The issues of affordable housing are not complex

But people don't seem to understand regardless.

The biggest costs to creating housing are the cost of the land and the cost of construction. In high demand places, land is expensive, and construction is expensive. Other than reducing the size of a building (i.e., a shotgun house instead of a McMansion), reducing the size of lots, or adding density to multiunit unit buildings (and making the units smaller), there is nothing you can really do to make housing "affordable."

Therefore, affordable housing requires subsidy in either land, taxation, density bonuses, outright cash grants, etc.

That's just the way it is.

The only way to preserve long term affordability is either to be in a weak or declining market like Pittsburgh or Detroit (you can get houses really cheaply now in the Detroit Metropolitan area...) OR to hold land in community land trusts, cooperatives, and other forms which take out some of the "capitalist market forces" that lead to increase in value.

The normally good "Housing Complex" column in last week's Washington City Paper provided a forum for "typical DC resident whining about building housing for people not like us," in this case the redevelopment of the Curtis Chevrolet site at Georgia and Missouri Avenues NW (about one mile from where I live these days). See "Missouri Loves Company." That whining gets tiresome. (For more on the redevelopment of this site, see "Foulger-Pratt to save part of historic D.C. car barn" from the Washington Business Journal.)

Curtis Chevrolet site. Washington Business Journal photo.

From the article:

In 2007, Knapp began work on a proposal to build a 400-unit luxury apartment building at the site of the old Curtis Chevrolet dealership, with rents ranging from $1,250 for studios to up to $2,300 for two-bedrooms. ...

But Knapp is an ambitious sort. He thinks he can replicate their successes, with some modifications for a “lower income” bracket. Eight percent of his units are pegged for people making 80 percent of the area median income. In other words: His affordable housing would be all of $50 or $100 less per month for studios; one-bedrooms would rent for about $1,400, and two-bedroom units would be around $1,650 in a neighborhood with no Metro and few amenities beyond a go-go club.

The locals think he’s crazy: “Everyone knows it’s ludicrous—old, young, black, white,” says Sara Green, an ANC commissioner. “Mayor Fenty gets up there and says we have a reasonable affordable housing program in this city, and when a $1,300 studio is affordable housing—it’s a joke.”

Her fellow commissioner, Brenda Speaks, also questions this project’s fit for the area: “In Ward 4, there are people that have been here, worked here, raised their children here, and some of their children now live in their houses. I myself have been here since 1965—in the same house in fact.”

She says her neighbors—bungalow and row-house dwellers—similarly fail to get how 400 Class A apartments will enhance their neighborhood. “They don’t feel it would satisfy their needs,” she says. “They just don’t want it.”

1. New housing isn't constructed for people who already live somewhere. It's constructed for people who live somewhere else.

2. The commercial revitalization of Georgia Avenue NW is roughly a lost cause. I know I shouldn't say this since that's the line of work I am in. The big problem is that the area isn't very densely populated--most of the blocks are developed with 32 single family detached houses, or up to 64 houses if the housing is rowhouse-attached.

To get the "fancy" retail that people say they want (Busboys and poets is mentioned in the article), the neighborhood needs more residents, and it needs more residents willing to spend money at places other than Family Dollar or the very great Georgia Avenue Thrift Store or greasy food carryouts on Georgia Avenue or Kennedy Street.

If residents want more retail options, they are going to have to bite the bullet and accept that revitalization comes in part by having more residents with money living in the area. Even so, with a relative paucity of residents and few attractions that will bring in nonresidents to spend their money, there are few options for Georgia Avenue.

Other than intensifying a couple nodes: (1) at the Petworth Metro Station; (2) between Howard University and the Petworth Metro Station; (3) at Georgia and Missouri Avenues (bus-dependent); (4) at Piney Branch and Georgia Avenues (bus-dependent, but with a Safeway Supermarket, Post Office and CVS); and (5) possibly some redevelopment of the Walter Reed site, but this is unlikely as the site is likely to remain within the federal property portfolio, there are few real opportunities to fix the commercial environment on Georgia Avenue.

Residents need to recognize this, and develop a revitalization strategy in that context.

One of the greatest things about moving from one place to another is that in your new place, you have the option to not do some of the things you did in your old domicile. For me, I am choosing to not get too involved in local issues, particularly Ward 4 issues.

I am sure, judging by the opinions expressed in the article, that ANC4B meetings would drive me insane. Unlike my (with many others) taking on the H Street NE revitalization issue back around 2000, I don't have the energy or desire to deal with Georgia Avenue. Let other people deal with it... But clearly there is a need for people other than those currently involved to get involved.

If ANC4B wants to do something, they can create their own revitalization plan including a housing policy. (We didn't do it, but I recommended that H Street Main Street do exactly that, back in the fall of 2003.)