Chris Donatelli, a DC real estate developer, dead at 58

Park Place, Petworth.  I do think the Metro entrance could have been better integrated, or paired with a cafe and the space could have been utilized also to provide high quality secure bicyclye parking.  

All in all, it's a nice looking building that brought new residents and other developments to the area, helping to stabilize a somewhat still lagging community--covid hurt badly, with work from home, people didn't walk to and from the Metro to work.  

And those walks to transit fostered the development of new businesses that the new residents patronized or created.  But covid crushed many.  And the Georgia Avenue Metro Station there continues to be a center for crime and nuisance problems.  Maybe if the site would have been developed a little better--embedding the station in the drug store that had been there instead of tearing it down, there would have been a different outcome.

Park Place was built by Chris Donatelli ("Chris Donatelli, whose real estate projects reshaped D.C., dies at 58," Washington Post).

Ellington Apartments on U Street were built on what had been Metrorail owned property.  I think it was one of the earliest transit agency's "joint development" projects.  

It's noteworthy because it was open the year after the agreement.  

I know of one project site owned by WMATA that's had a development agreement since 2000, and is still undeveloped.

There are lots of developers in DC.  I never met him or dealt with projects by Chris Donatelli of Donatelli Development, but I always admired his work.

He stood out for two reasons.  First, he was a first mover into neighborhoods like U Street, Columbia Heights, and Petworth before more traditional financial calculations said it was profitable to do so.

Second, hHis buildings are decently designed.  

That stands out because so many developers are committed to the modern "ersatz" cookie cutter style.  They say their market research says that's the design potential tenants want.  I think that most of the tenants don't know any better.

By doing anchor projects in those neighborhoods, others were in turn attracted to building there as well, creating a critical mass of new buildings, adding significant numbers of new residents, with higher incomes, able to support more locally based retail especially at-night entertainment districts like U Street.

The Highland Park Apartments flank the north entrance to the Columbia Heights Metrorail station (and I don't know why WMATA never leased out air rights over their stations in situations like this, although it provides better views for tenants and a lot more light.  Photo by Alice Crain.

Being known for one of those results would be a big deal.  

Having done both puts him in a small set of city developers (Jemal, Donatelli, EYA, Abdo Development) that were early or second phase builders while the city suffered from the overhang of Marion Barry even though he was no longer mayor.

However, he had warts.  As covid depressed his business, he secured loans by forging the signatures of his father and ex-wife.  And the Post did an investigative story on how one of his projects in Northeast DC--another area that still lags the development energy present elsewhere in the city--received extranormally high grants and rents from city-operated programs ("How D.C. developers made big money on a taxpayer-funded housing project").

So he fell from grace.

In short Chris Donatelli and his development company was key to the city's resurgence and population growth in the period from say 1998 to 2019.  All of us who care about the city owe him a lot.

Exercise bikes or real bikes: which is a better tactic for marketing a residential community? | Utah City in Vineyard, Utah

(Photo: Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Vineyard apparently plans to create an inland port project industrial zone, along with its massive Utah City development, on the old Geneva Steel site, seen here as vacant land to the north and east on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.

KSL-TV reports that the "Utah City" development in Vineyard, near Utah Lake in Utah County, is providing Peloton exercise equipment in residential buildings for exercise and wellness support ("Utah City integrates wellness with residential living through new Peloton partnership").  From the article:

A newly formed partnership with Peloton adds another phase amid the development of the 700-acre mixed-use community located on the eastern shore of Utah Lake, a press release from Utah City announced.

The development eventually plans to become a walkable, transit-oriented, mixed-use destination in the heart of Vineyard.

Jacklyn Briggs, director of marketing for Utah City, said in efforts to align with the development's goal of providing convenient access for people who want to live an active lifestyle, it's partnered with the global at-home fitness brand to outfit Peloton equipment in each multifamily building in Utah City. "Utah City is a wellness and well-being focused community," she said.

Briggs added that Utah City aims to provide the infrastructure and opportunities — whether indoors or outdoors — to make it more accessible for people prioritizing health and fitness as part of their everyday routine

Why not real bikes, so people can ride trails, ride to do errands, ride to school, etc., and get health benefits while performing acts they'd be doing by car most likely?

In the blog entry "Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 26 programs," I suggest bike bundling for public housing.  That is, providing in a lease a bike, helmet, lock and training, and secure bike parking in the complex.  (It'd #16 but fully described in this predecessor entry.)

Interesting, because the Vineyard City government organized a number of activities for National Bike Month in May.   

And the small town even has a Bicycle Commission.

No reason that for profit apartment buildings couldn't do bike bundling?  

I did suggest it to Bozzuto Development for a project they did in Brookland, DC, but by then they had already sold the building (but kept the management contract) and the property owner couldn't put their head around the concept.  

But Monroe Street Market is part of the bikeable Brookland neighborhood, and adjacent to the Metropolitan Branch Trail, allowing for scads of destinations in a 5 mile radius.

That concept included a bicycle retail store which would provide service to the apartment dwellers with bicyclists 

The same goes for the Utah City development in Vineyard.  It has the opportunity to make biking a true mode of transportation, not just recreational.

I've already dinged this development in writing, because they're positioning as a new urban walkable community ("Vineyard’s new 700-acre development to be called Utah City," Ogden Daily Herald, "Vineyard could welcome the next inland port. Here’s where other projects have been approved across Utah," Salt Lake Tribune).   

