Sue Hemberger on the proposed DC Comprehensive Plan

This is a reprint of an entry by Sue Hemberger in the current issue of themail:

Now that the elections are finally over, I hope that more politically engaged folk will turn their attention to the Comprehensive Plan. The press coverage given to the Plan has been minimal and largely unsubstantive and the councilmembers, many of whom don't seem to have read the document themselves, haven't informed their constituents about the Plan's contents.

I'm strongly opposed to rushing the current (ever-changing) draft through this legislative session without a serious and sustained public debate about what the city's development priorities should be. There are real choices to be made here, and they are difficult choices that will have lasting implications. Let's slow down and get this right.

Toward that end, here's a short list of some of the most crucial questions I think that the current draft has begged:

1) The District is increasingly becoming a home to the very affluent and the very poor. There are at least two different problems here -- one is that the city has become unaffordable for the middle class and the other is that prosperity hasn't benefited the people who are least well off. How will we reverse these trends?

2) The cumulative effect of development has been very uneven and threatens to overwhelm some neighborhoods while leaving others behind. We aren't successfully repopulating or rebuilding the parts of the city that suffered from disinvestment and the loss of households. How will we steer future development to the places where it is needed the most and where our infrastructure has excess capacity?

3) Land use decisions, especially in residential areas, have become unpredictable and highly contentious. Essentially, city planners have ceased to enforce zoning restrictions in cases where commercial or institutional development is involved and have encouraged an over-reliance on the PUD process. As a result, a process designed to be used only in exceptional cases and for large multi-building projects is routinely employed as a tool for spot rezoning (and/or "zoning by checkbook"). How will we effectively limit the use of the PUD process and ensure that the projects that emerge from it benefit neighborhoods as much as they do developers?

4) DC government has heavily subsidized a number of private redevelopment projects and, as a result, our per capita debt has soared. We can't afford to continue this pattern. This "all carrots and no sticks" approach to shaping land use decisions has been extremely expensive and does not seem to have yielded the anticipated tax revenue benefits. Meanwhile, other local jurisdictions all recognize that growth has costs as well as benefits and have taken legislative action designed to limit and to recoup such costs. What steps will DC government take to ensure a more equitable redistribution of the costs and profits associated with development?

5) Our transit system is in crisis. Traffic congestion and commute times are way up. Buses are mired in the same traffic as automobiles and, as a result, are becoming a less reliable alternative for commuters. Portions of the Metrorail system are near capacity even before massive transit-oriented development already in the pipeline has been completed. As regional job and population growth centers move outward, DC residents dependent on public transportation are increasingly disconnected from access to economic opportunity and other local jurisdictions seem increasingly likely to invest in roads rather than regional mass transit. How will we improve the reliability, convenience, and coverage of public transit so that it becomes a more attractive alternative than driving? Where will the funding for such improvements come from?

6) Public services (education, health care, libraries, parks, public safety) are of sufficiently poor quality to deter people who have a choice from moving into many areas of the city and to condemn those who can't afford to move elsewhere to lives of poverty with little hope of upward mobility. What role will planning and public investment play in turning around neighborhoods in ways that benefit (rather than simply replace) existing residents? What plans does DC have for improving the life-chances of children growing up in poverty in the city?

7) Local businesses are increasingly being replaced by national chains. This is a loss to the city on a variety of levels -- it renders us a less distinctive retail destination, it exports rather than recirculates money spent locally, and it decreases job options. How will we protect and foster small business ownership in the city?

Index Keywords: civic-engagement; comprehensive-plan