Author: Cheryl Cort

Tell the D.C. Council to restore the Affordable Housing Preservation Fund – it’s our leading tool to combat displacement

Tell the D.C. Council to restore the Affordable Housing Preservation Fund – it’s our leading tool to combat displacement

Posted on by Cheryl Cort

Two reports recently deemed D.C. the most gentrifying city in America. Yet, D.C. Council’s draft FY2020 budget proposes to eliminate one of our most effective tools that prevents displacement. This tool, the Affordable Housing Preservation Fund, provides quick financing to tenant associations and the District to buy apartment buildings when they go up for sale. But now, the D.C. Council’s draft FY2020 budget would eliminate funding for this crucial preservation tool.

Act today and tell the DC Council to restore funding to the Affordable Housing Preservation Fund. It’s on the front line of fighting displacement and preserving affordability.

D.C. is an expensive city and increasingly unaffordable to many residents. But we can make a difference in the policies and investments that we make. One of our most effective tools to prevent displacement is the Affordable Housing Preservation Fund.

This vital tool leverages private dollars to provide timely financing to low-income tenants who are determined to remain in D.C. In just two years, the fund is already preserving nearly 900 homes all over the city. Building on this success, the Mayor’s FY2020 budget proposed $15 million for the Affordable Housing Preservation Fund, up from last year’s $10 million.

Map of Preservation Fund-assisted buildings provided by LISC, www.liscdc.org

But the D.C. Council’s proposed budget would zero out this essential loan fund. The loss of this money will leave many tenant association and District deals that could preserve affordable housing and prevent the displacement of long-time residents unfunded.

Before the Council votes next Tuesday, May 28, let Chairman Mendelson and the D.C. Council know that you support the Affordable Housing Preservation Fund and want to ensure it continues to help D.C. residents stay in their homes and preserve affordable housing.

Want more information? See: DC is on track to cut this affordable housing preservation tool.

UPDATE: Due to all of our strong advocacy, on Friday, May 24, the D.C. Council budget added $7.5 million to the Preservation Fund. While this is an enormous improvement, we are still seeking funding at least on par with last year’s budget of $10 million, if not the Mayor’s proposed increase to $15 million. Click here to take action.

 

CSG partnering with MetroHero on “Report card” to determine if D.C. Metrobus service makes the grade

Posted on by Cheryl Cort

“Report card” will determine if D.C. Metrobus service makes the grade

May 9, 2019 — The Coalition for Smarter Growth (CSG) is partnering with MetroHero to release a report card on Metrobus service in D.C. The report card will grade bus service on speed and reliability.

The MetroHero team will be monitoring activity on 34 major bus routes in D.C.’s priority corridor network throughout the month of May, evaluating each route based on metrics such as average travel speed, spacing between buses, and how closely the buses keep to their scheduled arrival times. The results will be publicized in a digital “report card” which will assign grades to each of the routes based on their performance in each of these different areas, inspired by a similar project by the Bus Turnaround Coalition in New York City. The resulting analysis will form the basis of a public report written by CSG and MetroHero that will identify the greatest problems faced by D.C.’s priority bus routes today and make recommendations for how to improve their performance in the future.

The reports will be made available to the public in June.

MetroHero (www.dcmetrohero.com), which began as a simple app designed to visualize real-time train positions in the D.C. Metrorail system, has been monitoring and providing performance metrics on WMATA’s trains for over three years. The app has gained popularity with many area commuters, averaging roughly 15,000 unique users every month, largely due to its unique real-time visualizations of the current state of the Metrorail system, from train delays and service outages to user-driven reports of inconveniences such as station crowding and broken intercoms. In September 2018, the MetroHero team extended a number of their train performance tracking algorithms to the Metrobus system, which will be used to gather performance data for the report card.

CSG (www.smartergrowth.net) is the leading organization in the Washington, D.C. region dedicated to making the case for smart growth — promoting walkable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies to make those communities flourish. In 2017 and 2018, CSG organized non-profits and partnered with the business community in the MetroNow campaign to win $500 million per year in dedicated funding for Metro. CSG serves on the Bus Transformation Study executive committee, previously led and won an 81-mile bus rapid transit plan for Montgomery County, Maryland, and has led other campaigns for improved transit.

