California’s first ADU condo sale offers another path to homeownership

Backdoor Revolution: The Definitive Guide to ADU Development

I have been interested in ADUs for years ("DC and accessory dwelling units," "There are plenty of lots capable of accessory dwelling units in Upper Northwest," "Will carriage houses destroy city life as we know it?."  

And for a time did alley tours in Greater Capitol Hill.

Article from the Orange County Register.  From the article:

San Jose is home to the first accessory dwelling unit sold as a separately owned condo in California, city officials said, setting a potential template for a more affordable path to homeownership. But a lengthy rollout raises questions about whether the model can become a scalable solution to the state’s housing crisis — the sale comes more than two years after the state made such transactions possible.

The 749-square-foot, two-bedroom ADU on Josefina Street near downtown closed last month for $530,000. That’s about a quarter of Santa Clara County’s eye-popping $2.1 million median single-family home price in May, according to the California Association of Realtors. Real estate brokerage Redfin last month listed San Jose among the 10 most expensive U.S. housing markets, based on the share of median income needed to afford to buy a home.

ADUs, also known as in-law units or granny flats, typically have up to 1,200 square feet of living space and must include a kitchen sink, cooking appliance and separate bathroom.

The sale was made possible by a state law passed in 2023, Assembly Bill 1033, which allows homeowners to convert ADUs into condos and sell them separately from the main property, rather than just renting them out. Under the law, ADU condos come with their own property tax bills, but require an HOA agreement with the primary homeowner for common elements, such as roofs or driveways.

Historicity.  I have been intrigued by alleys, historic carriage houses, and ADUs for a long time.  First in terms of historicity.   

• DC Historic Alleys Building Survey, DC Historic Preservation Office
• "The American Alley, Part 1: A Hidden Resource," "The American Alley, Part 2: Origins of the American Alley," "The American Alley, Part 3: The End of the American Alley," "The American Alley, Part 4: Rediscovering the Forgotten Human Scale," Strong Towns/Resilience
• "History: Capitol Hill Alley Dwellings," Hill Rag

• and how on some properties there are historic carriage buildings that have been converted from horse stables to houses.  These are on regular house lots.  
• There are also some carriage houses on their own lots separate from a street facing lot, developed when the interior of large blocks were "programmed" with buildings separate from the street--often for "industrial uses" like stables, machining, storage, drayage, etc., 
• I learned from a guy I talked to once on a rear alley off of H Street NE who said that at the time (before DC liberalized ADU laws) it was legal for these buildings to have a "caretaker" apartment
• Interior blocks often were developed with housing to use up the space, make it profitable, and  sometimes as a way to provide mixed income housing--for servants, lower income people, etc.  
• (Later, instead of dealing with interior blocks, developers created intervening streets, such as Acker Place, Lexington Place, Morris Place, Morton Place, and Orleans Place between 6th and 7th Streets NE, Parker Street NE by Union Station, or blocks of rowhouses west of 5th Street NW in Manor Park like Quackenbos Street NW and Quintana Place NW)
• President's wife Ellen Wilson's claim to DC fame was her work to rid blocks of this interior  housing, probably because often the people settled there were African-Americans.

• Although some sections remained, like Millers Court NE and Brown's Court SE or on Capitol Hill and became models for building similar housing later 
• And because in upper NW, such as the lots east of 4th Street in Manor Park, the deep lots often have free standing garages or nothing, and could accommodate an ADU.  Our lot could, which I'd like to take advantage of some time.
• Transit access is key.  But I think it's best to focus ADU development within walking distance to a Metrorail station, to reduce the demand for driving.  Our house in Manor Park is about three quarters of a mile from Takoma Metrorail Station.

Affordable Housing.  Second in terms of the idea of adding "missing middle housing" and affordable housing. Missing middle housing is smaller types of housing vis a vis "normal sized" single family attached and detached houses.  In DC, it's not missing, it's just very expensive because all housing in DC is expensive.  And because there isn't a lot of it.  As noted above, it's mostly on interiors of blocks, and as a product of its time, pre-1900.

A very small house on Millers Court NE rents for $4,500 per month.  Middle housing indeed!

But the people who can afford to build an ADU might not necessarily want to provide AH.  According to a study in Greater Los Angeles ("The dark side of California’s backyard ADU boom: How much do they ease the housing shortage," LA Times):

He found that “ADU prevalence correlates with lower-income, renter-occupied, and younger households, denser populations, and areas with higher concentrations of non-white residents and registered Democrats.”

This type of housing is a form of what's being called "missing middle housing."  

In some weak markets like a neighborhood in Austin, Texas, ADUs are promoted to support multi-generational living and wealth generation through improving the value of a property by adding a unit, or to have a second income stream from the property to pay the mortgage ("Alley Flat Initiative fits small, green homes into unexpected places," CultureMap Austin, Alley Flat Initiative, Guadalupe Neighborhood Development Corporation). 

Some photos.

Parker Street NE -- the houses are narrow but still expensive because of the location.

