 Has Grown in Black Population; Rest of City (except Wards 7, 8) Loses Significant Numbers of Black Residents & Families

Leave a reply

When the 2020 US Census numbers were published in 2021, local press guise the massive displacement of Black folks from D.C. as “integration” or “growing diversity” (over past 2 decades, 60k Black folks have been made gone from the city).

Also notably missing in any local census analysis is the fact that the ward scapegoated for being exclusive and segregated was one of two wards that increased in Black residents over the past 10 years.

CENSUS 2020 (WARD LEVEL)

DC lost 20,000 (-6%) Black population in the last decade by Ward,  Lost Black population:

  • Ward 1, -6,000, -24%
  • Ward 2, -3,100, -32%,
  • Ward 4, -7,200, -16% 
  • Ward 5, -5,300,   -9%
  • Ward 6, -3,200, -10%
  • Ward 7,  (0),  0%

    Gained Black population — Ward 3, +2,000, +58%  –Ward 8, +3,000,   +5%

In response to all the amazing comments to this post

Here are some of the key sources we can relay that support the Census chart demonstrated above and showing that Ward 3 increased in Black residents while the rest of the city (except Wards 7 and 8) saw the startling displacement of longtime residents who identify as “Black-alone” on the 2020 US Census.

First, going to OP’s index of all the sources regarding the 2020 census >> https://planning.dc.gov/publication/2020-census-information-and-data

From the OP index and one table in, find this chart.

Using the charts from OP, review the 2020 DC Census by Ward analysis provided by Blaine Stum, The Legislative Policy Advisor for the Office of Chairman Phil Mendelson :: https://mobile.twitter.com/Blaine_Stum/status/1425885669113712651

Then below, find snapshots of the US Census website demonstrating the startling numbers of DC Black displacement which you can access here >> https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/race-and-ethnicity-in-the-united-state-2010-and-2020-census.html

​​​

Also to note among the Census data points is the racial wealth income gap, a stark reality for those living and working in D. See the Washington Post Analysis, Economy, “The black-white economic divide is as wide as it was in 1968, Economy” By Heather Long and Andrew Van Dam, dated June 4, 2020, “… [T]he gap between the finances of blacks and whites is still as wide in 2020 as it was in 1968, when a run of landmark civil rights legislation culminated in the Fair Housing Act in response to centuries of unequal treatment of African Americans in nearly every part of society and business.” https://archive.ph/thnvI#selection-1621.0-1621.303

Moreover, there are 40,000+ vacant housing units conservatively citywide and likely more now!

(AOBA report 2019-2021 at p.13). Imagine now, how and why the blue-ist city in the nation can define “Housing Affordability” as a housing unit affordable for an individual making 120K/yr.

It is a preeminent policy failure that harms Black DC and increases displacement pressures each time you hear a developer, the Mayor, anyone say they are constructing “affordable housing.” See more here >> https://twitter.com/dc4reality/status/1624111925494706177

Build-Baby-Build

Compare and Contrast: Growth & Displacement

Leave a reply

Recently, the Mayor’s Office of Planning proudly announced that the city has started growing in population again.

There are apparently 3,000 new people in DC than there was in July 2021, pointing to U.S. Census numbers.

The local media quickly got-in-with-the-spin by parroting the executive to help spread the amazing word of D.C.’s “comeback.”

  • “U.S. Census Bureau Numbers Show DC’s Population Stabilizing”
    Prince Of Petworth, December 23, 2022
  • D.C. Sees Slight Population Increase After Two Years Of Decline
    WAMU, Jenny Garthright, Dec 26, 2022
  • D.C.’s population grew last year, reversing pandemic-related decline
    Washington Post, Fredrick Kunkle, December 23, 2022

Interestingly, it is the Federal City Council propped “think tank”, the DC Policy Center that checks the Mayor’s announcement pointing out there is still a net migration of single wealthy professionals (“urbanists”) to lands beyond the District and that the “new people” that are “stabilizing” DC’s population loss are likely babies.

Compare and contrast the recent heralding of new DC babies to two other data points:

D.C. isn’t constructing family sized units (3+ bedrooms) — Nearly 98% of all new housing units built in DC over the past 20 years are studio/1bdrm/2bdrm units (not family sized).

