Category: Affordable Housing
CSG Testimony in Support of Heritage at Old Town
Testimony to Alexandria City Council in Support of the Heritage at Old Town
Rezoning #2020-00006
Development Special Use Permit #2020-10032
Transportation Management Plan Special Use Permit 2020-00084
February 20, 2020
Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director
Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Thank you for serving our city during these challenging times.
My name is Stewart Schwartz and I am the Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, the leading organization in the D.C. region advocating walkable, inclusive, transit-oriented communities as the most sustainable and equitable way to grow and provide opportunities for all. We are a 24-year-old non-profit with partnerships that span the conservation, affordable housing, social equity, transit, bike/ped, and business sectors. In 2017, we received the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) Regional Partnership Award.
We urge you to approve the Heritage at Old Town.
Alexandria has lost over 90% of its affordable housing over the past two decades. We face a housing affordability crisis in Alexandria and neighboring jurisdictions. Multiple studies demonstrate that we need both more supply and more long-term committed affordable units. This project provides both. Supply is critical to avoid displacement, and a range of tools are needed including leveraging land value and density to ensure we create more affordable units.
We work in multiple jurisdictions in the DC region and we can confirm that the City of Alexandria does its homework. The result here from city and community input is a project that provides the housing we need in a well-designed development, with much improved streetscape, pedestrian connectivity, and park spaces. Alexandria offers a very walkable, mixed-use environment with excellent transit – planned to be even better with the redesigned bus network which will provide frequent all-day, seven day per week service. Far more traffic would be generated through Alexandria if our communities pushed all development out to auto-dependent locations.
The project will buffer the neighborhood from the wide, noisy Route 1 entry to Old Town, and has been designed to step down to the adjacent rowhouses. For nearly 25 years I lived near Braddock Metro in a four-story condo building across from single-family homes, next to townhomes and 7 and 9 story condo buildings, and within sight of much taller buildings. Public housing was just a block away. The neighborhood is wonderful, however, it has lost diversity — because when those buildings were built the city did not have the strategies in place to ensure a mix of housing affordability. That’s why the new RMF zoning applied here is such an important tool. It enables 197 units of deeply affordable housing by a private developer without a public subsidy, allowing the city to direct its affordable housing funds to other projects, creating additional housing. This level of long-term and deep level of affordability without subsidy is extremely rare and a big benefit of the project.
The pandemic has illustrated just who are our most essential workers and the extreme stress they are under due to high housing prices. The racial equity crisis has demonstrated how poorly we have served people of color in our community and nation. It is time to ensure a more inclusive community for the long-term. We urge you to approve the Heritage at Old Town.
Thank you.
RELEASE: Diverse group of housing supporters urges Chairman Mendelson & DC Council to pass the DC Comp Plan
Today, the Housing Priorities Coalition and allies urged the DC Council to pass the DC Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act. The letter cited the Comp Plan update as one of our most critical tools to address housing affordability, racial equity and a number of other challenges. The proposed legislation has been waiting for DC Council action since the Mayor submitted it in April 2020.
The Housing Priorities Coalition formed four years ago to help update the DC Comprehensive Plan, the land use policy that guides development decisions in the District. Learn more here.
CSG Testimony in Support of PG 416-21: Finish the Countywide Rezoning
RE: Testimony in Support for PG 416-21: Prince George’s County – Public Ethics – Definition of Application
At the Virtual Delegation Bill Hearing on Local/Bi-County Legislation By The Prince George’s County House Delegation, February 2, 20201
By Cheryl Cort, Policy Director, Coalition for Smarter Growth
Dear Members of the Delegation:
Please accept these comments on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization working locally in the Washington, DC 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 are pleased to provide testimony in support of PG 416-21. This bill provides a legislative adjustment needed to complete the Prince George’s County Zoning and Subdivision rewrite. A uniquely Prince George’s County ethics law has tripped up the Countywide Zoning Map Amendment (CMA), which is the last step in the zoning rewrite process. This ethics law doesn’t exist anywhere else in the state including in Montgomery County or Baltimore City which has already updated their zoning regulations.
The County’s zoning rewrite was adopted by the Prince George’s County Council in December 2018. After the late 2018 adoption, the Countywide Zoning Map Amendment (CMA) process was initiated. The CMA is the final stage where the rewritten zoning regulations are implemented by applying the new or updated zones to the County’s zoning map.
Over the course of a number of years, we worked with stakeholders and community activists to engage in the public process to update the county’s outmoded zoning and subdivision regulations. We have advocated for the adoption of the modernized regulations through various public fora, and hearings by the County Council.
We made this a priority because this zoning rewrite is a significant advance for the county. The zoning rewrite and CMA are worth the effort because they replace the county’s current obsolete and cumbersome zoning regulations which are holding back the county. Here are some of the ways the zoning and subdivision process will improve:
- Design and building form standards: the document establishes transit-oriented zones at the local and regional scales to support the goals of walkable urbanism, creating walkable, and bikable areas that are well-connected to transit;
- Parking standards for urban and transit-oriented areas: the zoning rewrite reduces excessive minimum parking requirements in transit-oriented centers in order to support more multimodal designs and uses.
- Street designs: the revisions require interconnected streets, shorter blocks, and pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. It implements newly adopted urban street design standards that support walk and bike friendly streets.
