Category: CSG in the News

Strategies Detailed to Remedy DC’s Affordable-Housing Crisis

Posted on by Joe Wisniewski

Lack of affordable housing is an unintended consequence of a region’s success, and can certainly be seen in the Washington D.C. metro area.

As the public demand for walkable neighborhoods has increased, low- to moderate-income residents are being priced out of those neighborhoods. And unfortunately, the public policy regarding housing affordability in the United States remains “drive until you qualify.”

Thus began Chris Leinberger of the Brookings Institution at a recent seminar entitled “Walkable Neighborhoods: How to Make Them for Everyone,” sponsored by the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

The seminar also featured Ed Lazere of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute and David Bowers of Enterprise Community Partners, who brought their own unique spins on the affordable-housing problem in D.C.

Lazere illuminated some startling statistics regarding housing affordability (D.C. lost half of its low-cost apartment rental units from 2000 to 2010). Bowers added the human element with stories of how housing affordability has affected some actual D.C. residents (illustrating his concept that “data without stories are just numbers”).

Leinberger pointed out that Hollywood does more market research than any other U.S. industry, crediting the popularity of television shows such as Seinfeld and Sex and the City supplanting that of, say, Leave it to Beaver, as reflecting the national consumer demand for walkable neighborhoods away from suburban forms of development which remained in demand until the mid-1990s.

The result of this increased demand has naturally been an increase in land values in walkable communities, specifically in D.C.’s 139 designated activity centers. This, coupled with the lesser issue of increased construction costs associated with the development of walkable neighborhoods, according to Leinberger, has led to gentrification.

Bowers pointed to D.C.’s U Street and H Street corridors as the city’s two most recent neighborhoods to undergo gentrification which, Leinberger stated, was either good or bad, depending on where you sit.

The side effect of gentrification, of course, is pricing out D.C.’s low- and moderate-income residents from these neighborhoods, often displacing long-time residents in the process. And where are they to go? Bowers pointed out that 20 percent of D.C. residents spend half of every take-home dollar on housing already. “They are drowning,” Bowers said.

The main solution to housing affordability in walkable urban places, Leinberger stated, is simply to create more walkable urban places. This is a recognition that housing affordability in in-demand neighborhoods is, by definition, a supply/demand problem.

Leinberger enumerated additional remedies, of which the following is a subset:

  1. Offering standard tax credit and vouchers from the local government in lieu of increased tax revenues from other parts of the walkable urban district;
  2. Participating in federal government programs associated with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Choice Neighborhoods, the next generation of the department’s Hope VI programs;
  3. Instituting inclusionary zoning to require affordable units within a district with higher walkable urban infrastructure investment;
  4. Implementing fee capture upon resale of any market-rate unit within a district with such infrastructure investments;
  5. Allowing ancillary units in for-sale housing (i.e., “granny flats”) to expand the housing supply; and
  6. Encouraging employers to locate in transit-oriented developments in order to increase tax revenues in those districts.

These remedies are not just theoretical, but have been implemented in jurisdictions nationwide. Likewise, they are made possible based on increased profitability that does indeed occur in walkable neighborhoods.

Chris Leinberger dropped a staggering statistic regarding how much D.C. land values have increased in the past decade. On one particular site in Capitol Riverfront, he noted that the land value was probably at around $5 per square foot a decade ago. That same land was recently sold to Toll Brothers at a cost of $825 per square foot. “That increase is stunning,” he added.

In addition, in Arlington County, Virginia, the eight significant walkable neighborhoods occupying 10 percent of the county’s land today generates 55 percent of the county’s revenue, up from 20 percent just a few short decades ago. The county now captures part of this value growth by requiring that developers apportion a percentage of their residential units as affordable housing, or make a contribution to the county’s affordable housing fund.

While there is no one silver-bullet remedy, jurisdictions can, with perseverance, creativity, and hopefully a sense of urgency, address the “unintended consequence of success” that housing affordability poses as they create the walkable communities preferred by consumers of all socioeconomic backgrounds.

Click here to read the original article from Mobility Lab. 

Photo courtesy of  Paul Goddin.