Supporting a new approach to automated traffic enforcement with DDOT to achieve Vision Zero & bus lanes that work

Posted on by Cheryl Cort
Photo credit: Cheryl Cort

Supporting a new approach to automated traffic enforcement with DDOT to achieve Vision Zero & bus lanes that work

May 3, 2019

Dear Chairman Mendelson:

We understand that Councilmember Cheh has reservations about transferring automated traffic enforcement from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) to DC Department of Transportation (DDOT). While DDOT can be frustrating, everyone agrees that photo enforcement is not optimally managed right now. Given that 30+ people die each year on our streets, we should not turn down an opportunity to improve the use of photo enforcement by putting DDOT in charge of it. DDOT is lead on Vision Zero and implementation of dedicated transit lanes (coming to H & I, 16th St & K Street soon). It makes sense to enable DDOT integrate automated traffic enforcement into these programs.

This is how other leading jurisdictions have approached it, such as New York City and Chicago, where their Departments of Transportation are in charge on automated traffic enforcement. See NYC DOT report on automated traffic enforcement here: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/speed-camera-report-june2017.pdf. DDOT’s management of photo enforcement poses not legal issues, as some have claimed. The Mayor currently has authority to use the “photograph” as Prima Facie evidence of a violation. Currently, and whether administered by MPD, DDOT, DPW, or another agency, the use of photographs to detect violations are legally treated as non-moving. The penalty is a fine – no points on the license – it’s all still associated with the registered vehicle, not the driver.

How the D.C. Council can make the most of this opportunity: WABA recommends tying photo enforcement to action by DDOT. DC Council could require DDOT to act to fix problem areas detected by traffic cameras as a part of their management of the cameras program. From WABA’s report:

Fix infrastructure at high revenue traffic safety cameras
The goal of the automated traffic safety camera program is safety, not revenue. In places where an automated traffic camera generates a disproportionate amount of money, the underlying street design should be changed immediately, using the tactical design process described above. Traffic calming techniques should be employed to encourage safe driving through better street design.

Without putting DDOT in charge, we are greatly concerned that developing new applications for photo enforcement, such as bus lane compliance, bike lane compliance, and other new uses, will be slow and ineffective. We need to put DDOT in charge in order to more effectively use this tool. DDOT is the agency that is most focused on and responsible for achieving our city’s transportation system’s efficient use and safety.

We all agree that the goal is compliance with the rules of the road, not ticket and revenue generation. DDOT offers an important opportunity to greatly improve on the use of this powerful tool for safety and manage a more efficient transportation system.

Thank you for your consideration on this issue.

Sincerely,

Cheryl Cort

Policy Director, Coalition for Smarter Growth

CSG in the News: Study: It’s past time the D.C. region transform its bus network

Posted on by Cheryl Cort

Study: It’s past time the D.C. region transform its bus network

By Luz Lazo, May 6, 2019 at 6:11 PM, The Washington Post

….A $2.2 million study released Monday lays out more than two dozen recommendations for transforming the Washington region’s bus network into one that is centered around customers’ needs, is financially sustainable and embraces innovation and technology.

The draft recommendations would help reverse ridership declines driven by service that is too slow, complex and unreliable. The study was compiled by the Bus Transformation Project, a group of D.C.-area transit officials, experts and advocates.

….

“We have no choice,” said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

“We do need to move forward and I think there is a shared commitment” in the region,” Schwartz said. “A route redesign and dedicated lanes and improved customer information can make all the difference in the world.”

View full Washington Post story here.

CSG in the News: DC hopes to increase housing supply 25% by 2030 – WTOP

Posted on by Cheryl Cort

DC hopes to increase housing supply 25% by 2030

By John Domen, May 4, 2019 8:22 am, WTOP

It’s not cheap to live in D.C. Whether you rent or hope to own, finding a place to live has become more expensive over the years because the population growth seen in the city this century has far outpaced the housing that’s available….

One of the approaches the city seems ready to focus on are “accessory dwelling units.”

…“There are large areas of the district that are part of the … zone, so they’re able to add accessory dwelling units to their property,” said Bush. “They both present the opportunity to increase the number of units of housing, and therefore decrease the cost of housing. But they also provide an opportunity to give another source of income to a homeowner that might be feeling the pinches as the cost of living in D.C. rises.”

