INTERSECT- Newsletter of the Washington Regional Network for Livable Communities

Volume 10 Number 1
March 6, 2006

For back issues of Intersect, visit the Archived Newsletters

Summary:

 
 

James O. Gibson Receives 2006 Livable Communities Leadership Award

A diverse crowd of civic, foundation, research, and business leaders attended WRN’s reception to honor James O. Gibson for his leadership in D.C., the region and the country on issues related to race, community building, urban policy, equitable development, and the role of foundations in community change.  

Special thanks to the Livable Communities Leadership Award 2006 Sponsors:

Platinum Sponsor: Fannie Mae Foundation; Gold Sponsor: JBG Companies; Silver Sponsors: Citigroup, Community Preservation and Development Corporation, Horning Brothers, Kaiser Permanente, Kimsey Foundation, LCOR, Meyer Foundation, New Legacy Partners, Torti Gallas and Partners – CHK, Inc, Wachovia; Bronze Sponsors: Akridge, EYA, Flexcar, Hines, Holland & Knight, Kittelson & Associates, Metropolis Development Company, National Housing Conference, Potomac Investment Properties, Roadside Development, William C. Smith & Co., Urban Pace Builder Sales and Marketing, M.J. Wells & Associates, Zimmer Gunsul Frasca. Supporting: Bay Area Economics, The Community Builders, Congress for the New Urbanism-DC Chapter, The Hellman Company.

For more see:  http://www.washingtonregion.net/events/index.html

 
 

D.C. Housing Task Force Calls for 55,000 New Homes, 19,000 to be Affordable

By Stephen Wade

To meet the anticipated demand for living in the city, the District's Comprehensive Housing Strategy Task Force called for 55,000 new units over the next 15 years, 19,000 of which would be affordable to moderate and lower income families. 

The Task Force identified a funding strategy to raise nearly $200 million more per year to support needed affordable housing production and preservation. The 28-member Task Force was convened by the D.C. Council to address the District's housing challenges over the long term. The Task Force released its recommendations on January 31, 2006.

“The city is experiencing a housing boom but it's having an affordable housing crisis,” said Alice Rivlin, co-chairwoman of the task force and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “This is not a wimpy set of recommendations,” she said.

The recommendations set forth a 15-year plan to preserve and develop housing in support of the Mayor's vision of a growing, inclusive city of mixed-income and mixed-race neighborhoods.

The Task Force calls on the Mayor and City Council to double the current level of spending on housing from $3 billion to $6 billion between now and 2020 in order to support the preservation of 30,000 units and new production of 19,000 units, all affordable to moderate and low income households.

The recommendations identify four major sources of new funding. The largest would be to restore the deed recordation and transfer tax to 1.5 percent from its current 1.1 percent and to increase the portion of this tax dedicated to the Housing Production Trust Fund from 15 percent to 20 percent. Earmarking five percent of the growth in real estate taxes and a new jobs-housing commercial linkage fee to expand the Trust Fund were also recommended.

The Task Force calls for a local rent supplement program to enable the District’s limited public funds to reach families and individuals in the face of declining federal assistance through housing vouchers. The other major component of the program would be a project-based supplement that would guarantee that those 19,000 new affordable units would remain affordable to households from 0-80 percent AMI. 

On February 3, the “2006 D.C. Housing Conference: Shaping the Future of Housing in our City,” explored through a roundtable dialogue among experts and other conference participants, opportunities and obstacles to implementing the recommendations of the Task Force. The Task Force will reconvene in a year to monitor the implementation of their recommendations.

For more information and to see the Task Force report, go to http://www.dc-chstaskforce.org/default.asp.
 
  Montgomery Council Adopts Shady Grove Plan and Obstacles to Implementation

By Jennifer Mueller and Cheryl Cort

On January 17, the Montgomery County Council voted 8-1 to approve the Shady Grove Sector Plan, a strategy to build a transit village of over 6,000 new homes around the Metro station. The new plan will improve and expand the transportation options available to area residents in addition to offering a variety of jobs, services and housing options. The plan seeks to bring a balance of homes to the job-rich I-270 corridor and requires that 25 percent of the housing be affordable to middle to low income families.