 

Hospital case studies point the way for Prince George’s

Posted on by Ted Van Houten

What’s the difference between a hospital that’s a springboard for economic development, and one that’s not living up to its potential? Answer: Design, location, and connectivity. Local groups compiled a set of case studies to point the way as Prince George’s County moves forward with its proposed Regional Medical Center.


Image from ZGF.The new hospital is an important healthcare facility for the county, and as an employer of 2,000 workers, it can also catalyze economic development in an area where new investment has lagged.

Hospital officials are rumored to be interested in a sprawling 80-120 acre suburban-style site away from Metro, likely the old Landover Mall site. The sponsors of the case studies hope that these examples of great hospitals, designed by leading architectural firms, can help decision-makers understand the benefits of a more mixed-use, compact and transit-oriented site.


Matrix of case studies. Click to view full size.Envision Prince George’s Community Action Team for Transit-Oriented Development, the Coalition for Smarter Growth, and American Institute of Architects Potomac Valley collected the design case studies. They provide examples of mid- to large-scale hospitals with footprints of 1.5-48 acres. In fact, larger hospitals (measured in number of beds) are at the lower end of this range of acres, while the smaller hospitals tended to occupy more land area.

While Prince George’s continues to pursue additional federal offices (like the new FBI headquarters), a new $600 million medical center could be one of the best opportunities to jump-start transit-oriented development at one of the county’s 15 underutilized Metro stations.

In contrast to courting federal agencies, the state and county control the decision about where to locate and how to design a new medical center. Not encumbered with stringent federal security requirements, a regional medical center offers a better opportunity to connect to surrounding uses and fuel spinoff economic activity than an FBI or Homeland Security building.

Why a smaller, urban footprint?

Hospitals must plan for growth, and a working “rule of thumb” for traditional suburban or rural 200-bed hospitals (similar in size to the Prince George’s facility) is a minimum of 40 acres. This footprint provides a suburban or rural site with room for the initial building, associated drop-offs, parking, and room for future growth. Growth is common in medical facilities, whether for outpatient clinics, specialty centers, or the hospital itself.


Seattle Children’s Hospital. Photo from ZGF.Hospitals in a more urban context plan for similar growth, but within sites that are typically 10 acres or less. This smaller footprint offers several benefits over a suburban medical campus. Connecting a hospital center to a larger mixed-use environment where people can work, shop, and live helps attract and retain highly sought-after skilled healthcare workers. By better integrating into the surrounding community, an anchor institution like this can support a vibrant, walkable, thriving new hub.

Designers also point to sustainability benefits from a more urban design and context. A limited footprint disturbs less land and reduces the heat island effect. Placing a more compact medical center in an urban hub also allows for more environmentally-friendly transportation choices with frequent transit service, and walk and bicycle options for short trips. Driving and parking will remain an important mode of access, but a more urban hospital allows for lower parking supplies, greater access for those who do not have a car, and the choice to take some trips on foot or by bicycle.

While a footprint of 10 acres may seem small compared to a suburban campus of 40 acres or more, hospital complexes around the country and beyond are developing successful, busy hospitals on sites as small as a few acres.

The just-released case studies of 11 successful moderate to small-footprint hospitals of comparable size to the planned Prince George’s regional medical center share 3 common success factors: access, flexibility for future growth, and a connection to the surrounding environment.

Success factor: Access

An important factor for any healthcare facility is convenient and easy access to and from the site. High-quality public transportation, stores and services, and housing within walking distance create opportunities for staff and visitors to get outside the hospital while still being nearby, and enable some to come and go without having a car.


Access to Champ de Mars medical center. Image from CannonDesign.Several of the examples in the report show major hospitals that are integrated into city blocks. Hospital staff and visitors have easy access to a local services and transit options. For example, the Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center is a 448-bed hospital, 7 stories tall situated on 3 acres of land. Within a block is the Red line light rail station and major bus routes.


GWU hospital entrance. Photo from Smithgroup JJR.Closer to home, the 6-7 story, 371-bed George Washington University Hospital occupies 2 acres. The front door of GWU Hospital opens onto the busy entrance of the Foggy Bottom Metrorail station and is embedded in a thriving urban district that mixes health, university, private office, retail and housing uses in a highly walkable, transit-accessible environment.