Quintana Place NW -- the houses are more colonial, Tudor and not contiguous but in units of two because the National Capital Planning Commission ruled  sometime in the 1920s that rowhouses couldn't be contiguous (seen as an anti-African American policy decision)

Lexington Place NE -- the Queen Anne rowhouse style typified by the houses on Parker Street NE started to be succeeded by a more Craftsman form, often called Wardman style after the developer.  This transition started around 1907. ("What's in a Wardman? A Short Overview of DC's Most Prevalent Architecural Style," DC Urban Turf).

Millers Court SE is super well situated.  A block from the Supreme Court.  Two blocks from the Capitol.

Third, I've wanted to put one on our lot.  But ADUs aren't as cheap to build as people say.

1.  everyone says "oh, they're cheaper because you don't have to buy the land."
2. That's a little true, but the cost of permitting and new construction and financing is still high, over $250/s.f.
3. Plus the cost of installing electricity and water/sewage (and maybe gas).
4. They are hard to finance, although you can do it through a home equity loan I suppose.  And then the rents can't be super cheap because you have to pay off the cost of construction plus the various annual costs.

This is a garage on the rear of a lot on the 4400 block of River Road NW in DC.  It's a similar configuration to our lot in Manor Park.

The amounts of money cities offer to encourage ADU construction aren't very much and usually require renting out at less than market rates.

To facilitate this "the city" or nonprofit should create an ADU clearinghouse working with property owners to finance and build, and then with property owners and renters to facilitate rentals in a systematic way.

CDCs to build and finance at scale.  Gosh a good 12+ years ago I suggested the creation of a community development corporation that would operate city wide doing this.  Ideally, on our block you could build as many as 32 ADUs, they could go in on a block, with a city incentive too, and try to get multiple property owners to do it at the same time, to cut costs.

A number of firms do this now in the Midwest, such as ADU America, and in the Pacific Northwest and California (ADU Resource Center).

Pattern Books to make building ADUs easier.  Some cities have also created ADU pattern books to facilitate permitting and lower cost construction.  Often they include more modern buildings which don't appeal to me.  I prefer that ADUs match the prevailing neighborhood architectural style be it Queen Anne or Craftsman rowhouse, Colonial, etc.

-- ADU D.C. Homeowner’s Manual, Coalition for Smarter Growth

-- Philadelphia Rowhouse Manual (not on ADUs, but historic rowhouses, providing indirect guidance for how to do pre 1914 style ADUs)

-- A Pattern Book for Founders’ Place Neighborhood, Muscogee, Oklahoma, Oklahoma University-Tulsa Urban Design Studio

-- Del Ray Neighborhood Residential Pattern Book, Alexandria, Virginia

-- Accessory Dwelling Unit Guidebook, Boston Planning Department

-- A Pattern Book for Neighborly Houses, Habitat for Humanity, (I like the points about context sensitive development, it's not so much about ADUs)

-- ADU Pattern Book for Mid-Century Homes, Family Housing Fund

-- Building an ADU, Salt Lake City

-- ADU Pattern Book, MB Architecture

-- Changing Lanes: Laneway Suites in Toronto

Problems:  Some people don't want to share.  Granny flats/Yay or Nay.  Originally, were called "granny flats," with the idea that downsizing parents would relocate to an ancillary dwelling on their children's property

But some people don't want to share their lots.  "An Honest Conversation About Toronto Laneway Houses," Toronto Realty Blog.  From the article:

But why do people disagree on laneway housing? And what issues are at the forefront of the discussions? “An honest conversation,” i.s what I called this in today’s blog title, and that’s what I’m aiming for because I feel like the discussion about laneway housing in Toronto is merely getting started. 

 A client of mine remarked last weekend, “I have no problem if somebody else wants to build a laneway home on our street. But I don’t think I’d take one if it were free. I don’t want somebody living in my backyard with a window that looks out to where my kids play, and I don’t want to park my car under their living room.”

The LA Times has a series of articles on ADUs, and many involve multi-generational families, so sharing the lot isn't an issue.  And sometimes it's not for granny, but for the adult children. ("She couldn’t afford L.A. rent after law school. Her parents’ ADU came to the rescue").  

There are many in the Belmont Heights neighborhood of Long Beach.  We stayed in one as an airbnb.  A less than one mile walk to the beach...

For others, it's an ancillary studio not to be rented out ("Thanks to a tiny ADU, an L.A. home transforms into a stunning art gallery and studio," "Surprising ADU with tricked-out garage, rooftop deck matches family’s playfulness").  This is a big issue now with work from home.

But for unrelated people, if they aren't into the idea of having renters, an ADU may not be appealing.

Problems:  Financing.  It's still difficult to get traditional financing.  And adding an ADU if you have a mortgage, you have to notify the lender. ("Should I take a bridge loan to build an ADU?," LA Times); 

Problems:  Parking.  DC requires that building an ADU doesn't reduce parking on the lot.  In an area like Manor Park, this is dumb because there is plenty of street parking.  Less so in rowhouse neighborhoods in the core.  Basically, people can create "parking pads" that double as patios. Also see "A Koreatown parking protest: Tenants stage sit-in to protest loss of parking to make way for ADUs," LA Times.