Many of the new young people who moved into the city over the past decade have hooked up, gotten hitched, and are starting families. With DC’s severe limits to DC’s unoccupied single family housing stock coupled with the almost zero new construction of family sized units, many newly productive DC families are leaving the city to raise their children.

What of the voluminous displacement of Black residents apparent with each major Census update ?

Contrast the recent DC baby news with the fact that the Mayor never puts out any press releases telling the tale of displacement of Black DC and working-families (maybe because its the policies of the city directly responsible for the harm). Instead, when the Census pops showing the horrible numbers of those being shown the door (60,000 Black folks made gone from the city over the past two Census cycles), the Mayor’s Office of Planning tried to spin this displacement as “choice.”

That is, the Mayor’s “planning” officials are suggesting DC’s vulnerable communities are leaving their Chocolate City, their homes, their families simply because they seek greener pastures. And, the local media went right along with this terrible trope, going further and suggesting that the Census shows better integration of the city (more mixing of races in DC’s neighborhoods).

Who do you believe it serves to champion population growth in DC while simultaneously downplaying the harms or worse rewriting the reality of displacement for tens of thousands of working families and Black residents who cannot afford the real estate speculation gold rush over the past two decades?!?

ARTICLES ABOUT GROWTH AND DISPLACEMENT OVER THE LAST SEVERAL YEARS IN REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER:

D.C.’s population grew last year, reversing pandemic-related decline
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/12/23/dc-census-2022-growth/
By Fredrick Kunkle
December 23, 2022 at 8:00 a.m. EST

D.C. Sees Slight Population Increase After Two Years Of Decline
Jenny Garthright, Dec 26, 2022, 1:08 pm
https://dcist.com/story/22/12/26/dc-new-census-numbers-population-increase/

1 in 4 public housing units sit vacant during D.C. affordability crisis
Washington Post, Steve Thompson, October 19, 2022

DC’s Population Growth Has Affected the Racial and Ethnic Composition of Wards 6, 7, and 8
By: Elizabeth Burton, October 7, 2022
https://greaterdc.urban.org/blog/dcs-population-growth-has-affected-racial-and-ethnic-composition-wards-6-7-and-8

Meaningful Racial Equity in DC Zoning
Kymone Freeman September 16, 2022
https://www.weactradio.com/2022/09/16/dc-zoning-roundtable/

Leavin’ the region — Greater Washington faces threat of increasing departures to other markets
Washington Business Journal, Tristan Navera, Sep 9, 2022

D.C. Becoming ‘Chocolate City’ Again After Pandemic ‘White Flight’ Reverses Gentrification Trend — The Census Bureau released new data this week.
Bruce C.T. Wright Written By Bruce C.T. Wright, July 1, 2022
https://newsone.com/4364960/dc-white-flight/

D.C.’s White population has declined for the first time in two decades
By Tara Bahrampour, Washington Post
July 1, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
https://archive.ph/cFQWZ

Charts of the week: A pandemic-induced exodus has broken the District’s population boom
Sunaina Bakshi Kathpalia, March 25, 2022
https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/census-shows-pandemic-exodus-has-broken-dc-population-growth/

Chart of the week: Are D.C.’s 25-34 year olds leaving the District because of pandemic telework? 
March 11, 2022, Bailey McConnell
https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/young-professionals-leaving-dc-telework/

D.C.’s population is shrinking
Jan 10, 2022, Paige Hopkins
https://www.axios.com/local/washington-dc/2022/01/10/dc-population-shrinking

DC had largest percentage drop in population in nation
Valerie Bonk | vbonk@wtop.com
December 23, 2021, 6:54 AM
https://wtop.com/dc/2021/12/dc-had-largest-percentage-drop-in-population-in-nation/

Why Is D.C. Losing So Many Residents?
By Christopher Jones • December 27, 2021
https://georgetowner.com/articles/2021/12/27/d-c-s-population-loss/

New census data finds D.C. had nation’s largest percentage drop in population
December 23, 2021
Héctor Alejandro Arzate
https://www.npr.org/local/305/2021/12/23/1067215177/new-census-data-finds-d-c-had-nation-s-largest-percentage-drop-in-population