Medical facilities woven into the fabric of a larger mixed-use district served by transit can have an advantage when competing for medical professionals who desire to be in a lively, diverse place, and need flexibility with their commutes in a two-worker household.

Success factor: Flexibility for future growth

While suburban hospitals are typically designed with extra acreage to accommodate future growth, urban medical centers can anticipate similar growth, but plan smartly within a more constrained footprint.


Main entrance, American Hospital Dubai. Image from AECOM.Planning a smaller-footprint facility guides planners to take into account their overall surroundings, making better use of pedestrian connections to the surrounding community and supporting services. In the case of both the vertical high rise addition to Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, with the 260-bed Bunting Center inpatient hospital on 1.5 acres, and the 350-bed American Hospital Dubai campus on 11 acres, planning for growth accounted for the sites’ larger surroundings.

The hospital designers from AECOM point out that an urban design and location provides significant advantages in offering the ability to walk to a nearby restaurant to avoid yet another meal at the hospital cafeteria or the convenience of staying at a nearby hotel for someone visiting a sick relative.

Success factor: Connection to green spaces

Numerous studies show that access to outdoor places and views of green spaces create a state-of-the-art healing environment. But urban hospitals don’t need to concede healing green features to their suburban and rural counterparts. Roof gardens, courtyards, and natural light are all achievable in small-footprint hospital centers.


Roof garden view, Bunting Center at Mercy, Baltimore. Rendering from AECOM.The centerpiece of the Bunting Center at Mercy Hospital healing environment is a multilevel roof garden, accessible on various floors and overlooked by room occupants above the midway point along the rise of the building. The 9th floor garden offers direct access from the ICU waiting room.

On the 28 acre campus of the 600-bed Seattle Children’s Hospital, 41% of the campus is dedicated as open space. Pedestrian paths are provided throughout the facility to promote walking and offer outdoor connections.

Innovative design and urban context show the possibilities

The 11 case studies offer examples of innovative architectural design, connectivity to the surrounding context, access to transit, green features and compact footprints. These features highlight how a regional medical center for Prince George’s and Southern Maryland could establish a new leading healthcare facility that not only attracts the staff and patients it needs to succeed, but fits into a larger district that thrives on the influx of activity.

Photos courtesy of Greater Greater Washington. Read the original article here.

Congestion Pricing Draws Skepticism From Area Commuters

Posted on by Joe Wisniewski

Commuters are skeptical that congestion pricing will reduce traffic congestion in the metropolitan Washington area, according to a study released Wednesday by the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board. Instead, they prefer alternatives to driving, in the form of commuter rail, express bus service, or bicycling and walking, the study found.

“They really want to make sure that there are clear benefits,” says TPB planner John Swanson. “That it’s going to fund new transportation alternatives, better transit, bikes, peds, all those new improvements, but particularly transit and high quality bus.”

The 65-page report (pdf) weighed the attitudes of 300 area residents from Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Study participants were asked to consider three scenarios: 1) placing tolls on all major roadways including interstate highways; 2) charging a per-mile fee measured by GPS systems installed in cars; and 3) creating priced zones similar to London that would charge motorists to enter a designated area. The scenarios received tepid support.

For many, driving not a choice

The study participants spoke of congestion in personal terms: in family time robbed, or the stress of dealing with incessant traffic. To most commuters, driving is not a choice.

“The availability of other options besides driving — such as transit, walking and biking — increased receptiveness to pricing,” the report states. “Participants also spoke favorably of proposals that would maintain non-tolled lanes or routes for those who cannot or do not want to pay.”

Transit advocates see the report as validation.

“What’s most interesting about this report is that it was an effort to seek public support for congestion pricing, but what it documented was the much stronger support for transit and improvements in how we plan land use in order to give people more choices to get around,” said Stewart Schwartz, the executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

Changing attitudes on gas tax

The study’s authors — the TPB partnered with the Brookings Institution — found that respondents favored raising the gas tax as an easier, fairer alternative to implementing a congestion pricing program.

The gas tax “is a hidden fee,” said Swanson. “We learned that people actually like that. There is a general sense of the invisibility of the gas tax being a problem and potentially a benefit, something that’s strangely attractive to people.”