“This plan is a shining example of smart growth,” said Councilmember Steve Silverman in a council press release. “It puts housing right where it ought to be – near the Metro station. It represents an enormous boost in our supply of affordable housing units. And we have included in this plan the most stringent traffic mitigation requirements of any Master Plan in the entire Washington region.”

However, local resident and smart growth advocate Pamela Lindstrom expressed great concern that council members inserted overly restrictive requirements related to relocating school bus facilities and a costly intersection improvement as a prerequisite for advancing the plan.

“The Council seems to have it both ways - claiming it's providing much needed housing near transit in the I-270 corridor, and simultaneously appeasing critics by throwing huge obstacles in front of achieving it,” Lindstrom said.

More recently, the Maryland State Highway Administration has demanded land designated for moving the county’s Ride On bus facility to build a maintenance yard for the Inter-County Connector (ICC). This casts doubt on the move of the bus facility, the closest property to Metro. If Ride On stays, the rest of the county land becomes less desirable to developers, according to Lindstrom. The County Service Park land is designated not only for over 2,000 housing units, but also for most of the parkland and other neighborhood amenities.

To view the plan, see: http://www.mcparkandplanning.org/shadygrove/masterplan/shadySD_toc.shtm
 
 

"A Good First Step" for Virginia Land Use Reform Stymied

By Jennifer Mueller

At a rally in Richmond on February 7, a crowd of more than 200 residents from all over the state including environmentalists, smart growth advocates, and lawmakers demonstrated bi-partisan support for a common sense package of land use reforms for Virginia.  Unfortunately, in the following days and weeks several important reforms were rejected by the General Assembly which is now considering transportation funding without a clear growth and transportation plan.

The rally, which was organized by a coalition of environmental, conservation and smart growth groups, including the Virginia Conservation Network, Coalition for Smarter Growth, Piedmont Environmental Council, and Virginia League of Conservation Voters, among others, is credited for generating critical media attention and helping secure support of key players from both major political parties. "In the eight years I've been doing this," he said, "this is a sea change," remarked Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, about the breadth of the coalition.

“Paying for development is neither a Democrat issue nor a Republican issue; it is an economic justice issue” explained Delegate Bob Marshall, Republican (Prince William). “Those who create debt should pay the debt."

“To address our transportation crisis, Virginia needs to adopt sensible and responsible growth policies. I am committed to working with Governor Kaine and members from both sides of the aisle to promote this agenda” declared House Democratic Caucus Leader Brian J. Moran (Alexandria).

Unfortunately the developers lobby is still influential. Several measures including a bill to give local governments more control to slow growth if local roads lack capacity, House Bill 1610, were killed in a Senate Local Government Committee subcommittee without public testimony.

The coalition is now asking residents to urge their legislators to follow through on growth reform commitments before authorizing new transportation funding by: adopting legislation confirming local governments can reject rezoning proposals if the transportation system is inadequate to handle the traffic; addressing transportation impacts, transfer of development rights, fees from developers, and funding for purchase of development rights; ending VDOT’s emphasis on wasteful, expensive projects such as a $13 billion I-81 expansion, a new interstate parallel to Route 460, the Western Bypass and the Southeastern Expressway; and creating a transportation plan that reduces runaway development and traffic.

For more information, see the Coalition for Smarter Growth Action Alert or Newsletter

 
 

Voters Support Common Sense Growth in Loudoun County Elections

By Jennifer Mueller

In a special election on January 31, voters in Virginia's eastern Loudoun and parts of Fairfax Counties elected Mark Herring (D) with a 23 percent margin to fill the state Senate seat vacated by William C. Mims (R), Virginia's new chief deputy attorney general.  Herring ran on a platform that emphasized transportation and growth management to defeat County Supervisor Mick Staton Jr., "a leader of the hang-the-controls, bring-on-the-builders majority on the Board of Supervisors" according to the Washington Post. Herring's victory is seen as a victory for smart growth in Loudoun.