Green Alley initiatives.  Separately, a number of cities are pursuing "green alley" initiatives where they are focusing on plantings, stormwater capture, and sometimes placemaking (" In Miles of Alleys, Chicago Finds Its Next Environmental Frontier," New York Times, "To Battle Floods, Cities Revive Their Long-Forgotten Alleyways,"JSTOR, "Cities Give Alleys New Life," Governing).  

-- Chicago Green Alley Handbook

In the early 2000s I read an article in (I think) Southern Living about Calder Loth, then State Architectural Historian for Virginia, and his initiative planting flowers in his alley in the Fan District ("The Self-Taught Gardener: Division Street," Berkshire Edge).

Alley repaving.  DC had a green alleys program but it never did much.  

Separately the Department of Transportation created a program still in operation that actively repaves alleys, many of which were in disrepair, with a polyglot of materials, using brick or asphalt block where it had been in use.  

Except that originally they only used red brick, and some alleys originally had yellow brick or other treatments.  I know I called for a change in this to be more historically accurate and they did change, according to this Instagram post.

This image shows yellow brick on the alley, and red brick fronting the sidewalk/apron to the street.

There is an alley off North Capitol SE, where one of the abutting property owners put in (or maintains) historically accurate cobblestones, with a brick track for "carriage wheels."  

Although, if you walk on cobbles, like some streets in Georgetown, it's not comfortable.

Placemaking and retail laneways initiatives.  ("Hidden in Plain Sight: Activating Urban Alleys," MRSC)

-- Living Alleys Toolkit, Austin

For at least 15 years, Melbourne has been reactivating alleys as retail spots.  In the US, larger real estate projects are often using the laneway concept as a way to activate interior spaces and add a fun element to the development.

Sydney, Austrailia

Retail laneways initiatives.   

-- Melbourne's Revitalized Laneways, Gehl Architects

-- Pocket Book of Melbourne Laneways

-- "Australia’s laneways investment is breathing new life into its cities," Monocle

-- Pioneer Square Alleys Design Manual

In a weak housing market, will Cleveland's Housing Innovation District move the needle?

Cleveland's biggest problem is that the city is shrinking.  The population in 1990 was 505,000 and 372,000 in 2020. 

Now that's a store.

For example the famed Heinin supermarkets local chain announced they're closing their landmark downtown store, located in a historic bank--after downsizing and rebuilding after George Floyd riots closed the store ("Heinen’s closure in downtown Cleveland raises questions about sustaining development").

 And so is the metropolitan area.  The 2020 population was about 2.1 million.  The estimate for 2026 is 1.72 million.  

1836 E. 79th Street, Cleveland, Ohio.

In that context, there's a lot of vacant buildings and lots ("Finding the Potential in Vacant Lots," New York Times) not just in the city proper, but in the suburbs too.  

I know that years ago, Cleveland's inner ring suburbs were leaders in trying to do suburban revitalization (The Northeast Ohio First Suburbs Consortium), but not quite how Arlington County, Virginia was able to because the DC metropolitan area was growing, and they could leverage the addition of Metrorail ("How DC [really Arlington County] densified," Works in Progress).

Still, Cleveland has incredibly social, community and organizational capital. In the 1990s, Cleveland  foundations worked together to force accountability and consolidation on community development corporations.  There are many foundations doing great housing work like the Catholic social justice based Famikos Foundation.  When I was there in 2002, the city had a great facade improvement program and manual.

The Cleveland Restoration Society was a leader in leveraging city monies in bank accounts to fund housing renovation.  They have a revolving fund to invest in property development.  

There are a number of firms specializing in historic preservation financing and rehabilitation of big projects like Sandvik Architects.  And the state has a historic preservation tax credit too.

And they have a program to help churches light their steeples, which I think is really cool.

The Metroparks system is fabulous, with many on the Lake Erie waterfront.  

There are great civic assets like the West Side Market and business improvement districts and community development initiatives all over.  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Terminal Tower is a fabulous train station.  (But all the old department store buildings, massive 1 million s.f. or more are all defunct.)

I always tout there "Business Revitalization Overlay District" as a way to coordinate investment with the public and private sectors.  They have strong design review requirements.  And the State has a strong receivership statute that allows nonprofits to take over properties, cure the title, fix them, and sell them, to bring houses back into use.

They are an example of a line I have, that cities like Cleveland 

"have a desperate willingness to experiment because they have no other choice."

More alternative weeklies need to publish "worst of" articles. Page 1, Page 2.

They still have legacy heavy rail service although it's not well used.  A great system for evaluating bus stops for amenities.  The transit system provides decent coverage, and it was the first one to connect heavy rail service to the local airport in the late 1970s.  A big Midwestern bank is still based there, and there are some other corporations.  In nearby Akron, LeBron James has invested a lot, so has the Knight Foundation.  

The Cleveland Scene alternative weekly still publishes once a month print issues, although the Cleveland Plain Dealer only prints a couple of editions each week. But their urban design writer who was great, Steven Litt, has retired.

Both the Akron and Cleveland areas have great regional bikeway plans and systems.  Plus the universities and the Cleveland Clinic constantly grow.  There are investments in public spaces, the (in my opinion) over touted Health Line BRT, etc.

Creating Cleveland heavy rail is a fascinating story.  The Van Sweringen brothers were developing Shaker Square and Cleveland Heights and they wanted transit service.  To get it, they bought the Nickel Plate Railroad system, to get the necessary right of way.  They also built Terminal Tower.  But they were ruined by the Depression.