It's almost 40 miles from Salt Lake City, so in terms of the city proper, in terms of distance it's exurban. 

More than 50% farther from the core than the Gaithersburg Kentlands new urbanist development is from DC.  Unless they shift their "center city" reference point from Salt Lake to Provo.

For a single line the Frontrunner rail passenger service is pretty good, although it doesn't run on Sunday, and it doesn't run late.

From the 2023 Building Salt Lake article, "Vineyard’s new urbanist downtown to use new TIF tool for housing near transit":

Last week I traveled south to Vineyard to attend an event sponsored by the Utah Chapter of the Urban Land Institute (ULI) on transit-oriented development. Having not owned a car for the past 6.5 years, I rode FrontRunner with my ebike.

Taking my ebike was critical, because it would allow me to traverse the 1.5 miles between Vineyard’s FrontRunner station and the Topgolf that hosted the ULI Utah event in a mere six minutes instead of a half hour on foot. The temperature also happened to be in the high 90s that day and that 1.5-mile route is treeless and devoid of shade.

As icing on the proverbial cake, the irony was not lost on me that I was perhaps the only attendee to use transit to arrive at an event extolling the values of transit-oriented development.

That may be, but it's a speck in a few hundred miles of sprawl.  It's not changing the development paradigm towards compact development and non-automobile dependence in any significant manner.

Urban Land Institute report promotes active transportation.  It's now almost 10 years old, but the Urban Land Institute published a report on the real estate development opportunities incorporating bicycling, Active Transportation and Real Estate: The Next Frontier.

While there are pathbreaking developers doing interesting things, especially out west, I think that most still aren't seriously considering active transportation, especially biking, as a part of the development in a structured way.

Soon to open dvanced bicycle parking facility in Brooklyn.  New York City is taking a quantum step forward in the coming of a Dutch style high capacity bicycle parking hub in the One Sunset development in Brooklyn ("New York City is Getting a Dutch-Style Bicycle Hub and it’s a Game Changer," Momentum Magazine).  The contractor providing the service is called Oonee.

Although it's pathbreaking, the One Sunset webpage on amenities doesn't call much attention to it.  It won't be a huge facility.  From the article:

Housed in a 1,300-square-foot, ground-floor space, the facility will feature “a bright, welcoming environment furnished with modern amenities that make riding easier and far more convenient.” With around-the-clock access and 95 free secure parking spaces for bikes, including accommodations for large-format bicycles and battery-free e-bikes, the Hub is poised to become a vital link in Brooklyn’s micromobility ecosystem.

Charging facilities for those battery-free e-bikes will be placed just outside, while indoor battery swapping stations and secure charging options for e-scooters and e-bikes will be available 24/7. According to Oonee, “these facilities will also provide a safe charging alternative to residents in the area,” addressing growing concerns about unsafe e-bike battery charging in residential buildings.

That's about one parking space for every two units ("JV Plans 187-Unit Mixed-Use Property in Brooklyn," Multi-Housing News, "Introducing: New York’s First Oonee Hub:  A Dutch-inspired parking & service center for Sunset Park riders," Medium) which I think is on the low side.  

But it's still a step forward, especially since it will have a ground floor entry, rather than require a trip through the bowels of a parking garage.

Obviously, from a bicycling promotion standpoint, we hope that the demand will be greater than the supply, and that other developers will create similar but bigger facilities.

Lend Lease Barangaroo South development, Australia.  Note that some developments, more commercial than residential, in Australia have "platinum" bicycle facilities, with secure parking, lockers, showers, etc., such as the Lend Lease Barangaroo South development ("anonymous-breach-pixelregistered-breach-pixelsUnderground: Tour Barangaroo’s bustling basement beneath city," Daily Telegraph).

To meet the needs of the end of trip users, we have 1,460 lockers and 132 showers in 24 purpose built change rooms. All users have free use of towels, body wash, ironing boards and hair dryers. We also have two bike maintenance stations with bike stands, tools and tyre pumps. Users can also arrange for a mobile mechanic to maintain their bike.

Less use than planned for leads to a reduction in parking spaces.  Although in renovations they are reducing the amount of parking provided based on use and providing other amenities ("Lendlease Loses Bike Parking in $30m End-of-Trip Revamp," Urban Developer).

“Ongoing travel surveys and data collection completed have identified that there is a significant underutilisation of the bicycle parking facilities in the basement,” Ethos Urban wrote.

Data showed cycling to work accounted for about 3 per cent of the modes by which tower tenants travelled to work. Only about 200 of the 1157 bicycle parking spaces offered under the three buildings were used each day. Under the plans, Lendlease will cut bicycle storage to 660 spaces.

At least they are basing their decision making on data, and I would argue more energies could be directed to programming to significantly increase uptake, using some of the concepts in the "Revisiting assistance programs to get people biking: 26 programs" entry.  But this is Sydney, not Melbourne, and Victoria State is known for global best practice bicycle transportation promotion.

Two CVS sites in Boston to be converted to housing

CVS store in Petworth DC.

One of the problems in a mixed use commercial district is chain stores like pharmacies don't want to operate in mixed use multi-story buildings.  

At later stages of the development of these corporations, real estate property management shifted away from local decision making in favor of decisions made at the corporate level.