“Virginia’s voters have made it clear that they want something done about poorly planned growth because they know it makes their commutes longer and longer.” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

On his website, Senator Herring promises to work with Governor Kaine to solve Virginia's traffic problems "Controlled growth and well-designed communities are part of a delicately balanced economic development equation -- and both are necessary for the continued economic health of our region," he states.

Mr. Stanton will now continue to serve out his term as county supervisor. “Both candidates must now address these growth issues, Herring as Senator and Staton as Supervisor,” said Andrea McGimsey of Campaign for Loudoun’s Future, in a Coalition for Smarter Growth press release. “Voters do not have a partisan approach on growth issues, they want all of their officials to look at the big picture and work with them to make wise decisions about where and how the region grows.” 

View the Coalition For Smarter Growth Press Release, or the Washington Post Article
 
 

Urban Designers Offer Tips on Building Better Cities

By Cheryl Cort

Speaking to an audience of over 80 people, urban designers Paul Morris and Dhiru Thadani explained how buildings and public spaces help shape the urban landscape and make the connection between land use and transportation. The event, co-hosted by WRN and the National Capital Planning Commission was held on January 30.

Dhiru Thadani, architect, principal with Ayers/Saint/Gross, Inc. and founding member of the Congress of the New Urbanism, presented his concepts on how open spaces relate to different environments, tracing the type of appropriate open space along a “Transect” of urban form developed by leaders of the New Urbanism movement, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zybert.  On one extreme, “T1” for “Transect 1,” no buildings or development is appropriate, these areas should be preserved in a natural state, he said.  In the most urban transect, T6, the urban core should offer grand large public spaces such as Farragut Square. In between, land uses along the transect have been typologized from farmland, suburban, neighborhood general (e.g. Cleveland Park, mixed use, single family homes to apartments), urban center (e.g. Dupont Circle), urban core (e.g. downtown K Street).  Thadani showed through photos how buildings behave differently in different zones, and illustrated how “you don’t want to bring the wrong building into the wrong zone. Through a series of images, Thadani showed McDonald’s restaurants in urban core and urban center environments where the restaurant, set inside a larger building, opens its doors onto busy sidewalks, offering no parking, to McDonalds surrounded by surface parking and drive-thrus in suburban locations. He explained that McDonalds in T6 (downtown), T5 (Dupont Circle), T4 (Cleveland Park) have no automobile parking associated with them. 

He explained that streets and parks also follow this transect.  He showed a window box as an example of tiny green space in T6, Dupont Circle Park as a T5 space, a children’s playground in T4, and in T3, he said that open space becomes less public and more private.  T4, 5 and 6 should have programmed public space.  Urban transects should also have pocket parks that fit into surrounding urban forms.

To make decisions about urban design, we need to recognize how open space relates to surrounding buildings, he said.  Thadani provided examples of civic spaces and how they relate to civic buildings. He explained that buildings in urban zones should provide a sense of enclosure to public spaces.  Public spaces create value, the place is recognizable, it stays in maps and in memories, he said.  “That association makes places,” he said.

Citing the need to connect the scale of the space to the fabric of the built environment, he suggested that sometimes urban parks lack sufficient definition from surrounding buildings. He expressed concern about “eroded corners” where new private buildings with outdoor space take away from adjacent civic space offered at a public building.

Paul Morris, a principal with PB Placemaking provided an example of a major redevelopment project of state-owned land in Baltimore that includes large state office buildings, parking lots, public housing and nearby transit facilities. He said the overall strategy was to maximize the relationship of the buildings, workers and residents to transit, improve the livability for workers and residents, and demonstrate the financial benefits of putting public land back on the tax rolls. Morris showed new designs that converted parking lots into housing, green streets and parks. 

Morris described the planning process that reestablished the urban street grid in the area, which was disrupted by urban renewal projects.  “The form and scale must be compatible but the uses can flex to local needs,” he said explaining a new approach to integrating land use with streets, transit and parks.  He discussed the concept of “green streets,” emphasizing the use of green space with streets and small parks to create “outdoor living rooms.”