Many fled D.C. during pandemic, halting city’s population boom
Washington Post, Tara Bahrampour and Marissa J. Lang, Dec 24 2021

1 in 7 residents of the D.C. area moved during the pandemic, poll finds — A larger share of area residents say they have seriously considered moving to a new community since the pandemic began
Washington Post, Luz Lazo and Emily Guskin, August 17, 2021 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

Census Reveals Growing Diversity In Washington Region, Increasing White Population In D.C.
Martin Austermuhle, Aug 17, 2021, 4:15 pm
https://dcist.com/story/21/08/17/census-reveals-growing-diversity-in-washington-region-increasing-white-population-in-d-c/

2020 census numbers show where our region is growing and where it isn’t
By DW Rowlands (Contributor) August 18, 2021
https://ggwash.org/view/82241/2020-census-numbers-show-where-our-region-is-growing-and-where-it-isnt

VERIFY: Yes, data shows 17,000 more people left D.C. in 2020 than year before, amid pandemic
WUSA9 News, Evan Koslof, July 16, 2021

2020 Census shows U.S. population grew at slowest pace since the 1930s
By Tara Bahrampour,  Harry Stevens,  Adrian Blanco and  Ted Mellnik
April 26, 2021
https://archive.ph/yDQi1

Opinion: There can be no racial equity in D.C. when Black and Brown families are being displaced
The Washington Post/Opinion by Minnie Elliott
March 5, 2021 at 9:00 a.m. EST
http://www.dcfeedback.com/fit2print/dc/506

COVID Is Carrying Young People Away from DC — Whether They Want to Leave or Not
Hayden Higgins, Oct 15, 2020
https://medium.com/seventhirty-dc/covid-is-carrying-young-people-away-from-dc-whether-they-want-to-leave-or-not-e38ec01d6259

More than 92 Percent of D.C. Residents Have Responded to 2020 Census
by Stacy M. Brown September 23, 2020
https://www.washingtoninformer.com/more-than-92-percent-of-d-c-residents-have-responded-to-2020-census/

This GIF Shows How The D.C. Area’s Demographics Have Changed Since 1970
Jan 14, 2020, 4:32 pm
https://dcist.com/story/20/01/14/this-gif-shows-how-the-d-c-areas-demographics-have-changed-since-1970/

The Reason D.C.’s Once-Dramatic Population Growth Is Slowing Down (And Why That’s Not So Bad)
Jan 30, 2019, Martin Austermuhle
https://wamu.org/story/19/01/30/the-reason-d-c-s-once-dramatic-population-growth-is-slowing-down-and-why-thats-not-so-bad/

Census: In D.C., Black Median Income Is Now Less Than a Third of White Median Income And other surprising highlights from the latest U.S. Census data
by Andrew Giambrone September 15th, 2017
https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/325548/census-in-dc-black-median-income-is-now-less-than-a-third-of-white-median-income/

Why do people move out of D.C.
Washington Post, Perry Stein, June 10, 2015

I have no proof that apartments in these towers are being warehoused and acknowledge that such a thing may seem counterintuitive in today’s allegedly red-hot market — or any market. But if demand for expensive units is softer than we’ve been led to believe, I wonder if landlords could be hiding supply to keep their rents up.

Lane Brown, writer for Curbed, in his Jan. 27, 2023 report, “New Yorkers Never Came ‘Flooding Back.’ Why Did Rents Go Up So Much? Getting to the bottom of a COVID-era real estate mystery.”
Affordable Housing

The D.C. Housing Production (Preservation) Trust Fund

Leave a reply

The Law — D.C. Code § 42–2802. Housing Production Trust Fund established https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/42-2802

Some important links to DC’s key touted “affordable” housing fund ::

DHCD — Website Housing Production Trust Fund
https://dhcd.dc.gov/page/housing-production-trust-fund

Housing Production Trust Fund Reports
https://dhcd.dc.gov/page/housing-production-trust-fund-reports

DC Chief Financial Officer report: 2022 UZ0 Housing Production Trust Fund
https://cfo.dc.gov/publication/2022-uz0-housing-production-trust-fund