In turn, the companies often sold off their property or developed new sites with long term leases with real estate investment trusts, who wanted single use not multiuse "plays."

-- "Problematic outcomes as real estate investment trusts buy more "high street" retail real estate" (2015)
-- "Further evidence of DC being an international/national real estate market," (2018)

That means that it's very hard for a local commercial district to move a company like CVS to store site development that is mixed use.

That's a big issue in DC.  While CVS has stores in mixed use developments, they also have single site developments which they seem to refuse to be open to redevelopment.  Sites include Georgia Avenue in Petworth, Georgia Avenue in Shaw, Georgia Avenue in Brightwood Park, and on Cedar Street in Takoma.

In Baltimore, rather than build a true mixed use multistory building, CVS constructed a store with a fake second story.

IN DC's Columbia Heights there is a CVS with a true second floor rented to a charter school but I don't know the mechanics of how that happened.

But the Boston Globe ("Long a drug store, this key spot on Beacon Hill could soon be apartments") and the Boston Business Journal ("Housing work begins at former Allston CVS") have articles about projects there involving the conversion of CVS sites to multiunit housing, using the empty air space presented by the store before.

I don't know why they didn't in turn contract to move into the space as ground floor retail.  Although it could because companies like CVS and Walgreens are closing stores after a mad spree of expansion, and this is a cheap way to close a store but fortunately and inadvertently adding value to the commercial district.

I think there is something else too.  CVS was founded in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and opened stores in Boston long before they had a national real estate development and management strategy.  My sense is that these sites in Boston were owned by local property owners that CVS engaged with early on in their development as a corporation, and those property owners were probably willing to make a deal--and let a lease run out--unlike REITs.

Visually, the new developments will be a big improvement.

And for commercial district revitalization managers, it's worth finding out how these transactions happened, in hopes that they can duplicate such changes in their own community.

CVS at 155 Charles Street in the Beacon Hill neighborhood.

It will be replaced by a 12 unit apartment building

with ground floor retail.

CVS at 1270 Commonwealth, Allston neighborhood

It will be replaced by a 206 unit apartment building with ground floor retail.

Apartment building reaches out to local Single Family Residents as potential marketers of the neighborhood

In community revitalization, property owners are seen as more valuable then renters, and most of our local involvement methods focus on property owners, except for interest groups which expand the range of participation, such as tenants unions, or anti-poverty groups.

I've wondered about the dilemma of community involvement in neighborhoods with a mix of renters and owners.  In the Carrollsburg neighborhood of DC, which was built on the grounds of a public housing project, and mixes owner-occupied (the majority of housing), with apartments set to look like rowhouses, managed by the DC Housing Authority, the resident association is for owners only.

Segregation of the poor.  It reminds me of "poor doors" in mixed income housing developments ("City Has Gone from Allowing ‘Poor Doors’ to Permitting ‘Poor Buildings’," City Limits, "‘There’s no way I can pay’: London residents despair of steep costs and forced use of ‘poor door’" and "Poor doors: the segregation of London's inner-city flat dwellers," Guardian).  

The playground at Baylis Old School development in south London ‘where an impenetrable hedge separates the owner occupiers’ kids playground from the narrow strip allotted to families in social and affordable rented housing in the same block’. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian 

Some developments in London even precluded low income residents from using public facilities associated with the building (" This article is more than 6 years old Too poor to play: children in social housing blocked from communal playground" and "Playgrounds only for the rich kids? What grotesque social apartheid," Guardian).

So this act by a local apartment building in Salt Lake is very interesting, where they had an open house and invited area residents, in part to convert them as "salespeople" for promoting living in the neighborhood and in their particular apartment building.

Relatedly, years ago I had the idea--when urban living was at the beginning of its resurgence--that apartment buildings should set up a couple of B&B apartments so people could experiment with the choice at a low cost.

=====

A charter school by my house in DC for its first years invited residents to participate in events as a way to increase involvement and likely reduce complaints from people not happy with living near an institutional use.

Wall Street Journal article "How Zoning Ruined the Housing Market in Blue-State America"

While there is no question that "legacy" residents tend to disfavor changes to their neighborhoods, including the addition of housing, and that's worthy of criticism, there are a number of other arguments that anti-zoning advocates espouse which are facile.

1.  Most residential housing in center cities was built before 1940, when the US population was 132,164,569.  Today's population is about 311,000,000, an increase of 2.35x.

2.  And many of those cities--not the rowhouse dominated cities--didn't use land very efficiently.  For example the rowhouse type common to Mid-Atlantic cities, packs a lot more units into a typical block, maybe 32 single family detached houses versus 64-72 rowhouses.

Neighborhoods built later use land even more inefficiently, with almost uniformly large(r) lot development--until the 1980s when land costs rose.  Our house lot in Salt Lake City could easily accommodate 4 rowhouses instead of one ranch style house.

3.  Furthermore, the average household size is shrinking, requiring more housing to house the same number of residents.

4.  Today land is a lot more expensive making "American Dream" style houses--detached homes with a yard--unrealistic in center cities and inner ring suburbs.

5.  But a significant number of people still want an American Dream style house, not the multiunit apartments now being built in cities.   This forces them to move much further out, where property is relatively cheaper.