In the question period, Thadani said that all Metro stations should be considered T5 or “urban centers” because the great public investment put into them and the need to provide alternatives to relying on driving.  As we “recycle” urban spaces, Thadani said, we should identify transect violations and correct them. We need more usable public spaces and street connections, he said. Thadani said the public realm should be carefully shared – this means crafting the space between building face to building face.
 
 

Inclusionary Zoning Takes Historic Step Forward in D.C.

 By Cheryl Cort

On March 10,the D.C. Zoning Commission will issue draft language for a new inclusionary zoning which will require the new developments provide some housing for moderate and low income families. The policy would create new affordable housing opportunities and help preserve and create diverse, mixed-income communities. Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning is a policy that willrequire new residential developments to include housing units affordable to low and moderate-income residents. The policy was proposed by the Campaign for Inclusionary Zoning, a broad coalition of housing advocates, labor unions, environmental, smart growth and faith leaders, and grassroots community groups.

Last summer, the Zoning Commission held a series of hearings on inclusionary zoning where hundreds of people -- affordable housing advocates, developers, clergy, ANC commissioners, and individual activists -- weighed in on the issue.

The Zoning Commission’s notice of proposed rulemaking is scheduled to be finalized May 8. The inclusionary zoning policy reflects a mix of elements proposed by housing advocates and D.C. Office of Planning. The Campaign views the key positive outcomes of the proposal as: a mandatory rather than voluntary program; a 99-year affordability control period for sale and rental inclusionary units; and disallowing developers to build half of the affordable units off-site, as proposed by D.C. Office of Planning.

The Campaign identified several priority issues with the Zoning Commission’s proposed ruling that it seeks to change: the Zoning Commission’s desire to exclude Planned Unit Developments from the program; setting the income target at 80 percent of area median income for high rise developments, which excludes families at 50 percent of area median income; and restricting for sale units from being rented to working families.

Instead of adopting the Campaign’s proposed minimum size standards for affordable units, the Zoning Commission proposed that inclusionary units be the average size of market rate units. Montgomery County researchers confirm that recently built condominium units have grown tremendously in size, overtaking the average size of a single family attached house built a few years ago. Thus, requiring that inclusionary units be the same size as large market rate units could significantly reduce the number of affordable units produced that are sized to the predominate standard of existing units..

After the final decision on the policy by the Zoning Commission, the D.C Council will enact legislation to administer the program and the Zoning Commission will take up mapping the areas where the policy will apply in the spring and summer. Comments on the proposed policy can be sent to the D.C. Zoning Commission by April 21. For more informnation, see www.washingtonregion.net or contact the Campaign for Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning at 202-244-1105 or Stephen Wade.

 
 

EPA Releases Series of New Smart Growth Reports on Water and Parking Issues

By Jennifer Mueller

This winter, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released four new reports addressing the environmental impacts of growth management. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that U.S. population will grow by 50 million people, or approximately 18 percent, between 2000 and 2020.  EPA’s research recognizes that how we accommodate that growth will have profound impacts on our communities and environment.

In Protecting Water Resources with Higher-Density Development, EPA examines the myth that water pollution associated with urban areas is the inevitable result of high-density development.  In fact, EPA found that to accommodate the same number of houses, denser developments consume less land and create less impervious cover in the watershed, potentially protecting water resources better than lower density development. "Development that uses land efficiently and protects undisturbed natural lands allows a community to grow and still protect its water resources," states EPA.

EPA based their conclusions on an analysis of three model scenarios of different densities at three scales—one-acre level, lot level, and watershed level—and at three different time series. Their report demonstrates that: higher-density development generates less storm water runoff per house; higher-density development produces less runoff and less impervious cover; and lower-density development impacts more of the watershed.

Two additional EPA reports, Using Smart Growth Techniques as Stormwater Best Management Practices and Growing Toward More Efficient Water Use: Linking Development, Infrastructure, and Drinking Water Policies, provide guidance for local planners and water resource managers.  EPA address both costs and effects of water policy and growth choices.  “State and local governments and utilities can adopt water policies that conserve water and reduce demand for it, while indirectly supporting smarter growth patterns,” the agency explains.