Forest City, a regional hardware store chain, was based in Cleveland, and is long since shut down, but the firm shifted to large scale revitalization oriented real estate development in many cities, including DC.  Value City, a regional department store chain specializing in low income markets, was based their too.  It's last iteration in furniture, finally closed this year.  But the founding family, the Schottensteins, when on to be big in vulture investing.

And Playhouse Square is a national best practice example of historic preservation and arts focused development.  They've since created a CDC to build and hold property around the theaters.  

The Gordon Square Arts District is a best practice neighborhood focused arts district revitalization initiative ("A Cleveland Arts District Hustles and Rebounds," NYT).  A number of new developments complement the Capitol Theatre and two buildings converted into smaller community theaters.  Reasonably well designed new buildings too.

To me, Cleveland has a lot going on, and if I could have found gainful employment there, I would have liked to live in the city, despite its cold winters.

I think the Housing Innovation District is interesting, it aligns a wide variety of programs and systems so that both small and larger developers can participate and work with small parcels, not just big ones.  From "'Amazing neighborhoods' that deserve investment. Cleveland proposes East Side improvement district" (Ideastream/NPR)

Cleveland is proposing sweeping development efforts in the historically redlined East Side neighborhoods of Hough, Central and St. Clair-Superior.

Using a suite of economic development tools, including waived permit fees for new construction, modernized zoning codes and a new tax increment financing district, the city plans to put millions toward spurring new housing, businesses and walkable communities in neighborhoods that have been challenged by decades of disinvestment. Cleveland officials are referring to the area as a Housing Innovation District.

"When we think about the Housing Innovation District, it's 'How can we create an area that really incentivizes people to bring new housing,' but [also] really builds wealth block by block in the neighborhood for the existing residents that are here," Tom McNair, the city's Chief of Integrated Development, told reporters in St. Clair-Superior on Wednesday morning. "Because St. Clair Superior, Hough, Central: these are amazing neighborhoods that for far too long haven't gotten the type of investment they deserve."

Lake Erie beach, Cleveland Metroparks.

BUT, at the end of the day, you need households to live in the buildings.  It's not about what the neighborhoods deserve, it's about what the market will support.  

I read a couple of articles on small developers in Chicago and Pittsburgh ("Six new townhomes. Zero buyers. And one developer on the brink," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) who built market rate housing in emerging neighborhoods (so weak not strong) and they couldn't sell them.  Or the houses wouldn't appraise for a mortgage, because of the prevailing housing prices.

I am constantly amazed to see community revitalization programs in specific areas that have spent many hundreds of millions, and it's hard to see improvements, even though they are and usually key civic assets, plus housing--although my line from decades ago, that building better housing for poor people doesn't rebuild broken micro economies all that much, which was my lesson from H Street DC ("Ah, the H Street Community Development Corporation"). 

An awesome house for $325,000 in the Ohio City neighborhood across the river.

OTOH, even marginal additions of population make a difference ("Community revitalization initiatives for smaller communities | marginal attraction of people and commerce even in small amounts makes a difference").

And to be fair, they've really pulled together a lot of policy changes, financing, land etc. to make things happen.  It will be interesting to watch even though I think that it's really tough to move the needle in weak markets.

Amenity planning for urban mixed use districts: A dog park for Union Market?

Please clean up after your dog sign, 4th Street NE, Union Market, Washington, DC

One of my forthcoming DC entries is about how it turns out "I was a force for gentrification in the city," even though I never intended that to be the primary outcome.

20 years ago, working to "save Union Market," in which I was a key player but not the lead ("Musing about Union Market on the death of Paul Pascal"), I outlined a concept for a retail plan that would work with what the market was at the time, food sales mostly, with some non food wholesale businesses too.  (* For insight into the campaign to save the market, see the addendum.)

-- "Retail planning and the Florida Market"

Washington Post graphic.

An entry in 2009 made the point that mixing residents and food businesses was somewhat incompatible, that in such situations residents become advocates for reducing the business focus of the area.  

One of the concerns expressed about the New Town redevelopment plan imposed on the Florida Market District through DC City Council legislation is the fact that by putting residents and industrial uses in close proximity, you add all the elements necessary to create significant conflicts.

This happened when people moved into housing built on an old parking lot at the Capitol Hill Hospital on 7th Street and Massachusetts Avenue NE.  And elsewhere in many places.

-- "Putting industrial uses and residents in close proximity can be a problem"

Me leading a tour of the then "Florida Market" in 2008.  Flickr photo by Mr.TinDC.

Being there last week, I think so far there is a reasonable balance between remaining legacy businesses (a minority of the previous number), mixed with new very upscale food businesses and retail including (as opposed to how "back then" the more low income focus of the DC Farmers Market building), and the apartment buildings.

But it's not like I'm there all the time.  So I don't know.

Don't complain about trash and rats when you don't provide waste cans and street and sidewalk cleaning.  Back when old line DC politicos and business interests were pushing their very average shopping and entertainment center approach (think the failed project in Prince George's County that replaced the old Cap Centre Arena), they touted their project as a way to combat rats and trash ("Developer Peddles a New Vision for an Old Market," Washington Post).