- Transportation demand management: the regulations also establish progressive traffic reduction measures that emphasize encouraging more people to ride transit if available, bicycle, share rides and walk.
- Ease of use: The zoning and subdivision regulations are presented in a more readable format providing tables and graphic illustrations to better understand and visualize the standards.
- Ending perpetual approvals: The zoning rules establish limits on approvals after a number of years. Today, approvals are allowed to live on forever, despite significant changes that may occur after initially projected conditions. While some of the provisions seem overly generous, setting the proposed limits would be a big step forward for the county.
The proposed legislation is clear — this is specific to the CMA, not for everyday zoning and development review matters that come before the Council. For all these reasons, we urge the delegation to adopt the bill to accommodate the Council’s role and responsibility in adopting the CMA. We believe implementation of the zoning and subdivision rewrite is a tremendous improvement for the county and the community. It is a once in a generation opportunity.
Thank you for your consideration.
ALERT: Sign our letter to advance racial equity with the DC Comp Plan!
Join us in one more push: Sign the letter for racial equity
Dear Friend,
We’ll keep this short. We have joined with partners in a sign-on letter to urge passage of the DC Comprehensive Plan ASAP. If you haven’t already, please add your name.
The Comp Plan update is a fundamental part of the District’s commitment to address its legacy of racial inequity and the letter makes the case for Chair Mendelson and the Council to act quickly to pass the plan.
Please sign the letter today!
The proposed updates to the Comp Plan work to reverse redlining, racial segregation, and other discriminatory practices. It also acknowledges the consequences of past and current planning on Black and Brown residents, including: wealth disparities, health outcomes, and housing security.
The DC Office of Planning has identified nearly 100 policies and actions throughout the Comprehensive Plan that explicitly focus on advancing equity, titled the Equity Crosswalk. When implemented altogether, these policies hold promise to deliver on the goals of equity established in the Framework Element and to make a tangible difference in the lives of DC residents who have yet to reap the benefits of the growth and change in the city.
Thank you for sticking with us in the fight for the updated Comp Plan.
Cheryl Cort, Policy Director, Coalition for Smarter Growth
PS: Click here to learn more about the Comp Plan.
Photo Credit: S. Davis, Flickr.
RE: Support for Accessory Dwelling Units in Alexandria
January 23, 2021
Alexandria City Council
301 King Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
RE: Support for Accessory Dwelling Units in Alexandria
Dear Mayor Wilson and Members of City Council:
Please accept these comments on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth (CSG), the leading organization in the DC region advocating for walkable, inclusive, transit-oriented communities. CSG appreciates the City of Alexandria’s efforts to develop an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) policy and writes to convey our full support of the proposal. CSG has become a leading expert on ADUs through our work in DC and our just-released DC ADU homeowners manual.
Accessory dwelling units can offer less expensive housing options than renting or buying a single-family home because of their smaller size. They are great for an aging parent you are caring for, offer a home for your recent college graduate, or a young professional just starting their career. ADUs can also offer a stream of income for homeowners, including lower-income homeowners and retirees on fixed incomes.
CSG is enthusiastic about the strong provisions being proposed that will help make the City’s program a success, such as allowing ADUs citywide, and enhance their feasibility and affordability by not requiring off street parking in our transit-rich, walkable city, and not requiring owner-occupancy on site.
An owner-occupancy requirement lacks flexibility for the homeowner and may limit one’s ability to build an ADU. It can make it difficult for homeowners to finance an ADU. This may serve to exacerbate income and racial inequities by limiting the ability of homeowners to construct ADUs to those with sufficient equity in their homes. An owner-occupancy requirement would also be limiting to people who must move on short notice, such as military and diplomatic families, who often choose to rent out their primary residence. We also note that single-family homes today are already frequently rented out by owners who are not living on site. The owner-occupancy requirement would be a barrier to constructing ADUs and undermine the goal of increasing the supply of ADUs in the city.
We encourage the city to include requirements for regular review, reporting, and recommendations by city staff on refinements to the program. This could include creating an affordability program for low-income renters or buyers, assessing size limitations and setbacks and their impact, whether or not the program has exacerbated or improved racial and income inequalities, and recommendations to address any other barriers towards creating new housing through ADUs.
We understand that some Alexandria residents who are opposed to ADUs and previously opposed the Seminary Road safety project have attacked CSG and our supporters as being outsiders. CSG is a longstanding, 24-year-old regional organization advocating for transit, safe streets, transit-oriented development, and affordable housing throughout the DMV and were honored with the Council of Governments’ (COG) Regional Partnership Award in 2017. Our staff live in Northern Virginia, Maryland, and DC and work with local advocates in each jurisdiction. We sent emails about the ADU program to our Alexandria members and subscribers encouraging them to participate in the ADU study process and to contact the City Council, and we remind our supporters that the emails on Alexandria issues are focused on Alexandria residents. At the same time, local elected officials meeting at COG have agreed that housing, like transportation, is a regional issue, requiring shared effort by every jurisdiction.
CSG believes the proposed ADU policy is a bold step forward in establishing a strong program that will help provide more housing options in Alexandria. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Stewart Schwartz
Executive Director
Sonya Breehey
Northern Virginia Advocacy Manager