2022

D.C. Housing Trust Fund to back McMillan redevelopment, other housing By Tristan Navera, Washington Business Journal Aug 12, 2022
https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2022/08/12/dc-housing-production-trust-fund-mcmillan.html

2021

D.C. misused nearly $82 million meant to provide housing to the city’s poorest residents, IG says, By Marissa J. Lang, Washington Post, October 1, 2021
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/10/01/dc-inspector-general- affordable-housing/

2016

New interactive map details where affordable housing has been created, preserved in D.C. (thru 2016) https://dc.curbed.com/2018/3/20/17144034/map-affordable-housing-interactive

Housing is a Human Right

YIMBY’s: D.C. “Desperately & Urgently” Needs More Housing

Leave a reply

We hear so-called YIMBYs constantly cheer on listserves and real estate blogs, #BuildMore housing quickly and voluminously. They say the city is desperate for new housing and we need lots of new units urgently. Any skeptics or detractors to this build-baby-build posture are quickly written off simply as NIMBYs.

Yet, the YIMBYs can never seem to answer these basic questions:

  1. New housing for whom? Is it the trickle down market rate housing being built everywhere or truly affordable for those making the living wage or less?
  2. What statistics substantiate the “urgency” for new housing? DC has some of the highest vacancy rates in the nation, will building more of the same help?
  3. And, why is the city tearing down the 0-30%AMI housing such as public housing to privatize and build more luxury housing?

Last we checked, the well heeled developer-class have collaborated with cohorts in city bureaucratic planning positions to usher in wave after wave of new construction, with areas of DC exploding with denser taller buildings consisting of expensive studio/one bedrooms.

Tens of thousands of new luxury units have been built in DC over the past twenty years and 9 out of 10 of these units are strictly targeted to wealthier single professionals.

But recently, it is this slice of the local demography (single wealthy professionals) who are parting with the urban core as they are forming families and being quite privileged and mobile they can move when things like pandemics unfold and impact our living collective conditions. Yes, it is these new residents who stormed into the city over the past decade who are now choosing to leave the big box luxury buildings that were designed for them and are moving into single family homes in outer city limits and back to suburbia. 

Thus, any urgency for more housing serving the professional-class  is quickly dispelled by the facts on the ground, with DC conservatively having 15% of units built (not just marketed) sitting vacant, and the new built-out areas such as Navy Yard having 1 in 3 units empty (all pre-pandemic numbers). 

[Pre-pandemic], the average vacancy rate in the District is 14.7%, with submarkets such as SW/Navy Yard, Capitol Hill, and Georgetown/Wisconsin Ave, are seeing vacancy rates at 31%, 27%, and 18% respectively .

DHCD Report, Saving DC’s Rental Housing Market Strike Force, citing from “The State of the DC Multifamily Rental Market” analysis by the Apartment & Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington (AOBA), published by Randi Marshall, Vice President of Government Affairs, D.C., February 19, 2021, at page 13.

Housing as commodity, not for community

In spite of mounting units being built but left to sit empty, its become apparent that the mega real estate companies don’t mind and are pushing to build even more housing that’s as expensive as ever before.

This is because housing is no longer necessarily for creating human community. Rather, new housing units are in large part serving as international investment commodities, that are essentially blocks of money in the form of new housing construction.

Moreover, any claimed desperation or “urgency for more housing” is a statement of perverse absurdity without doing the homework in understanding the type of housing the city truly needs constructed (see 40k person waiting list for affordable family sized housing).

YIMBY’s see no urgency to build housing that we actually need, instead they continue to chant and demand the city construct housing that only serves an elite professional-class.

DC desperately needs 0-30%AMI units and lots of them, so say the PHIMBY’s (Public Housing in My BackYard).

See links below for stats and research substantiating the points above.

Stats and Facts Supporting the Above Conclusions

Racial Inequity: 1990 60% of DC Black vs 2010 50% 2020 41% [2020 census | interactive DC diversity app] 60k Black people displaced from DC over the past twenty years of #BuildMore, these stats cannot be ignored!