What DC Farmers Msrket, now the Union Market building looked like in 2008.  Below 2026.

My response was, the city doesn't provide any waste cans or trash collection services.  If you want to deal with public space maintenance, deal with it.  It's still messy.  But there are trash cans now, and a lot of them.  Maybe not enough and they're probably not emptied enough, but it's way better than before.

Residential housing imposes different demands for public space management and the provision of amenities.  One of the things we never talked about was with the addition of large apartment buildings, even though they provide a lot of recreational amenities on site, there was probably a need to plan for additional amenities and public spaces.

It turns out, of course, that there is great academic research on the topic.  This journal article from Progress in Planning published long after the Florida Market battle, but its conclusions seem particularly apt, "The key to sustainable urban development in UK cities? The influence of density on social sustainability."

► Dense neighbourhoods are more likely to provide good access to services/facilities. 

► Dense neighbourhoods are more likely to provide poor access to quality green space. 

► Residents in denser neighbourhoods are more likely to report feeling unsafe. 

► Generally, less social interaction occurs in denser neighbourhoods.

The point isn't to take such conclusions for granted, but to address the defects/deficits in purposeful ways, building systems that make communities better as a routine outcome.

Dog park potential of this inadvertent corner pocket park on W. 25th Street in Ogden, Utah.

I know I missed this on the H Street plan in 2003.  We should have tried to create some pocket parks on the corridor using parking lots and other interstitial spaces..  

Same with the NoMA plan--I proposed doing one c. 2005 and one was done, but we didn't include much in the way of amenities if I remember correctly.  

The NoMA business improvement district, once it was created, made that a major focus ("NoMA revisited: business planning to develop community," "(In many places) Public improvement districts ought to be created as part of transit station development process: the east side of NoMA station as an example," 2016).

Was in Ogden yesterday and they--because they did so much damage with urban renewal--have a lot of these kinds of spaces in their downtown area.  But land being at a premium in DC, it's harder.

Placemaking as a necessary element of property development.  The best informed property developers recognize the importance of integrating amenities into developments.  Although my line about it they do it only to make money, and so will only invest in such so long as the marginal return is positive, in terms of reduced vacancy of apartments and commercial spaces, with high retention rates.

-- "New trends in making offices attractive: high quality amenities | Downtown place values" (2025)

-- "How Gabriel Chipperfield beautified Bayswater," Financial Times (use archive.ph for access)

-- "ULI report: The Case for Open Space Why the Real Estate Industry Should Invest in Parks and Open Spaces" (2024)

-- "As office-centric downtowns struggle, suburbs cater to the laptop crowd," Washington Post

From the FT article:

Placemaking is nothing new. The idea of designing urban space for humans rather than cars took hold in the 1960s, and the term describing the process of creating buzzy, people-centric districts gained traction in the ’70s. What used to be the domain of urban planners, however, is now deemed an essential strategy in property development. It’s no longer good enough to fill a building with people, you need to curate a vibe around it. 

This, of course, has less to do with civic duty than the eventual payoff: it is much easier to fill developments in pleasant surroundings where shops, restaurants, schools and creative spaces are on the doorstep. Not all get it right: the development of London’s Elephant and Castle has led to heavy criticism of extreme gentrification and placing profit over people. King’s Cross, meanwhile, with its glass-encased offices, dining destinations and art college, Central Saint Martins, is widely viewed as a success story.

Chipperfield is thankful for a private equity partner who agreed to sink “a couple of million” into retail ideas that “might not make money”. In reality, the projects are commercially successful.

As far as dogs go, I remember touring new buildings in NoMA 15+ years ago and being shocked at how the buildings included wings where dog owners could live, and on site facilities, like dog washing.  But still, dogs need to be walked and that imposes demand for different kinds of accommodations outside of a building. 

Downtown amenities need more focused consideration | Mixed use districts require recreation center planning.  WRT parks planning, I wrote about this in terms of different needs for different scales ("Another example of the need to do comprehensive parks, recreation and civic assets planning at multiple scales, including neighborhoods like Columbia Heights," 2019).

It didn't specifically discuss Downtown.  Earlier, I wrote about this when a related item was before the Zoning Commission.  Back then, apartment buildings downtown successfully lobbied for a change in zoning requirements for them to reduce the amount of required recreational amenities.  They probably do provide some because people want them.

WHAT I suggested is that they should have had to pay recreation impact fees and the city should have created recreational amenities downtown.  Specifically, a recreation center.  At the time, there had been a YWCA at the corner of G Street and 7th Streets NW across from the MLK Library and Gallery Place, and it was unusual in its set of amenities as having a full sized pool.  But they sold it off and no such facility open to the public exists there.  

Similarly, this happened with the old YMCA building on Rhode Island Avenue NW just west of Dupont Circle.  They sold it off for the money, but I would have redeveloped the site, but with the inclusion of a new urban recreation center as part of the project, mixing civic and for profit functions, but vertically.