…“There’s groups like the Coalition for Smarter Growth and others that have started to create some really interesting programs with homeowners and architects etc. to promote this, but I think there’s more we can do to make sure homeowners are taking advantage of this program,” Bush said.

View full story here.

 

CSG in the News: Dedicated bus lanes coming to H and I streets this summer

Posted on by Cheryl Cort

Dedicated bus lanes coming to H and I streets this summer

Enforcement is key to the success of dedicated lanes in one of the busiest transit corridors in the city, advocates say.

by Luz Lazo, Washington Post, May 3, 2019

“We see this as the beginning of really speeding up the implementation of bus lanes and delivering high-quality transit,” said Cheryl Cort, policy director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “We will bring back the riders that we have been losing and we will attract new riders because it is going to become a fast, efficient and inexpensive way to get where you need to go.”

“A large share of all bus riders every day are moving through these corridors and they are often stuck in traffic,” Cort said. “Bus lanes are a crucial tool to changing that.”

Transit advocates are excited about the new lanes and about the possibility of reviving an extensive network of bus lanes that disappeared after the Metro system was built. The nation’s capital stands out as a major Northeast city that does not have a network of dedicated bus lanes in its downtown. Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York all have such networks.

See Washington Post story here.

CSG in the News: Let’s make our streets safer by putting the transportation people in charge of traffic cameras

Posted on by Cheryl Cort

Let’s make our streets safer by putting the transportation people in charge of traffic cameras

 

Opinion by Cheryl Cort, Coalition for Smarter Growth, in www.GreaterGreaterWashington.org

Here’s one of the changes proposed by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser in her budget to fix dangerous streets: Transfer photo enforcement from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) to the District Department of Transportation (DDOT). In the wake of so many tragic deaths on our streets, the mayor’s proposed transfer of photo enforcement to DDOT is one of a number of actions she can take to make our streets safer. Whether the DC Council will support this transfer will be determined in the next two weeks in the final budget deliberations and vote.

Traffic cameras can be an effective approach for discouraging dangerous behavior by drivers. By placing oversight of this tool with the agency responsible for managing our streets, automated traffic enforcement could more effectively improve safety. Traffic cameras are helping now, but they could be used much more strategically if DDOT is able to integrate them into its safety programs.

While there’s good precedent for Departments of Transportation administering automated traffic enforcement—New York City and Chicago are examples—DC Council Transportation and Environment Committee (T&E) chair Mary Cheh (Ward 3) is skeptical, and wants to keep photo enforcement where it is, with the police. We at the Coalition for Smarter Growth along with our partners think this would mean a missed opportunity to make our streets safer.

Why would street safety improve if DDOT manages automated traffic enforcement?

DDOT is uniquely positioned to use automated traffic enforcement to bolster its safety programs, like Vision Zero and traffic calming. Unlike MPD, DDOT can use photo enforcement to assess the safety performance of corridors and intersections and make changes that prevent dangerous behavior.

The city’s high number of traffic deaths this year point to the shortcomings to date in DDOT’s efforts to build safe roads, and better utilization of traffic cameras is no substitute for the essential work of street redesign. But bringing the powerful tool of automated traffic enforcement into DDOT’s toolkit is a part of the solution.

In addition to the opportunity to better integrate photo enforcement with DDOT’s other safety tools, the agency is also planning to deploy traffic cameras to enforce bus lane compliance. While DC lags far behind other cities in deployment of dedicated bus lanes, starting this year, the District will establish dedicated bus lanes on H and I Streets downtown as a summer pilot. We also hope to finally see the 16th Street bus lanes, and later the implementation of the K Street redesign with dedicated bus lanes.

But bus lanes need to be enforced, and DC’s record of enforcement hasn’t been great (e.g. 7th and 9th Streets downtown). Given everything on MPD’s plate, getting sufficient attention from MPD to deploy and fine-tune new automated traffic enforcement for bus lanes seems challenging at best. On the other hand, DDOT has a direct interest in using photo enforcement to ensure that bus lanes are successful, move more people, and improve accessibility in the city.