6.  Related to (2) inefficient use of land, owner occupied housing is almost impossible to re-assemble in order to build new housing with more units on the same amount of land.  I am familiar with only a couple examples, one in Fairfax County, Virginia in the late 1980s, the 200 block of K Street NE in Washington, DC, but that block was zoned half industrial to begin with, making land consolidation much easier, and a block in Ann Arbor near the Michigan Stadium ("Land Use intensification in Ann Arbor," 2022).

7.  One key flaw of zoning is that it tends to be pretty homogeneous in intent, in that single family detached housing is in one zone, attached housing in another, multiunit in a third, when in pre 1940 times it was common, at least in the core of the center city, to include apartment buildings in the mix, mostly small but of varying sizes--bigger in the core.

Armistra Apartments, Salt Lake.  Photo: Jonathan Mauer.

8.  It doesn't help that zoning rules also militated against carriage houses/accessory dwelling units, English basements, etc.  E.g., my DC block of 32 detached houses could accommodate almost that many carriage type houses.

Architects Melissa Shin, with dog Maya, and Amanda Shin enjoy the outdoor area in front of the ADU affectionately called “Mouse House.” (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

9.  Salt Lake City is interesting in that on residential arterials and corners of blocks, it's common to have duplex/triplex housing, and buildings with even more units depending on lot size.  

This type of housing, along with rowhouses, is often referred to as "middle housing" in that it is smaller than the larger SFH.

So this expands the variety of housing demographics able to be accommodated with different housing types.  E.g. a single tenant doesn't necessarily need a large house.

Another type of this housing is courtyard housing.  Salt Lake has a couple great examples including Boulevard Gardens.  A beautifully written book on creating modern courtyard housing is Pocket Neighborhoods by Ross Chapin.

====

Click on the image for the full article.  Alternatively: link

As the article describes, it is absolutely true that segregated neighborhoods were a desired outcome from zoning.  

The author of the piece, Yoni Appelbaum, has written Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity, from which this is excerpted.  The book will be released by the end of the month.

For example, in the 1920s, parts of Upper Northwest DC were zoned against rowhouses, then the city's predominant housing type, to reduce the opportunity for racial mixing.

This isn't a blue-red state phenomenon per se.  The fact is that "red states" building more housing today is more a matter of timing than anything else, they are beneficiaries of having lots of land to develop still, because their growth has occurred after 1950.  And-- in response to demand for workers by the defense industry --the Sunbelt was really the Gun Belt (e.g., Anne Markusen).

One sign of this is how production home builders, such as Kaufman and Broad, originally based in Detroit, moved to Los Angeles.

Conclusion.  We are stuck.  Unless people gladly change their preferences to multiunit housing, it will be impossible to provide housing in central places, people will have to move further and further out from the core.

While zoning is one of the issues, market conditions (cost of land in particular) and people's housing preferences are the dominant forces.

Note that the movement to change single family zoning classes to include duplexes, and sometimes triplexes and quadraplexes as a matter of right could change the equation on this ("Planning Board recommends changes to allow more housing options in single-family home zones," Bethesda Magazine, "The YIMBY movement has a major win in Cambridge, even as many neighbors cry foul," Boston Globe), but only over very long periods of time.  Studies so far show that about 3% of housing tenure forms change per year in such situations, and that's pushed forward by the most motivated.

Mostly, individual property owners don't have the expertise to do this themselves, and will likely sell to developers to do so.  Whether or not properties sell at a premium to a straight up SFH house will be interesting to watch.

Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia is finally improving

There's an interesting article on the "gentrification" of the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia.

The article online has the title "Rise in residential development in Germantown sparks optimism — and caution," WHYY/NPR).  But in my newsfeed the title started out "Germantown gentrification."

-- Germantown Info Hub 
-- Germantown Historic District, The Cultural Landscape Foundation

Germantown was an independent community that eventually merged into Philadelphia. When it was independent, it had its own city hall, Germantown Hall.  Photo: Kimberly Paynter, WHYY/NPR.

I have to laugh at the gentrification moniker.  10-15 years ago, we used to visit that area of Philadelphia a lot, along with Mount Airy and Chestnut Hill.  My 2003 op-ed in the Philadelphia Daily News was partially inspired by a super cool club-restaurant-performance space in an old Woolworth's (long since closed) in Germantown.  

I can't express how amazed I was at the level of disinvestment at the time.  Properties, although more on the east side of Germantown Avenue, were totally and unequivocally wrecked.  I mean, way worse than DC, except in the worst areas.  Even in Mount Airy you could buy huge beautiful stone houses for under $600,000.

So seeing that there is significant reinvestment now, is heartening, rather than a negative.  Note I wish they'd bring the streetcar back to Germantown Avenue.  

The C.A. Rowell Department Store in better days, and a Route 23 streetcar serving Germantown Avenue.

The old Germantown commercial district was a very large commercial district, secondary to downtown, but thriving with major stores including independent department stores like C.A. Rowell, along with chain stores, etc.

Weaver's Way Co-op started in Mt. Airy (is super cool), opened a store in Chestnut Hill, the high end neighborhood and commercial district just north, and is opening a store in Germantown.

The trolley line was replaced with buses in 1992, but the tracks are still in place.  