Participants by-and-large identified transportation funding shortfalls as a critical problem, yet expressed doubts the government would make the right choices if additional revenues were made available through congestion pricing.

“I think people get that there is a lack of funding. They also get the fact there are a number of other problems. There aren’t alternatives,” says TPB board member Chris Zimmerman.

Zimmerman, whose background is in economics, is unsure congestion pricing would even work.

“Even if you are paying a gas tax, it’s not related to your use of any particular road,” Zimmerman said. “An economist looks at that and says of course you are going to get inefficiency and congestion.”

The Washington region saw two major highways shift to congestion pricing in 2012. The ICC in Maryland charges variably priced tolls; the 495 Express Lanes charge dynamically priced tolls and offer free rides to HOV-3 vehicles.

In the case of the Express Lanes, the state of Virginia will not receive toll revenues for 75 years per its contract with its private sector partner, Transurban.It remains to be seen if the new toll lanes will ultimately reduce congestion in the heavily traveled corridor. The ICC also has its critics more than one year after the first tolls were charged, with critics noting the road is underused.

Read the original article on WAMU.

 

Photo courtesy of Michael Galvosky.

Smart Growth Forum Reveals Stunning Land Value Increases in DC

Posted on by Joe Wisniewski

On Tuesday night, the Coalition for Smarter Growth kicked off their Walking Tours and Forums series with a discussion about walkable neighborhoods. Chris Leinberger of Locus Development, Ed Lazere of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute and David Bowers of Enterprise Community Partners met to discuss affordability and access issues in urban, walkable neighborhoods. In DC, as well as other cities, walkable urban areas are becoming more desirable than sprawling suburban ones, and the rapid increase in land and housing values are leading sought-after sections to be out of reach (cost-wise) for more and more people.

As you might expect from an event hosted by the Coalition for Smarter Growth, the talk had an urbanist, pro-walking, anti-car slant. Here are a some of the more interesting sound bytes and statistics:

The Increase in Land Values in Certain Sections of DC is “Stunning”

Chris Leinberger dropped a staggering statistic regarding how much DC land values have increased in the past decade. On one particular site in Capitol Riverfront, he shared, the land value was probably at around $5 per square foot a decade ago. That same land was recently sold to Toll Brothers at a cost of $825 per square foot. “That increase is stunning,” he said.

DC’s Supply of Housing in Constrained

In part because of zoning regulations and the height limit in areas surrounding the downtown core, supply in DC is unusually limited, keeping the costs up. Leinberger was heartened that both are under discussion. “We have to understand that zoning isn’t handed down from God,” he said. “We made it and we can change it. Creating more walkable urban places with drive down land values.”

No Car, More Money

“If you remove one car from your household, you can increase the mortgage you can afford by $150,000,” Leinberger said last night, based on car payments, insurance payments and monthly gas outlays. Another interesting car-related fact from Leinberger: If a city reduces car ownership by 15,000 owners, $127 million stays in the city.

The Lack of Affordable Housing Must Be Addressed

Ed Lazere pointed out that DC lost half of its low-cost rental units and 70 percent of its low-value homes in the last ten years. In 2000, half of the apartments in the city rented for $700/month or less, a rate that seems unbelievably low now.

David Bowers told a few stories of long-time residents getting pushed out of their homes in rapidly-developing neighborhoods like Columbia Heights and Petworth. Now, organizations are starting to look to the new frontiers — Anacostia and Congress Heights — to start helping residents stay put. “It’s a preservation and resident displacement prevention initiative.”

A few of the possible solutions discussed include supporting Choice Communities (formerly known as HOPE VI), a program that turns housing projects into mixed-income projects; supporting the creation of accessory dwelling units or “granny flats”; and funding the Housing Production Trust Fund and programs like the Home Purchase Assistance Program and the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act.

Read the original article on Urban Turf.

 

Photo courtesy of CTDataHaven.

DC Commuters Want Less Traffic, More Transit — And No Congestion Pricing

Posted on by Joe Wisniewski

Commuters are skeptical that congestion pricing will reduce traffic in the metropolitan Washington area and raise revenues to fund transportation projects. Instead, they favor alternatives to driving: commuter rail, express bus service, or bicycling/walking.