Finally, EPA’s new publication on parking makes the connection to the environment. Research and reports from EPA and others show that the way we develop our communities has a major impact on the quality of the natural environment. Regions with walkable, mixed use, compact neighborhoods, towns, and cities, knit together by a robust network of transportation choices, protect human health and the natural environment. Parking policies and requirements can have a strong influence on both the built and natural environment in a community. A better understanding of the influence of parking policies is an important step toward smarter growth.

The approaches described in this report seek to help communities explore new, flexible parking policies that can encourage growth and balance parking needs with their other goals. The EPA developed this guide for local government officials, planners, and developers in order to: demonstrate the significance of parking decisions in development patterns; illustrate the environmental, financial, and social impact of parking policies; describe strategies for balancing parking with other community goals; and provide case studies of places that are successfully using these strategies.

Many communities are evaluating parking issues as part of a broader process of reevaluating their overall goals for growth. Typical parking regulations and codes require a set amount of parking for a given square footage or number of units. It is common for such regulations to assume all trips will be by private automobile, ignoring the neighborhood's particular mix of uses, access to transit and walking, and context within the region. Such inflexible parking requirements can force businesses to provide unneeded parking that wastes space and money and harms the environment.

View the reports at: http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/
 
  Events

Zoning Commission on Inclusionary Zoning: Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to be published March 10.  The 45-day comment period closes April 21. Check Watch http://www.washingtonregion.net/programs/DCIZ.htm for details.

Applications for the Smart Growth Recognition Program for developments seeking local approval are due March 15.  To learn more about the program and the application process, visit www.sgalliance.org.

Applications for EPA’s National Award for Smart Growth Achievement are due on May 1, 2006. For more information including an application packet, visit: http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/awards.htm

Thank You’s: WRN wishes to thank the following friends of WRN for their generous contributions:  Bruce Adams, Anne Allen, Anne Ambler, Angel Braestrup, David Casey, Thomas Chapman, Jim Clarke, Amy Cody, David Cristeal, Rosalyn Doggett, Christopher Dyer, Jim Epstein, Jay Evans, Richard Fishman, Richard Flintrop, Bill Gallagher, Michael Gewirz, James Gibson, Alice Giancola, Dannielle Glaros, Thomas Gore, Allen Greenberg, Rosa Grillo, Peter Harnik, Peter Hawley, Robert Hill, Deborah Hoffman, James Hubbard, Diane Iniguez, Ralph and Margaret Johanson, Ellen Jones, Thelma Jones, Bruce Kahn, Deborah Katz, Lee Alice Kimball, Tom Kingsley, Stephen Klein, Julia Koster, Ralph Kuehner, Jackie Leffyear, Lara K. Levison, David Marlin, Christine Matthews, Carmella Mazzotta, Skip Mc Koy, Tom Metcalf, John Monahan, Jon Morgan, Karen K Morris, Shelley Moskowitz, Mary Nagelhout, Tillman Neuner, Saskia Pallais, Kristin Pauly, Neal Peirce, Kathryn Pettit, Bob Pohlman, Frank Rich, Sr, Charles and Lora Ann Rinker, Alice Rivlin, Rick Rybeck, Wendy Thamanai Salaam, Alvin W. Smuzynski, Carrie Thornhill, Marian Urquilla, Roger Williams, Audubon Naturalist Society of the Central Atlantic States, Friends of Daniels Run Park, and Zimmer Gunsul Frasca.

Intersect staff: Cheryl Cort, editor; Jennifer Mueller, Stephen Wade, contributing writers.

Washington Regional Network For Livable Communities (WRN) is a non-profit organization that advocates transportation investments, land use policies, and neighborhood designs that enhance existing communities and the environment of the Washington, D.C. Region.

Phone: (202) 244-1105, Fax: (202) 244-4225, E-mail: staff@washingtonregion.net, 4000 Albemarle St, NW, Suite 305, Washington, D.C. 20016. Give online to WRN at: www.washingtonregion.net
 
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