The area is served by two SEPTA lines, east and west of Germantown Avenue, a remnant of how both Reading Railroad and Pennsylvania Railroad served the region and competed.  SEPTA is proposing to close the west line because of redundancy and low ridership ("These NW Philly neighbors are fighting to protect their Regional Rail line as SEPTA’s budget crisis looms," Philadelphia Inquirer).

Kenyon Lofts.

The article discusses the development of new apartments, both new construction, as well as adaptive reuse.  

I am struck by the architectural deadness of the new buildings, even though developers swear up and down that their market research demonstrates this is the design tenants want ("Why new apartment buildings look the same," 2020).

Vernon Lofts apartments are an adaptive reuse project of the historically designated C.A. Rowell Department Store.

But I just can't believe that from a long term investment standpoint, that such buildings are superior to those with architectural and place value like the Vernon Lofts.

Because it's Philadelphia, not DC, the new apartments, in new buildings or old, are less expensive than you'd think.

The Rowell Department Store building before conversion to apartments.  There is still retail on the ground floor.

Elijah Anderson's Code of the Street is partly about the old neighborhoods around Germantown Avenue.

Disneyland doesn't have transportation demand management planning requirements

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned Robert Niles, the "amusement parks" columnist for the Orange County Register.  I always learn from him.

And a few weeks ago I wrote about how at the metropolitan scale, most communities don't have transportation demand management requirements for stadiums, arenas, concert facilities, etc.

-- "To shift away some trips from the car, we need super robust transportation demand management processes"

Niles writes ("Here’s what’s missing from DisneylandForward")about Disney's long range plan for Disneyland in Anaheim, making the point that transit is missing from the plan.  From the article:

The Disneyland Resort has been putting out an impressive case for new rules to govern its development through its DisneylandForward proposal. Disneyland President Ken Potrock detailed the resort’s plan to OC Forum last week, highlighting the economic benefit to Anaheim and the region if Disneyland gets the OK to build hotel and attractions on space that has been reserved for parking lots. 

But watching Disneyland’s presentations and talking with resort representatives over the past year, I can’t shake the thought that something is missing from DisneylandForward. ... as a Southern California native, resident and advocate, there is an element that I wish that Disneyland would have been able to include in at least its top-level vision for the resort. 

Rail and bus transit service to Tokyo Disneyland. 

Disney’s theme park resorts in Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Paris all feature train connections to their local mass transit networks, including local airports. On the best of these, Disneyland Paris lies just 10 minutes from Charles de Gaulle airport via France’s high-speed TGV network. Even Florida is developing a high-speed rail system, though Walt Disney World declined to have a station on its property after developers included a stop at the Universal Orlando Resort. There is no regional transit train station envisioned in DisneylandForward, however. 

Blame for that must spread beyond Disney. Where is the robust mass transit system to which a Disneyland station would connect? Despite continued development on many important components of such a system, including Metrolink and Los Angeles’ Metro, there is no route on the drawing board that would get a Disneyland visitor to the resort from any local airport faster than driving a car.

Addressing that should have been an element of the 2028 Olympics planning for Los Angeles, irrespective of Disney's long range planning.

But overall, this is the failure of the "metropolitan planning organization" system in the US, which coordinates transportation across a region--and in Southern California the counties are so big they each comprise separate MPOs--because they often don't have the most basic requirements for coordinating uses with transportation and transit capacity.

There are public bus lines that serve Disneyland, but the trips are not direct.  And private shuttles from the airports, but not necessarily top branded nor coordinated with the Disney Resort reservation system.  

Interestingly, Disney is the world leader in the management of customer experience, and you would think they would make this a priority.  Same with the Visit Anaheim tourism promotion organization.

=====

Note that in Florida, Disney used to have the Disney Express shuttle service from airports to the campus.  

But ride hailing led to significant drop off in ridership, so they eliminated the service, which was built into ticket and hotel reservations, although it was operated privately.  Although private sector options have replaced the cancelled service, but it isn't built into the reservation system.

-- "Transportation demand management requirements as a part of campus planning for large sites: Disney World bus services," 2022

A similar service could be operated to serve Anaheim Disneyland in the interim.

To shift away some trips from the car, we need super robust transportation demand management processes

Before moving to Salt Lake, I believed all the puffery in the planning press about how advanced the region is due to forward planning processes like the environmentally focused "Envision Utah" initiative.  Then I moved here and learned that the region is the epitome of the sprawl land use paradigm.

Salt Lake County.  Photo: Rick Bowmer, Associated Press.

Although I will say that it has a decent if nascent light rail system, complemented by a single line commuter rail, and decent bus service.  If you live within that transit footprint, it works decently.  But there isn't a rush to expand it, or to create conditions where sustainable modes are first choice for getting around.

The State Department of Transportation, which probably should be called the Utah Department of Cars and Trucks, has a proposal to widen I-15 through Salt Lake City to Farmington in Davis County to 6 lanes in each direction--it's four lanes now.  

I-15 in Davis County. Rick Egan, Salt Lake Tribune.

Note that in Southern California, where I was a couple weeks ago, most freeways are 6 lanes on each side--but the population of Los Angeles County is 5x greater than Metropolitan Salt Lake.

A recent article on the proposal ("UDOT admits I-15 widening will cut into parks and school ball fields, while demolishing scores of homes and businesses," Building Salt Lake) lists a bunch of the comments of alternatives and UDOT's rejection of the suggestions.  