A  report released Wednesday by the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board (TPB) weighed the attitudes of 300 area residents who participated in five forums: two in Virginia, two in Maryland, and one in the District of Columbia. The participants were asked to consider three scenarios: 1) placing tolls on all major roadways, including interstate highways; 2) charging a per-mile fee measured by GPS systems installed in cars; and 3) creating priced zones similar to a system in London that would charge motorists to enter a designated area.

These attitudes are being probed at a delicate time for transportation funding in the region: Virginia’s governor is proposing the elimination of the state gasoline tax — while Maryland is looking at increasing theirs. Meanwhile, the area’s largest transit project, the Silver Line, has yet to be fully funded.

But the funding scenarios posed to study participants received tepid support.

“This study shows people are cautiously open to concepts of congestion pricing, but they really need to see if it’s going to work, and they have doubts about that,” said John Swanson, a TPB planner.

“They really want to make sure that there are clear benefits, that [congestion pricing] is going to fund new transportation alternatives… particularly transit and high quality bus [service],” he added.

Scenario one – charging tolls on all major roadways – was supported by 60 percent of study participants, who engaged in extended exchanges of ideas and opinions. Scenario two – using GPS to track miles traveled – was opposed by 86 percent, even though drivers’ actual routes would not be tracked, only the number of miles.

“I don’t want to discount privacy concerns,” Swanson said. “I don’t think, however, the concerns were simply the classic ‘big brother’ concerns. There was a lot of code language for broader anxieties.  It was a complicated proposal that was hard to understand.  It seemed to be hard to implement.  A lot of people said it looked like it would be expensive to implement and, frankly, they are right.”

The study participants spoke of congestion in personal terms — family time robbed, the stress of dealing with incessant traffic. Most commuters said driving is not a choice.

“The availability of other options besides driving—such as transit, walking and biking—increased [the] receptiveness to pricing. Participants also spoke favorably of proposals that would maintain non-tolled lanes or routes for those who cannot or do not want to pay,” the report said.

Transit advocates say the report shows shaping land use strategies to improve access to transit and create walkable, densely built environments is the best way to mitigate the region’s traffic jams.

“Newcomers to the region are very frequently choosing the city or a place near transit rather than a place where they have no option but to drive,” said Stewart Schwartz, the executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

“What’s most interesting about this report is that it was an effort to seek public support for congestion pricing, but what it documented was the much stronger support for transit and improvements in how we plan land use in order to give people more choices to get around,” Schwartz added.

The study’s authors – the TPB partnered with the Brookings Institution – found most participants were unaware the federal gas tax (18.4 cents per gallon) hasn’t been raised since 1993.  However, they also favored raising the gas tax as an easier, fairer alternative to implementing a congestion pricing program.

Support for increasing the gas tax increased over the course of the sessions –  from 21 percent when the study convened to 57 percent upon its completion.

The gas tax “is a hidden fee,” said Swanson. “We learned that people actually like that. There is a general sense of the invisibility of the gas tax being a problem and potentially a benefit, something that’s strangely attractive to people.”

Eighty-five percent of study participants identified transportation funding shortfalls as a critical problem, yet expressed doubts the government would make the right choices if additional revenues were made available through congestion pricing.

TPB board member Chris Zimmerman, who’s also a member of the Arlington (VA) County Board, took exception to the wording of the study’s questions using the word “government” because he felt it provoked a negative response.

“If you are trying to interpret what people say, you have to be careful of what question you ask them,” Zimmerman said. “I think people get that there is a lack of funding.  They also get the fact there are a number of other problems.  There aren’t alternatives. For many in this region, they drive not because that’s what they are dying to do, but because they have no choice.”

Zimmerman, who background is in economics, said it should be no surprise people are lukewarm about congestion pricing proposals, given the lack of alternative modes of transportation in some places.  He is also unsure congestion pricing will work.

“The way roads are run is there is basically no pricing of them at all. Even if you are paying a gas tax it’s not related to your use of any particular road.  An economist looks at that and says of course you are going to get inefficiency and congestion,” Zimmerman said.

