Height limit

GhettoBurbs points out that the Post has an article today about the height limits, "Looking Past the Capital City," subtitled "A Reinvented D.C. Could Offer New Destinations in All Directions."

Here is my response:

In theory, I am not against breaching the height limit, because I think reality and economic analysis proves that not allowing developers to go up means that they go outward, and more parts of the city abutting the central business district get reproduced into business-district like places. (It's also why the definition of the "central" business district is expanding in every direction it can.)

M Street SE is one example. NoMa is another. H street NE was a false start--a couple bigger office buildings on the 600 block were an attempt that didn't go farther. And of course, the energy on the part of developers and City Council to redevelop Florida Market currently is but one more example.

2005 photo of M Street SE by Jacqueline Dupree.

The problem is that people like Eric Price et al can talk about the city developing great boulevards and amenities like Paris and London, but when it comes to on the ground development, most developers appear to value engineer their properties to the nth degree, and not offer up very much beyond the minimum necessary to keep their buildings rented. (I will say that the Abdo Company appears to be an exception, but at this point they have only one significant project that involves new construction.)

And design... how many glass boxes does a city really need to be indistinguishable from every other place?

Sadly, the city itself builds a lot of terrible value engineered buildings that don't contribute much in the way of visual amenity to a city that is defined in large part by historic architecture, urban design, and a visually attractive environment (trees, flowers, open space, parks). And it doesn't take very good care of many of the buildings it is entrusted to manage for the citizens of the District of Columbia who really own the buildings.

Being allowed to build higher would generate greater income streams and some developers might then be motivated to do better work, including design and offering other amenities such as discounted rent for retail, because the "cost" of this could be spread out over more developable square footage, just as discounted rents for department stores at malls or supermarkets at strip shopping centers is made up by higher rents on the other tenants, who desire proximity to anchors generating lots of shopping trips and spending a lot of money on advertising, which further drives shopping trips.

But maybe developers would just pocket the extra cash.

But/2, the reality is that only having smaller buildings in a strong real estate market generates higher rents, which displaces all but the tenants most capable of paying higher rents. And this generates pressures for redeveloping all sites into the maximum allowable density, which is yet another reason why it's difficult to find the kinds of buildings that could support innovation (what Jane Jacobs wrote about), old office buildings and warehouses and the like, because of their low running costs and therefore low rents.

DC rents are not quite double the rents in Northern Virginia, but they are also much higher than average rents in most of the big cities across the country, such as Chicago.

Still, the only way I could support breaching the height limit is if design review, the protection of certain viewsheds, and other defined community benefits were included. Developers are happy to receive incentives (the quid) but not really happy about requiring amenities in return (the pro quo)

This kind of view and monoculture of buildings:

only taller, has limited benefits.

Unless we can also harvest the improved financial economics of building to truly create that beautiful city beyond the Federal core, that people seem to want.