It happens that Salt Lake proper mostly has enough right of way within the current configuration for widening, but some properties--residences and commercial buildings, would be taken as part of the construction project.  There's no question there would be a diminishment of quality of life for the neighborhoods abutting the freeway.

I was talking with Suzanne about this and 

1.  Corridor management.  For the most park, transportation agencies don't do corridor management, where they coordinate all modes within a mobilty corridor, like I-15, which is paralleled by the Frontrunner commuter rail line, and has light rail transit too.  I wrote about this wrt DC and Maryland and I-270/DC arterials ("Washington Post letter to the editor on repair-related closure of Rockville and Shady Grove Stations and corridor management," 2021").

Although UDOT says they took the Frontrunner and current expansion plans into account.

2.  Transportation demand management as a priority.  How the field of transportation demand management was created in Melbourne, when David Engwicht, working with people fighting the widening of a freeway, realized that if they could reduce the number of vehicle trips, the need for road widening would be diminished.  

He wrote about this in the book Reclaiming Our Cities And Towns: Better Living Through Less Traffic, and Victoria State in Australia is the world leader in TDM.

3.  Transportation Management Districts as an implementation mechanism for trip shift.  Places like Montgomery County Maryland have created Transportation Management Districts for certain high congestion densified areas of the county and employers of a certain size have to survey employees about how they get to work and employers are supposed to work with them to shift trips to transit and sustainable modes.

However, it's a pretty half-a**** program without a lot of meat.  In those areas, a lot of people use transit because parking is expensive and they have (or at least had) decent public transit options between Metrorail, MARC commuter rail, and bus service--plus Montgomery County is adding east-west light rail through the Purple Line.

Note that Victoria State, Arlington County, Virginia, and Whatcom County, Washington have much more robust trip shifting programs.

4.  Matching land use to transporation capacity.  The Netherlands is not hal-a**** about this in terms of land use planning.  They have a planning model where uses are rated for their transportation demand, and places are rated for their ability to respond to demand, with an emphasis on trips being conducted by sustainable modes (transit, walking, biking).  High transportation demand uses can't be located in areas with weak transit--such a requirement is pretty much devoid across the US.

-- "The ABC location policy in the Netherlands: ‘The right business at the right place’," 

5.  Accommodating Trucks.  As charlie points out, the Interstate highway system is designed to facilitate truck movement.  I-15 is a corridor with a lot of truck traffic.

One of the comments suggested undergrounding the expansion.  FWIW, I believe undergrounding can be good when it comes to train service, but what about long distance trucking.  Although I've also suggested shifting longer distance truck trips to night time, but that it is a different kind of problem.

Basically, for all the talk of Envision Utah, the Salt Lake region doesn't do corridor management (yes, it has commuter support programs comparable to those in every other metropolitan area), transportation management districts, or coordinate transportation demand with land use decision making.  And no one is really thinking about the truck issue in innovative ways.

Transportation demand management also comes up in DC.  There is a letter to the editor ("The real world of parking without minimum requirements") in the Washington Post about how reducing parking requirements for multiunit buildings merely shifts cars to street parking.  The writer discussed one particular example, and likely is wrong anyway, since mostly, multiunit building residents aren't eligible for street parking permits.

But the basic questions were unasked.

The reality is that at least when proximate to Metrorail, trips by car and car ownership is significant reduced in multiunit buildings.  But that has been by the choice of the tenants, and was facilitated by a transit system that once operated much more reliably than it does at present.  In short it's trickle down.

DC needs to be much more active when it comes to TDM (it does have some requirements), including the creation of Transportation Demand Management Districts (I suggested this for DC starting in 2005!!!!!!!!) and protocols for shifting trips and reducing car ownership--for example, car sharing systems are a great way to support not owning a car.

In short, determine why best practice buildings work the way they do--e.g., near Takoma Metrorail Station, at least before covid, the multiunit buildings only generated 25% of rush trips by car, and many fewer households owned cars--and work to duplicate these characteristics across the city.

The state of the residential real estate market

Suzanne was in Portland last week, and one of the places she stayed had a copy of Portland Monthly from last year, with an article about on "Portland Neighborhoods by the Numbers 2021: Nearly every part of town saw an increase in the median sales price last year."  

I really liked the map graphic they used, about price appreciation, which drilled down to neighborhoods rather than the more gross-grained zip code analysis that media tend to use.

I don't know what's up with the real estate market. 

I do think the pandemic generated some frenzied buying, pushing prices up a lot in most markets.  I probably thought that was a new normal, now I am not so sure.

At the time I thought it wasn't covid frenzy, but the result of reaching a kind of peak supply crisis ("U.S. Housing Market Needs 5.5 Million More Units, Says New Reports," Wall Street Journal, 2021) abetted by a massive increase in ownership of single family homes on the part of private equity ("Where Have All the Houses Gone: Private Equity, Single-Family Rentals, and America’s Neighborhoods," Brookings) further reducing supply in the owner market.

We still have the supply deficit and private equity participation.  But the froth is reduced, especially because of the rise in mortgage interest rates.

Most economists predict prices will fall some ("Moody's: Home prices to fall in these 210 housing markets—while these 204 markets will go higher," Fortune).  

But not that much ("Rents and home prices are still soaring, but at a slower pace," Washington Post), "The Most Competitive Rental Markets in 2022: Miami Is Red Hot, While Competition in the Northeast Intensifies," RentCafe).

