Author: Cheryl Cort
Housing Priorities Coalition DC Comp Plan comments
December, 16, 2019: A coalition of affordable housing advocates and producers released comments today in support of the DC Comprehensive Plan draft amendments.
CSG in the News: Study: DC rent is 3rd highest in the country
Study: DC rent is 3rd highest in the country; Here’s how much income you need to afford it
WASHINGTON (ABC7) — The D.C. Council unanimously voted on the first step of the city’s Comprehensive Plan for development last week.
A spokesperson for Mayor Bowser’s office said she will likely unveil the remaining elements of the comprehensive plans as well as area housing targets and maps on October 15.
The comprehensive plan includes proposed solutions to the city’s affordable housing shortage – an issue that elected officials and advocates are coming together to try to fix.
The plan will go through review by the National Capital Planning Commission and Congress before it gets to the mayor’s desk for signing, the mayor’s spokesperson said….
Numbers from the National Low Income Housing Coalition estimate that over 50 percent of residents living in the D.C. metro area are renters.
According to NLIHC, the median family income for both renters and buyers is $121,000. This means families can afford to pay $3,000 a month for rent without being cost-burdened.
HUDs estimate of a fair market rent that recent movers paid for a modest two-bedroom apartment in D.C. was $1665, but 60 percent of rents are currently higher according to the NLIHC.
For those in the fortieth percentile, in order to afford $1665 without being “cost-burdened” an individual would have to earn $66,000 a year, or $5500 monthly, the NLIHC estimates.
Assuming a 40-hour workweek, 52 weeks per year, this level of income translates into $32.02 an hour. Working at the minimum wage of $14.00 an hour in D.C. each week an individual would have to work 90 hours weekly at two jobs to afford a modest apartment.
Cheryl Cort, policy director for Coalition for Smarter Growth, an organization dedicated to bettering the district believes lack of affordable housing is one of the greatest challenges D.C. faces.
“Housing insecurity worsens other conditions in a person’s life. Many DC residents face daunting challenges — lack of access to quality education and training, violent neighborhoods, poor health status, low wage jobs and unstable employment. Lack of access to stable, quality housing compounds all these problems, and is also one of the solutions to a number of these problems,” Cort said.
Cort said the CSG stands behind the mayor’s housing strategy. In May, the mayor signed an order directing District agencies to identify new policies, tools, and initiatives that would start moving toward the goal of creating 36,000 new housing units, 12,000 of them affordable, by 2025….
Regardless of how the numbers add up, whether you’re renting or buying, one thing is clear – officials and advocates think housing in D.C. is too expensive.“Bold action to address housing affordability requires the entire city’s input and energy,” Cort said.
View the full story by WJLA here.
ALERT: We won! Yesterday, the DC Council voted for a more inclusive city!
ALERT: We won! DC Comprehensive Plan will help build a more inclusive city!
Yesterday, Oct. 9, 2019, after many delays, the DC Council voted on the Framework Element of the Comprehensive Plan, the guiding document that will shape our city for years to come.
With your help, we fought for and won two key amendments. The first prioritizes preserving and building more affordable housing, and preventing the displacement of residents. The second fixes the broken review process for Planned Unit Developments (PUDs) so it can be predictable, while also prioritizing affordable housing and preventing displacement.
These changes go a long way towards making the District more inclusive!
Take a moment to thank the DC Council!
What happened? Over the last few months we partnered with other housing advocacy groups, sent alerts to you at key points, met with Councilmembers and staff, and explained the issues to the media. With your help we were able to win two critical amendments:
- Councilmember Brianne Nadeau’s amendment which helps address racial and social equity in DC by explicitly prioritizing affordable housing and prevention of displacement.
- An amendment removing exclusionary language which made preserving “physical and visual character” a dominating requirement in development review. This language was too similar to the type of planning language that has historically perpetuated housing segregation. The Council replaced it with language suggested by the DC Office of Planning, which we supported.
We thank Chairman Mendelson and the Council, who heard us and made the revisions we knew were critical to a better plan. Thanks to these changes, well-designed affordable housing and mixed-income housing proposals will be able to move forward again.
Please be sure to thank the DC Council!
We’re excited to get to work reviewing and supporting good projects. Meanwhile, the rest of the Comp Plan chapters will be coming forward soon. Look for more updates from the CSG team!
We hope you will stay involved, helping to shape land use and housing policies and decisions to ensure our city is a place where longtime residents can stay and thrive, and newcomers can find new opportunities.
Background to the critical Comprehensive Plan amendments
The 2006 Comprehensive Plan focused too much on preserving the status quo rather than planning for a growing population and the need for more housing that is affordable to middle and lower-income residents. Opponents of new housing have used the 2006 Comprehensive Plan to delay thousands of new homes, and hundreds of new affordable homes — increasing rather than reducing displacement of longtime residents.
That’s why we developed dozens of amendments, and also partnered with other organizations to craft and submit numerous amendments to the Comprehensive Plan, provided testimony at the March 2018 hearing, and why you sent in hundreds of emails to the Council last year.
On July 10, 2019, the DC Council took a preliminary vote on the Framework Element of Comprehensive Plan bill proposed by Chairman Phil Mendelson. While the Chairman’s bill included a significant number of our amendments, as well as the Office of Planning’s amendments, the Chairman’s revised bill still fell short in addressing the need for more affordable housing.
As a result of strong advocacy to the Chairman and the Council by the Coalition for Smarter Growth, our active supporters, and our partners in the DC Housing Priorities Coalition, the DC Council voted for an amended Bill 23-1 on October 8, 2019. Amendments we won:
- Specific guidance to prioritize affordable housing and preventing displacement in the Planned Unit Development (PUD) approval process (section 224.9).
- Removal of exclusionary language about “physical and visual character” in the Planned Unit Development approval process, which would have made this “character” more important than any of our other values like preventing displacement and building more affordable housing. The Council supported alternative language recommended by DC Office of Planning, which we supported (section 227.2).
Learn more about the amendments in the CSG blog post: DC Office of Planning and advocates seek to change troubling provision in DC Comprehensive Plan bill
CSG in the News: D.C. Council Approves Measure To Curb Wave Of Development Appeals Washington DC
The ongoing process to amend D.C.’s Comprehensive Plan received a key approval vote Tuesday after Council Chairman Phil Mendelson removed language that had caused concerns among planners and housing advocates.