  1. DC racial segregation through affordability gap as wide as 1968: White wealth surge; black wealth stagnation 
  2. Mythbust: we are not in housing crisis, other than an “affordable” housing crisis (we lack units for those in the 0-50%AMI range)
    1. Vacancies citiwide is 14.7% (Navy Yard; Gtown/Wis Ave up to 31%)
    2. Slow down of incoming DC residents
    3. Offices hit record vacancy high in 2021

Foreign investors snap up Washington real estate at an accelerating clip

“This is the normal world. You go to work in a city. All around you are enormous new buildings. They look alike. But you will never be able to afford to live in them. Because they are not really homes. They are blocks of money,  bought by global investors whose money has nowhere else to go.” https://twitter.com/rotten4eva/status/1492740361374121986

THE DC COMP PLAN IS RACIST

Maurice Cook, Director of Serve Your City, and community advocate out of Ward 6 discusses the DC Comprehensive Plan, the definition of racial equity and affordable housing, and what the Council Office on Racial Equity (CORE) report about the #DCCompPlan means to Black people living and working in the District of Columbia. Please Watch :: https://youtu.be/zDH96HFqfP8

100 MOR McMillan Projects

Leave a reply

The DC Comprehensive Plan (“Comp Plan” or “Plan”) is a key legislative document that covers a range of topics, from economic development, housing, the environment, parks and community services, transportation, and more.

There are maps within the Comp Plan, the most important being the Future Land Use Map (FLUM).

The Future Land Use Map (FLUM) determines how DC will develop and grow as we move into the future and allows all residents and city planners to anticipate and prepare for development, no surprises!

The DC Office of Planning under the direction of the DC Mayor is now suggesting changes to the Comprehensive Plan, 1500-redlined pages of proposed amendments to the existing Plan policies and maps. They have delivered these proposed changes to the DC City Council to consider passing into law.

The Mayor put up a website to show the public (to a degree) the massive tome of amendments to the Plan. By the way, if you don’t speak or read English, you have been left completely out of the conversation.

On the Mayor’s Comp Plan website, there is a nifty maps page that was recently uploaded that uses a slider to let you see the proposed areas of the city where the Office of Planning wants to change future development, going up with bigger and denser buildings.

Sliding over the whole city and you see an array of properties that the Mayor seeks to upzone, aka upFLUM. What you don’t see are the numbers in square feet of how much density the mayor wants to allow to be developable as a “matter of right” (MOR).

In fact, no where on the Mayor’s Comprehensive Plan website will you find any facts relaying to the public that the proposed FLUM map changes equate to upzoning close to 200 million square feet of land and air rights.

As a friend suggests, the map changes show city officials essentially printing money for the landowners of these lucky properties being upFLUMed.

How did we get the numbers? A Socratic conversation with the director of the Office of Planning, Director Andrew Trueblood, and his staff by email.

The result of this conversation was a matrix showing the reality of the proposed changes to the Comprehensive Plan FLUM map, or almost 200 million square feet of proposed upzoning around the city.

DC Comp Plan: 200 million square feet of upFLUMing
DC Comp Plan: 200 million square feet of upFLUMing

This 200 million square feet of new habitable space and construction represents about what would be 100 “matter of right” McMillan Park projects.

Do you think this substantial change to the city’s built environment came with any impact assessments as required by the law? If you answered No, you’d be correct.

Why should we expect the Mayor’s Office of Planning actually do any “planning”? In fact the DC Council Chairman thinks planning is a popularity contest!

Read how the Office of Planning’s proposed changes to the Comp Plan is going to exacerbate displacement of Black folks in DC, click here.

Dog Whistle Planning

Assail the Street View

Leave a reply

“Urbanists” are assailing a new project about gentrification that incorporates the views of the streets in communities undergoing displacement. Here’s the project.

In examining the criticism of this new gentrification-analysis (a project, not a study) by students at the University of California Merced, we see several key aspects of the “urbanist” take on development of major cities in the US:

  1. Pushing a dogmatic belief that building more market-rate studio and one bedrooms will trickle down housing costs and this “filtering” effect is the key way to get past a decade-long housing crisis.

  2. Fostering ambivalence in municipal planning that eschews substantial permanent impacts that more development has on existing neighbors and neighborhood services such as a need for increased schools, libraries, clinics, parks, transportation, utility infrastructure, etc.