We are seeing that.  

Again, abetted by mortgage interest increases, sales have slowed, and houses that have "defects" of various sorts (poor renovation, needs renovation, poor interior flow, location, etc.) aren't selling very quickly

It does get back to understanding the factors that support long term value, which I've written about in:

-- "The eight components of housing value," (2016)
-- "Revisiting factors influencing housing purchase," (2021)

Decline in attractiveness of center city location with shift to work from home.  But I do think the value of center city location might be diminished somewhat with the decline of the importance of central business districts in response to the work from home trend, which was significantly accelerated as a response to covid ("COVID-19 Pandemic Continues To Reshape Work in America," "As Remote Work Persists, Cities Struggle to Adapt," Pew Research Center).

If people don't have to commute to work as much, and commuting isn't as bad as it was in terms of traffic and the chance for catastrophe in terms of severe delays, maybe people will be less motivated to live in the city in part as a desire to reduce commuting time.

Amenities as a factor in housing choice.  Although a key factor remains, the value of access and proximity to "amenities," from nightlife establishments to museums.  People do seem to be less worried, or more resigned to getting covid--but if vaccinated likely surviving from "just a cold"--so attendance at group events, indoor events, and restaurants and bars and retail is rising.

-- "From more space to socially distance to a systematic program for pedestrian districts (Park City (Utah) Main Street Car Free on Sundays)," 2020 
-- "Extending the "Signature Streets" concept to "Signature Streets and Spaces"," 2020
-- "Planning for place/urban design/neighborhoods versus planning for transportation modes: new 17th Street NW bike lanes | Walkable community planning versus "pedestrian" planning," 2021

Cities may have to double down on strengthening quality of life factors in order to maintain their base of higher income residents and to be able to continue to attract new residents ("Coronavirus intensifies the city vs. suburbs debate in Philly," "These Philly suburbs started closing their streets on weekends during the pandemic, and they might never stop," Philadelphia Inquirer).

Downtown Pella, Iowa.  WSJ photo.

And in some cases, companies especially in less well located places, are investing in amenities in order to be more competitive for workers, who might not otherwise consider them ("Facing Labor Shortages, Pella Reinvents the Company Town in Rural Iowa," Wall Street Journal). From the article:

Pella Corp. has offices and manufacturing plants in more than 30 cities across the U.S. and Canada. But one of the toughest jobs, say executives at this closely held maker of windows and doors, is convincing workers to locate here in its hometown, a rural city of about 10,000 residents 45 miles southeast of Des Moines.

The company and its controlling shareholders—members of the founding Kuyper family and its descendants—set out to change that. They have spent tens of millions of dollars in the past three years on housing, child-care centers, restaurants and an indoor entertainment center, among other things, to retain and attract new workers. More spending is on the way.

“We just didn’t have the amenities that people we were trying to recruit would expect,” says Chief Executive Tim Yaggi, noting that the manufacturer competes with major cities for talent....

The city of Pella’s population, however, has been little changed for decades, and some residents fear changes brought by Pella, the company, could wreck what makes the small city special.

But not meeting Pella Corp.’s needs makes it a flight risk, potentially eroding the local tax base, according to city leaders. The city’s annual budget is $47 million, a fraction of the company’s annual revenue of more than $1 billion. Pella Corp. is able and willing to fund community projects that otherwise might never come to fruition, company executives say.

The steps Pella, the company, is taking evoke memories of old company towns, where employers shaped nearly every facet of community life. It pays for the city’s annual fireworks production and its foundation donates to a range of local causes. ..

“The odds of someone staying in the job are much higher if they live in the community where they work,” says Mr. DeWaard.

Pella, the company, is also remaking the city to be more attractive for out-of-state recruits by covering construction and startup costs for some businesses. ...

Pella, the company, is steadfast with its development plans. It recently committed $6 million to help the city build a 90,000-square-foot recreation center, with three gyms, multiple pools and a rock-climbing wall. These efforts, executives say, will help woo talent.

And public safety.  We can't forget the importance of the value of public safety, for business owners and residents.  Businesses in cities like Seattle are closing because they say the physical environment around their businesses is unsafe ("Seattle business owner calls for action against crime crisis after two break-ins: 'You've got to have police'," Fox News).  

And people won't choose to live in cities if they fear for their safety ("3 in 10 District residents do not feel safe in their neighborhoods, Post poll finds," Washington Post).

Stepping up on response to local "disasters" that are small, but big to the victims

Emergency personnel on the scene of an apartment fire and possible explosion in the 2400 block of Lyttonsville Road in Silver Spring on March 3, 2022. (Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

There is a letter to the editor in the Washington Post ("What's next for tenants displaced by the Lyttonsville fire?") about the aftermath of a multi-building fire at an apartment complex in the Greater Silver Spring area of Montgomery County, Maryland, where two buildings were destroyed, and two still standing buildings have been condemned.

The letter makes the point that substantive resources and help aren't being provided to the tenants, who need a lot more than the ability to sign up for recreation classes--one of the offerings made available at a recent "community fair" aimed at helping the victims of the fire.

This piece, "Revisiting stories: the need to provide programs to step in and deal with multiunit properties as they age," focuses on building safety a bit more generally, not about providing assistance to tenants as a result of building failure.  That should be reconsidered.