Critics of photo enforcement have often charged that cameras are more about revenue generation than preventing dangerous behavior. Vesting DDOT with the responsibility for using traffic cameras as part of their management of roadway safety gives us an opportunity to ask for greater accountability. With the transfer of traffic cameras sought by the Mayor, the DC Council can insist that DDOT use its data collection and photo enforcement results to act more quickly to fix streets and intersections that show risks outside the norm.

The traffic camera debate is playing out right now

The DC Council and the Bowser administration seek to make good on the promise of Vision Zero. That’s why the Washington Area Bicyclist Association, Coalition for Smarter Growth, and DC Sustainable Transportation, along with Councilmember Charles Allen (Ward 6), DDOT, and the mayor want traffic cameras shifted to DDOT to improve street safety. The debate is playing out right now in the final budget deliberations, and involves a split between two committee chairs.

Cheh wants the MPD to continue to administer automated traffic enforcement, and is not accepting the Mayor’s budget provision transferring automated enforcement to DDOT and under her committee’s oversight. Allen, who chairs the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary, supports the transfer to DDOT and does not want to accept the funds back into MPD’s budget. This conflict between committees will need to be resolved by council chairman Phil Mendelson.

We hope Mendelson will support placing traffic cameras with DDOT so it can incorporate them in the coordinated approach known as the four E’s of street safety: engineering, enforcement, education, and evaluation. Under DDOT, there will be a better focus on safety to protect people who walk, bike, drive, and use transit in our city, and better enforcement of dedicated bus lanes to speed up buses, improve on-time reliability, and bring back riders.

See story here.

CSG in the News: A Controversial Solution To D.C.’s Housing Crisis: Help The Middle Class

Posted on by Cheryl Cort

From WAMU: A Controversial Solution To D.C.’s Housing Crisis: Help The Middle Class, by  Ally Schweitzer

 “As the District of Columbia and its suburbs grapple with a shortage of housing — particularly affordable homes — a new and controversial strategy has gained support among elected officials, the nonprofit sector and developers alike.

The idea? Invest in housing for the middle class.

…Why has the mayor’s proposed workforce housing fund sparked controversy? 

Mainly because there’s deep skepticism that middle-income people should be a priority when D.C. residents on the bottom of the economic ladder are much worse off.

The top 20 occupations in D.C. by employment totals, 2017. (Includes D.C. residents and commuters.) From a Coalition for Smarter Growth analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

First, the Coalition for Smarter Growth has criticized the city’s definition of “workforce,” saying it’s out of step with reality. According to a report published by the urbanist think tank, eight out of the city’s top 20 professions pay an annual median wage of less than $49,000, or 60 percent of AMI. For example, nearly 16,000 city workers are employed as janitors or cleaners — jobs that pay an annual median wage of $29,000, per CSG’s analysis. Meanwhile, teachers, social workers, and first responders don’t crack the top 20.”

Read CSG’s report and recommendations here.

CSG Testimony on DC FY2020 Budget for Department of Housing & Community Development

Posted on by Cheryl Cort

CSG Testimony FY20 Budget Hearing for DHCD

Testimony before the Hon. Anita Bonds, Chair, Committee on Housing & Neighborhood Revitalization, Council of the District of Columbia

RE: FY2020 Budget Oversight Hearing for the Department of Housing and Community Development and Housing Production Trust Fund

By Cheryl Cort, Policy Director

April 23, 2019

Good afternoon, my name is Cheryl Cort and I am the policy director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth (CSG). The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization working locally in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Our mission is to promote walkable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies and investments needed to make those communities flourish.

We want to commend the Mayor for proposing a substantial increase to the Housing Production Trust Fund to $130 million and an increase in the Affordable Housing Preservation Fund to $15 million. D.C. continues to lead the country in its commitment to local funding for affordable housing, along with its use of important policy tools like TOPA and DOPA, and the administration’s innovations in the New Communities Initiative. These investments, policies, and programs are critical, but much more is needed to preserve and build affordable housing in a city that is rapidly becoming unaffordable to its low-paid workforce and many long-time residents.