  3. Believing that a #BuildMore housing policy (even if its largely expensive studios and one bedrooms) doesn’t need to take account of the resultant displacement of communities of color. That is, smart growth means having an absolute ambivalence to witnessing Black and Brown neighbors getting displaced and replaced by whiter new neighbors in almost all major US cities.

  4. Possessing a monolithic cultural approach to reshaping cities in that all people — newcomers and existing residents alike — are expected to squeeze into untested development paradigms. That is, the desire to live with more neighbors is paramount to all other planning considerations especially if these new neighbors are whiter and able to afford significantly higher housing costs in much smaller unit sizes, and can afford expensive food, coffee and beer, appreciate yoga, and have a small dog.

IN SERVICE TO THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY

The critique of the Street View gentrification project indeed has some merit as for it’s limited data scope and subjective definitions.

However, if you are going to slam a qualitative look at gentrification and ignore the quantitative studies and real results of the overarching #BuildMore planning policies that this student project is based on, then you are acting in service to displacement. See the studies below.

For example, how about the data sets used to support the $1Billion Washington, DC gentrification lawsuit on behalf of longtime Black DC residents and families. The fact that real world data like that demonstrated in this critical lawsuit isn’t being incorporated by “urbanists” in their policy analysis & advocacy is quite telling, perhaps even a dog whistle.

Choosing to cherry pick and attack the one limited Street View project and then not openly assail existing harmful public policy that is actually driving our neighbors out of our longterm homes only helps propel real estate speculation and the developers bottom-line. Is that what you really want to do?

KEY STUDIES SEEMINGLY IGNORED BY CITY PLANNERS & URBANISTS

This study shows a feast or famine situation with government investments in our communities, and “[H]ighlights how gentrification and cultural displacement have unfolded in American cities, while many low-income small towns and rural neighborhoods remain starved of investment.”

A Governing report says, “Neighborhoods gentrifying since 2000 recorded population increases and became whiter, with the share of non-Hispanic white residents increasing an average of 4.3 percentage points. Meanwhile, lower-income neighborhoods that failed to gentrify experienced slight population losses and saw the concentration of minorities increase. They have also experienced different economic fates: Average poverty rates climbed nearly 7 percent in already lower-income tracts that didn’t gentrify, while dropping slightly in gentrifying neighborhoods.”

Blavity & Buzzfeed: “A new study … shows an increasing rate of Black residents are being driven out of neighborhoods in the U.S. According to the data, Oakland, Washington D.C., Atlanta, New York City and Baltimore are among the cities that are especially impacted by gentrification.”

This 2000-2010 study says, “Washington, DC, residents don’t need census data to tell them what’s obvious in their neighborhoods: the city is changing dramatically. But numbers can give us context. They can show us how shifts in population are reshaping the city and can help us prepare for changes to come.”

The LegalAid society interprets recent a key displacement study, “Cultural displacement happens when there is “a rapid decline” in the number of minorities in an area as “white gentrifiers replace” minority residents. Both gentrification and cultural displacement have left a powerful imprint on DC over recent years.”

To the public investment issue, “So where do upwardly mobile creatives go as they begin to get priced out? They seek less expensive neighborhoods, where the cycle of displacement continues. “Now, people are looking at Anacostia like, ‘Oh, this is a place to come,’” Aristotle Theresa said. “And so, now the government starts injecting capital into the area, when they didn’t before.”

WaPo analysis, “Low-income residents are being pushed out of gentrifying neighborhoods at the highest rate in the country. The neighborhoods that have experienced the largest outflow of low-income residents, according to the study — places such as Logan Circle, Petworth and Columbia Heights — have an average walk score of 82.5 and an average transit score of 74.5.”

Non-profit Quarterly comments, “The displacement numbers seem low, but the authors used fairly narrow definitions of gentrification and displacement.”

WJLA: Local Small DC Business also getting crushed under gentrification. “When you invest in a place without investing in the people, what happens is you’re displacing people,” Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC).