Mixed use commercial and residential districts are often ignored when creating such facilities.  Eg in DC there are plenty in the outer part of the city.  But not in the core.  In Salt Lake City, the County provides recreation centers although the city may fund the buildings.  But there are at least two serving core areas.  There could be more.  Although here residents including us, may be close to rec facilities in the county but not in Salt Lake--we go to one three miles away in Millcreek, but now I mostly go to the Wagner Jewish Community Center--it's closer and as I build my stamina again, it's an easier bike ride, etc.

Later in my writings about Silver Spring, I suggested creating a combined recreation center, arena, and roof top athletic facilities ("Creating the Silver Spring/Montgomery County Arena and Recreation Center (+ and a roof-top athletic field?)").  Something like that could be done in downtown districts, not just in DC but across the country.

General amenity planning in mixed use districts.  Writing about the post covid initiative to convert "unneeded" office buildings to housing and to attract more residents, I called for program planning to integrate a wider range amenities into Downtowns.  Although this should be extended to mixed use districts like Union Market or The Wharf.

-- "The unintended consequences of converting office buildings to housing: the need for public safety; schools; amenities" (2022)
--"What is the competitive advantage for the post-covid city? Doubling down on place values"(2022)
--"Downtown St. Paul needs 20,000 more people to thrive | implications for urban revitalization in the post covid city" (2024)

-- "From more space to socially distance to a systematic program for pedestrian districts (Park City (Utah) Main Street Car Free on Sundays)" (2020)

-- "Place-making: Reimagining and reinventing public spaces for communities" resources page, Parks for London

Public space planning and the Buckhead Collection.  In terms of public spaces, years ago (15+) I wrote about the open space and amenities planning program for the Buckhead district of Atlanta.  At the time it seemed to be one of the most comprehensive studies of the issue for dense urban districts.  I should have integrated it better into my thinking about this scale of planning.  

It was spearheaded by the Buckhead Community Improvement District, the business improvement district for the area, which is far more intense than equivalent districts in DC.  

It's funded by commercial property, and I wonder if there is that tension I've previously identified with BIDs providing services to residents, but with limited opportunities for residents to express their voices independent of business interests.  When I would raise this issue in DC, it flew over the heads of most BID staffers.  They had never considered the question.  

At least with the Buckhead CID they have formalized partnership relationships, including a number of resident-based organizations like the sustainability focused Livable Buckhead and the historic preservation organization Buckhead Heritage.  With a change in longtime leadership, the Buckhead Coalition joined forces with the CID, Livable Buckhead and the Buckhead Business Association in a more formal way.

It didn't call for a full array of park spaces, given the land constraints and the reality that not all types of park and recreational facilities can be nor should be implemented in one place.  For example, larger facilities offer more activities, and are delivered at the regional scale. 

Below are the seven types of spaces they identified as primary needs for urban districts.  Each is a single page summary, and the full plan is The Buckhead Collection: The A Greenspace Vision for City of Atlanta Council District 7 + Buckhead CID.  

I reordered it slightly.  Dog parks were at the end, but they are part of park spaces not the other categories.  The "framework" is (1) public spaces from small to large; (2) trails and paths and the pedestrian network [should be expanded, see "Planning for place/urban design/neighborhoods versus planning for transportation modes: new 17th Street NW bike lanes | Walkable community planning versus "pedestrian" planning,"]; (3) cultural resources; (4) public art.

• Plazas
• Central Gathering Space
• Neighborhood Parks
• Community Greens
• Dog Parks
• Conservation Parks
• Greenways & Trails
• Historical & Cultural Resources
• Public Art

But while the plan is great on the spaces, ultimately they missed the need for a public recreation center.  There are some limited facilities in some residential districts. And a variety of for profit or nonprofit facilities like a pool, tennis, and fitness facilities. Probably most of the residents in apartment buildings stick to facilities in their buildings.  

But like what I suggested years ago in Downtown DC, public recreation centers should be included in mixed use districts.  Plus, for workers they'd have the added value of being able to provide shower and locker facilities for bicyclists.  

The Downtown YMCA in Indianapolis used to offer a dedicated bike support facility at City Market but it shut down ("City Market's Bike Hub Is Rolling Forward," Indianapolis Monthly).  But that kind of facility should be integrated into a downtown public recreational facility, serving multiple demographics and users.  

In Santa Monica, Bike Center Santa Monica is a bike shop that rents bikes and supports commuting (in a separate operation with secure bike parking, showers, and lockers, independent from government support other than likely cheap rent in a city parking structure), with a shop with roll up doors.  It's well located in a prominent location in a city parking structure, one block from the Downtown Santa Monica Metro Station and the Third Street Promenade pedestrian mall.

Dog park planning.  In planning for park, recreation and open spaces in urban districts, dog parks are one of the categories that should be included.  The Buckhead plan suggests two types, neighborhood ones but still with a fair amount of amenities, and larger ones serving multiple districts.

-- Dog runs 

---- Basic amenities including water fountain, waste stations. seating areas, fencing, shade| shelter, durable surfaces (typically not organic turf)

---- Experience:  Fulfills basic needs includingcanine to can in en interaction, socialization. canine exercise, waste disposal

-- Destination dog parks 

---- Full range of amenities including water fountain, waste stations, seating areas, segregated recreation areas, shade structures, water | beach access, agility courses | structures, trails | paths, larger exercise areas, restroom facilities, waste recycling, dedicated parking

---- Experience:  Provides a complete recreational experience including canine | canine interaction and socialization, canine/human recreation and interaction, larger size allows for increased flexibility and a greater variety of park programming, potential community event site.