“You are not talking about going from the current situation to instantly pricing everything perfectly.  You are talking about implementing costs on particular segments of roads and that gets a lot more complicated because there are secondary effects,” Zimmerman said. “We price one thing and many people shift to some other place.  Well, where is that some other place?”

“In practice, implementing that is very difficult.”

The Washington region saw two major highways shift to congestion pricing in 2012. Maryland’sInter-County Connector charges variably priced tolls; the 495 Express Lanes charge dynamically priced tolls and offer free rides to HOV-3 vehicles.

In the case of the Express Lanes, the state of Virginia will not receive toll revenues for 75 years as per its contract with its private sector partner, Transurban, and it remains to be seen if the new toll lanes will ultimately reduce congestion in the heavily traveled corridor. The ICC also has its critics, who say the recently constructed highway was a waste of money.

Read the original story on Transportation Nation.

Photo by NCreedplayer via flickr

McDonnell Pitches Tax Plan

Posted on by Joe Wisniewski

Addressing a friendly audience this afternoon at the Commonwealth Transportation Board, Governor Bob McDonnell plugged his transportation financing plan, arguing that it was “economically sound, politically viable” and will “fix the problem.”

“Our problem is a math problem,” the governor said. “Revenues are on a downward path and the cost of asphalt is on an upward path.” Within a few years, $500 million a year will be diverted from the state’s construction fund to pay for maintenance.

“I’ve used every asset I can find” that the General Assembly has made available to him, McDonnell said. He has audited VDOT four times. He has issued bonds. He has tapped the General Fund budget surplus. He has leveraged state dollars through tolled Public Private Transportation projects. Now the options are exhausted and the state needs new revenue.

McDonnell has proposed a five-point plan: (1) scrapping the motor fuels tax (except on diesel) and boosting the sales tax by 0.8%, a revenue source that will increase as the economy grows; (2) diverting 0.25% of existing sales tax revenue from the General Fund to transportation; (3) charging an extra $15 per year for vehicle registrations; and (4) charging alternative-fuel vehicles $100 per year, and (5) collecting taxes on online sales.

As people shift to more fuel-efficient automobiles and alternate-fuel vehicles, the governor said, the gasoline tax is not a viable long-term revenue source. “Relying on the state gas tax will only make the funding situation worse because the gas tax buying power has greatly depleted over the years.  Switching to the state sales tax is the reasonable and logical solution to fund projects.”

Underlining the governor’s remarks, John Lawson, chief financial officer of the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) told the CTB that his five-year revenue forecast had become significantly more pessimistic over the past year. Compared to last year’s five year forecast (2013-2018), the amount of revenue available to VDOT over the next five years (2014-2019) is $766 million less. State revenue is expected to decline $218 million while federal revenue will plummet $548 million. Those numbers do not take into account added revenues from the governor’s tax plan, which, in enacted, would raise an estimated $1.8 billion over the same period.

Between direct funding reductions and a delay to bond issues, that means the state will have $700 million less to spend on new roads, bridges and highways than expected. Even previous to Lawson’s revelation, the McDonnell administration had been saying that the state would run out of state construction funding within four to five years.

Touting the sales tax component of his plan as a first for the country, McDonnell said. The sales tax “is predictable, it’s reliable and it grows.”

A wide array of business and labor groups have endorsed McDonnell’s plan, as have key Republican legislators. Democrats have been relatively quiet, although some have expressed concerns about the idea of siphoning money from the General Fund, which would come at the expense of schools, health care and other priorities. Conservatives have expressed suspicion of anything resembling a tax increase. Free-market advocates have argued that the shift away from the user-pays gas tax would subsidize driving.  And smart growth advocates have slammed the bill for that reason and others.

Before approving another $1.8 billion in spending over the next five  years, said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, in response to the governor’s remarks, the General Assembly should take a close look at how McDonnell is spending the $3 billion it authorized for to borrow. The U.S. 460 Connector between Suffolk and Petersburg, costing more than $1 billion in public dollars, has a very low cost-benefit ratio compared to projects going begging in other parts of the state, he said. What assurance is there, he asked, that new tax revenues won’t be similarly wasted?

Read the original story at Bacon’s Rebellion >>

Photo courtesy of James Bacon.