Georgetown Voice: “Gentrification isn’t just about the proliferation of pricey salad shops and craft breweries. According to a 2019 study, gentrification in D.C. has pushed more low-income residents out of their homes than almost anywhere else in the country. Between 2003 and 2013, 20,000 black residents were displaced from D.C.”

How about this study (from 2015) that defines gentrification not on a street view but on “a [census] tract’s median household income and median home value.”

Despite saying Gentrification is “beneficial” GGW cites studies that say, “A neighborhood out-mobility rate increase of a few percent on average, across gentrifying neighborhoods in the whole country, can mask what’s happening at the hyper-local scale. In certain neighborhoods, out-movement through displacement, whether direct or indirect, has likely been much higher.”

“In the District of Columbia, low-income residents are being pushed out of neighborhoods at some of the highest rates in the country, according to the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity, which sought to track demographic and economic changes in neighborhoods in the 50 largest U.S. cities from 2000 to 2016.” https://housingis.org/resource/gentrification-dc-means

Housing Vacancy Crisis in DC

Leave a reply

The DC Housing Crisis vs 30,000 Vacancies in DC. . . What is Going On?

The vacancy information for Washington, D.C. below is based on the 2019 American Housing Survey (AHS) which is conducted biennially by the U.S. Census.

This AHS survey asks landlords about vacancy status, resulting in this table below (Table: B25004) representing a timeframe of 60 months of collected data. There are also 1-year and 3-year estimates.

The Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is the smallest level at which the survey reports data.

https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs The American Community Survey (ACS) of the US Census provides estimates of vacant units by type of vacancy and calculates estimates of rental and homeowner vacancy rates. Surveys 3 million addresses per year (mandatory survey).

How can there be 30,000 vacant units when we have a housing crisis?

Thirty thousand vacant units counted! This fact destroys any assumption that building more luxury housing will eventually result in lower cost housing units trickling down in what growth supporters call, “Filtering.”

The D.C. Chief Financial Officer has a bit more of a conservative number of vacant housing units, 10,000. Either way, that’s thousands of vacant units existing pre-Covid that could house our homeless veterans, mothers, families, children, people who are facing homelessness, etc., especially now during the pandemic. See Vacant to Virus Reduction site.

Luxury Units Stay Empty Without Any Market Corrections

Luxury units for investment (lots of it foreign) results in developer demand for upzoning to increase buildable density without providing housing to be lived in. What is the good of new housing being kept uninhabited by investors? It stifles free market supply-and-demand and keeps prices of housing high, while allowing bankers and the construction industry to profit.

Empty housing units are also tax liabilities that can be written off by mega real estate speculators at the end of the year, equaling a form of income. Thus, the myth of the effect of supply-and-demand on housing is exposed as the tax write-offs for empty units completely nullifies any market corrections.

Foreign Investment in Luxury Housing Creates Exclusive New Communities in DC With High Vacancies

U.S. real estate remains attractive for illicit money from all over the world. In DC, that foreign money invests into planning officials follies, like the dramatic changes at Union Market in Northeast. #UnionMarketExclusive

It’s a stable investment that generally maintains or grows in value – and it gives corrupt oligarchs and dictators a potential escape route if they’re ousted from their home countries.

But this money drives out honest purchasers and makes cities hotbeds for dirty, unproductive cash. It turns cities and communities into commodities.

In one part of New York City, for example, the Census Bureau estimated that 30 percent of apartments are unoccupied most of the year.

Legislation is needed to require habitation of units built. After all, owners are not permitted to keep houses vacant on the streets of DC. Why should it be different with condo or apartment buildings?

COVID UPDATE JUNE 2020

Bowser’s budget cuts funding for affordable housing. Advocates say DC’s Black residents will be left behind

COVID UPDATE AUG 2020

The Washingtonian, August 3, 2020 — NoMa and H Street apartments are experiencing an 8.2 percent vacancy rate, while developments in Navy Yard and Southwest are seeing 7.7 percent vacancy. The vacancy rates in those areas were less than 5 percent at the same time last year. District-wide, the average vacancy rate in luxury apartments is currently 6.8 percent, compared to 4.1 percent last year.

COVID UPDATE: OCT 2020

A Net 15,000 People Moved Out of DC During the First Part of 2020