The District continues to experience strong demand to live here, which drives up housing prices. In addition, the city’s economy has a large and growing gap between wages earned at white-collar jobs and the earnings of workers who provide essential services to many of the businesses upon which the high-paid professionals rely for day to day needs. To address the needs of low income residents, including the workers who fill 8 of the top 20 occupations in the city, we need deeper and more strategic investments. And we need stronger policies. The FY2020 budget can be more a part of the solution.

Workforce housing – make strategic investments for low wage workers to live in the city

We appreciate the administration’s attention to the housing needs of D.C.’s workforce. Helping workers live near their work has many family, community and environmental benefits. We are disappointed, however, that the income targeting proposed for the new $20 million “workforce” housing program, from 60% to 120% AMI, will miss providing assistance to the working households who most need it to stay in the city. The need starts at 50% AMI, and goes down from there.

Last month, we released a study on D.C.’s workforce housing needs (see attachment). We found:

  • 8 of the most common 20 occupations pay less than $48,000 a year (e.g. administrative assistants);
  • 5 of the top 20 jobs pay below $30,000 per year, which is considered extremely low income for a two-person household (e.g. janitors and cleaners);
  • Not a single one of the most common 20 occupations in the District was between 50% and 80% AMI.

Many of the fastest growing service jobs in the District, such as home health aides, food preparation, and waiters/waitresses, earn extremely low incomes. At these income levels, most working households face severe housing cost burdens, paying more than half of their income to housing. In contrast, rarely does a household earning 80% AMI or more face severe housing cost burdens.

These data show that the District’s critical workforce housing needs are with those earning well below 80% AMI, let alone 120% AMI. But the income targeting for the Mayor’s workforce housing fund would target assistance for earners at 60% to 120% AMI, or $112,500 per year for a 2-person household. For higher earners at this range, we should focus on policies that make the housing market work better, to produce more moderately-priced homes in more neighborhoods. For the expenditure of scarce funds, we must be strategic. Based on our research, we recommend the follow to address affordable workforce housing needs:

  1. Establish a workforce housing policy for income targeting based on need using earnings data and severe cost burdens. We ask the Council to approve funding for the new workforce housing program using income targeting no higher than 60% AMI for rental and 80% AMI for ownership. In fact, based on our research, we recommend that the focus for workforce housing go to rental assistance at 30% and 50% AMI.
  2. Recommit the city (especially through DHCD and Office of Planning) to its obligation to comply with the Fair Housing Act’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule. The D.C. Council can address this in part through the Comprehensive Plan update bill. The Comprehensive Plan should be revised to unlock the potential for less costly, mixed-income housing throughout the city. This is an important way to better address workforce housing needs up the income scale. The Comprehensive Plan should significantly expand the potential for creating new housing, including inclusionary zoning units, especially in high opportunity neighborhoods. The Comprehensive Plan must also ease restrictions on building housing, especially affordable and public housing, like the Park Morton/Bruce Monroe plan to replace deteriorated public housing.
  3. Greatly expand the Local Rent Supplement Program (LRSP) to provide rental assistance to help low-paid workers, especially through tenant-based LRSP. The FY20 budget proposes modest increased support for targeted affordable housing and project-based rental assistance. However, the budget proposed no additional tenant-based rental assistance. We urge the Council to add funding to tenant-based LRSP. In the long term, we should greatly expand LRSP and pair it with our fair housing efforts to bring more deeply affordable housing to high opportunity neighborhoods. These actions are a key way to address our workforce housing needs, and breakdown a legacy of discrimination which cuts off access to opportunity and choice.

 Thank you for your consideration.

_________________________________

Attachment: Making Workforce Housing Work, a new report by Coalition for Smarter Growth, March 2019

CSG Testimony on FY20 DDOT budget

Posted on by Cheryl Cort

We are excited to support the FY20 budget proposals to implement 16th Street dedicated bus lanes, the K Street Transitway, and the summer H and I Streets rush hour bus lanes pilot. These investments are a great start to a new era of delivering a priority bus system that gets hundreds of thousands of D.C. residents and visitors where they need to go, safely and efficiently. Building on this budget, we ask the Council and DDOT to jumpstart the District’s new priority bus system by accelerating implementation of dedicated bus lanes, and the other improvements we need to make this transit service faster and more reliable.

Read the full testimony here: CSG DDOT FY20 Budget Oversight_3-11-19