It can be tough to pull off ("Going to the dogs").  In Salt Lake, the Park I'm on the board of is basically a 110 acre dog park already, and I don't want to fence off currently open space for dogs.  Especially because in a driving community like the Salt Lake Valley--people go to dog parks by car, and the traffic load and parking demand that would be induced far exceeds our current capacity.

But this small fenced in pet area at a rest stop on I-15 in Brigham City, Utah demonstrates you don't need a lot of space for it.  

Union Market has these kinds of spaces available.  Interestingly, I didn't take a contemporary photo, but some of the vintage produce sheds still exist on a still unused property on 6th Street NE at Penn Avenue.

This photo, by MrTinDC, from a market tour I led in 2008 shows what the shed space looks like.

The no longer in operation Bark Social in North Bethesda, Montgomery County, Maryland.

A mixed private-public option.  Another option along the lines of seeding amenities in new developments, in a dense building environment like a downtown or district like DC's new neighborhoods of Union Market, the Navy Yard, the Wharf, or the Parks at Walter Reed, maybe the way to go is to subsidize the private bar restaurant dog-friendly facilities that shut down recently,  because they aren't that profitable.  Add coffee/cafe functions, and don't require memberships.

Bark Social was one of those firms ("Meet your dog’s new favorite happy hour destination," Post).  This is in line with my long ago recommendation that community recreation plans should incorporate acknowledgement of and recommendations for for profit facilities too, to have a complete plan.  

Jud and Jane Wollard, both 58, of Silver Spring, sit with their dog, Murphy, on the left, as other dogs come around to be petted. Kate Bunker, 68, of Silver Spring, is on the right, and Havi Reguejo, 40, of North Bethesda, is in the center. People and dogs enjoy a Friday morning at Bark Social, a social club for dogs in North Bethesda. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

And like my suggestion that for profit bike shops could be subsidized by including them in community recreation centers, maybe that's true for dog accommodations too--Bark Social has a couple of locations still.  But maybe the urban sites were just too costly.  That's where subsidy may be a reasonable consideration. Although on equity grounds, people might complain, but if it's money from a self-tax, like a BID or Green Benefits District fee, it doesn't come at the expense of other government budget priorities.

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"Saving what is now Union Market" | Inside and Outside campaigns to bring about change.  Interestingly, I hadn't thought about it this way back then, but above I mention Paul Pascal and his key role in helping the market district forge a way better future than the one being proposed back then by legacy politicos and business interests.  What's there now is far better than what "New Towns" ever proposed.

I suppose I was the leader of the "outside campaign" bringing public attention to the issue, leading tours, taking journalists on tours who then wrote stories, talking to student groups.  Paul was the leader of the "inside campaign" dealing with the political and economic elites (think "Growth Machine" and "Urban Regime" theory) who could discard the New Town initiative and lay the path for the other.

Both were necessary.  But very different.  Too often those of us in outside campaigns think we're the primary difference makers.  Sometimes we are.  Sometimes we aren't.  But there is no question that both make a stronger whole.

This comes up with what I wrote about in fighting an inappropriate proposal for a hotel on the border of Sugar House Park in Salt Lake ("Learnings from a recent zoning issue I've been involved in").  There I led the inside campaign.  I understood my knowledge of the process came from all the various projects, initiatives, and plans I participated in back then, mostly in DC, some in Baltimore.  But I never was quite on the inside--sometimes, sort of--the way that Paul was in DC.

Proposed ballot measure in San Diego would tax second "empty" homes

 "Proposed ballot measure that would heavily tax thousands of second homes in San Diego clears critical hurdle," San Diego Union Tribune.

A proposed ballot measure that would impose a hefty tax of as much as $15,000 a year on thousands of empty second homes in San Diego cleared a major hurdle Wednesday when elected leaders agreed to advance it to the full City Council next week.

The proposal, which initially calls for an annual $8,000 tax on more than 5,000 largely unoccupied homes — plus a $4,000 surcharge for corporate-owned dwellings — is being pushed by Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, who just a month ago failed to win support from his colleagues for a far broader measure that would have also taxed whole-home short-term rentals.

An empty second home is defined as one that is left unoccupied for more than 182 days out of the year and is not an owner’s primary residence. Elo-Rivera argues that by keeping such homes off the rental or for-sale market, owners are depriving San Diegans of much needed housing.

A lengthy analysis prepared by the Office of the Independent Budget Analysis offered a more conservative estimate of anywhere from 1,790 to 2,812 empty homes that would be affected by the proposal. However, that estimate takes into consideration properties that would fall under a number of exemptions proposed by Elo-Rivera, as well as those instances where owners opt to sell their properties or convert them to short- and long-term rentals.

The Independent Budget Analyst’s office also concluded that the measure, if passed by voters, could generate from $12.1 million to $23.8 million in new revenue to the city during the first year of implementation. That could increase to $15.3 million to $30 million in the second year, which is still considerably less than the $51 million calculated by Elo-Rivera’s office.

Ideally, laws like this are less about revenue generation, and more about pushing properties back into the home ownership market.

Meanwhile, many legacy cities continue to lag

Pittsburgh.  AP ran a story, asking the question, "How does Pittsburgh have 20,000 vacant homes -- and a housing shortage?."  The reason for the large number of vacant properties is because more suburban housing was built than there was demand, hence housing abandonment in Pittsburgh.  

This is abetted by the fact that the Pittsburgh metropolitan area isn't growing all that much. The population has been stagnant since 2000, and shrunk some from 1990 to 2000.

Cities like Cleveland, Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis etc. have the same problem.  Hence many vacant lots and abandoned buildings ("Vacancy: America’s Other Housing Crisis," Bloomberg).

From a filtering perspective, if you want to live in the city, there are plenty of options--e.g. houses that today cost over $600,000 could be bought in 2003 for under $125,000.  But if not enough people want to live in the city, the overhang of vacant properties remains.

Another point is how much demand is there really?  One example is a small developer, believing that the relatively low income Hill District "needed" more upscale housing to appeal to new market segments, hasn't been able to sell the houses ("Six new townhomes. Zero buyers. And one developer on the brink," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). 

I think the headline of the AP story is misleading, because it doesn't discuss at all a housing shortage in Pittsburgh.

DC.  The market turned in favor of urban living--the federal employment engine was strong and grew further as a result of the government response to 9/11 and the need for improvements in security technology ("Understanding the DC housing market: demand for urban living, not the construction of new housing, is the driving force," 2021) and vacant housing was rehabilitated and occupied.

Only with the Trump Administration's recent destruction of the federal government, especially for jobs and agencies based in DC and the suburbs, has DC's housing market turned downward ("DOGE Is Dampening the DC Real Estate Market," Washingtonian).

Public Land banks.  But when they do want to live in the city, the properties need to be rehabilitated and the cost can be extremely high relative to costs of existing housing.  The AP article argues that Land Banks, public authorities that acquire and sell vacant properties, are a potential solution.  

Philadelphia.  Photo: Matt Rourke, AP.

But most move particularly slowly with many bureaucratic hurdles and are usually underfunded ("City Council grills Land Bank on selling only 1,017 vacant properties in over a decade," Philadelphia Inquirer).

In Detroit, the Land Bank there has more recently acted as a developer to get buildings in shape for sale or rent.  Some neighborhoods have done better than others, and so the Land Bank is criticized for differential effects ("Detroit's land bank says it has led a city housing revival. The jury is still out," Detroit News)

Nonprofits. Various nonprofits, in Detroit, Cleveland and elsewhere, also do this kind of property rehabilitation, sometimes with the aid of receivership statutes, providing the ability to clear confused titles and cancel outstanding liens.

Lesson: focus.  Most of the successful nonprofit efforts focus on particular neighborhoods, aiming to build a critical mass of improved housing, rather than take on a scattered site approach.  This is tough though politically, because everyone wants their neighborhoods to be improved.

Building housing ahead of the market in "transitioning" markets

At a real estate conference I was at many years ago, a developer made the point that building affordable housing was unprofitable in Prince George's County, Maryland (the area's least economically vibrant community but comparatively still quite successful) because it was underpriced by existing Class B, C, and D housing.

I've mentioned the HUD typology of neighborhood type, ranging from distressed to healthy, with various types of emerging and transforming points in between.

Photo: Justin Guido, PPG.

An example in Pittsburgh about new construction in urban neighborhoods with relatively weak microeconomies, illustrates both points.

A developer built some new (ugly to me) rowhouses in Pittsburgh's Hill District, believing that the "neighborhood deserves" new construction housing and greater choice, just like more thriving parts of the city ("Six new townhomes. Zero buyers. And one developer on the brink," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The houses were priced at about double the area's mean housing price of $227,000.  None have sold even after price reductions.  From the article:

The six modern townhomes on a quiet stretch of Rose Street were built by developer Steffan Johnson — who saw them as a personal response to the difficulty he experienced while shopping for urban housing desirable to upwardly mobile Black professionals when he and his family moved here in 2009 from Minneapolis.

“I wanted to show what’s possible for this side of the city by bringing modern architecture and high-end finishes — almost custom homes — to a part of the Hill that is long overdue,” he said. But five months after listing the homes — for $480,000 — Mr. Johnson has yet to find a single buyer.

This is a lesson for revitalizing cities and neighborhoods that you can't be too far ahead of the market.  Especially when it is still emerging.

East of the River neighborhoods in DC have a similar problem with new construction not always being able to appraise at the right price to support a mortgage, because existing housing costs less, and it's hard to find higher price comp(arison)s.

It's interesting to think about this in terms of his target market.  Does it exist in Pittsburgh, or are people content to live in non-Black majority neighborhoods.

Another is the idea of the "one over neighborhood" ("When the one over neighborhood is in the county next door, and housing prices have been in the tank: Mount Rainer, Maryland," blog entry 2016) by Live Baltimore.  The Hill District hasn't developed positive dynamics at the scale of the metropolitan residential housing landscape the same way that South Pittsburgh or Lawrenceville have.