FEMA is a behemoth, providing aid to disaster aid to victims of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, etc.  But it doesn't respond to localized disasters of a micro-scale.

But could it be a model for localities, organized perhaps at the state level, for a way to provide a coordinated response and substantive help in a case such as this, the Surfside condo collapse, condominium condemnations ("Residents of SE DC condo forced to move out due to unsafe conditions," WJLA-TV), etc.?

Resources to review for developing program models include those produced for large scale disaster management, victims of crime and terrorism, etc., for example:

-- "Helping Victims of Mass Violence & Terrorism: Planning, Response, Recovery, and Resources: Planning," US Department of Justice
-- "Disaster Relief: Help Now, Help Later, Help Better," University of Pennsylvania
-- "Immediate Relief/Individual Support," Disaster Philanthropy Playbook

In the post-9/11 world, most communities have created agencies for emergency management, separate from police, fire and other emergency services.  

This kind of function could be added to those agencies.  Although the advantage of organizing at the state scale is that in most communities such events are infrequent, meaning directing ongoing resources to such functions could be seen as "a waste," and people don't have the ability to develop substantive expertise.  Then again, at the state scale, concern and capacity could be pretty distant from local needs.  Definitely a conundrum on how to organize such programs.

Revisiting factors influencing housing purchase

The Washington Post has a couple articles, "Three-bedroom, two-bathroom house near Hyattsville, Md., lists for $368,999" and "8 important — and overlooked — questions to ask before buying a home Rather than focusing on decor, home buyers should learn about neighborhood development, noise levels and weather hazards," about housing purchase decision making, which led me to revisit two old blog entries, written in response to articles about housing price decline in the face of the 2008 recession, because I thought the Post articles failed to take into account "place-based values" associated with housing:

-- "The eight components of housing value," 2016 (updated from previous posts)
-- "Washington Post series on "Dashed Dreams: The Plight of the Black Middle Class", 2015

(WRT housing values in Prince George's County, I'm not going to deny racism in the structure of the housing market there.  For a good general discussion, see the book The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America.  It's damning.)

To me, the first article, which discusses a competitively priced house in the West Lanham Hills neighborhood of Prince George's County, illustrates this exactly.  

The article says, "well, the house is cheaper than Hyattsville" and "it's close to Hyattsville."  But it isn't, it's 4 miles away.  And there is a reason that houses cost more in Hyattsville, it's closer to DC and it has a fair amount of amenities in close proximity.  From the article:

Home buyers frustrated by high prices in D.C. have turned to Hyattsville, Md., not far from the D.C. border in Prince George’s County, for many years in search of more-affordable homes. 

The city’s Arts District, shops, restaurants and proximity to public transportation make it a walkable alternative to D.C. 

But home prices in Hyattsville have made some sections of that community out of reach for buyers with a budget capped at $400,000. For example, the median sales price for a home in the Hyattsville Zip code 20781 was $533,000 in July, according to Bright MLS. Buyers seeking a more affordable alternative might want to try neighborhoods just outside of Hyattsville. 

 For example, the single-family home at 7735 Emerson Rd. in the 20784 Zip code in Prince George’s County near Hyattsville is priced at $368,999. The home is not in a homeowner association, which means HOA fees are not required. Annual property taxes are $3,327. One-bedroom, one-bathroom condo in Hyattsville, Md., lists for $120,000 

The house is in the West Lanham Hills neighborhood and is 1.7 miles from the New Carrollton Metro station. The Hyattsville Arts District is about four miles away, and Woodmore Towne Centre, which has shops and restaurants, is about five miles away.

But even though the Route 1 corridor sustained long term housing price declines compared to DC, at the same time communities like Hyattsville or College Park have a lot of nearby amenities that aren't present in much of Prince George's County, which is reflected in housing values and prices in those communities, which I tried to identify within the "8 components of housing values":

1. House Use Value 
2. House Exchange Value
3. McMansionization Exchange Value
4. Land Assembly Value
5. Neighborhood Place Value
6. Neighborhood Location Value
7. Neighborhood Mobility Value
8. Community Place Value.

Basically, the difference is between walkable and automobile centric communities ("Planning for place/urban design/neighborhoods versus planning for transportation modes: new 17th Street NW bike lanes | Walkable community planning versus "pedestrian" planning," 2021).

And the difference between buying a house and "buying a neighborhood" which presumes the existence of a community.

So while a house in West Lanham Hills is cheaper than Hyattsville's core, there is a reason for this, and long term while the value of Hyattsville housing is likely to increase, you can't say the same for West Lanham Hills.

I can't say I know the West Lanham Hills neighborhood at all, but this entry, "When the one over neighborhood is in the county next door, and housing prices have been in the tank: Mount Rainer, Maryland" (2016), lays out ways that such communities can aim to better leverage its location and proximity to develop more of the characteristics that attract people to walkable communities.

Also relevant are writings on "15-minute neighborhoods," walkable communities ("How Can I Find and Help Build a Walkable Community?," Walkable Communities) and commercial district revitalization ("The 20 Ingredients of an Outstanding Destination" by Roger Brooks International).

2.  The "8 important — and overlooked — questions" article does have some good questions.  They aren't necessarily as focused as my 8 components, but they are important aspects to consider:

1. Noise
2. Risks from flood or fires
3. Is this a safe neighborhood with good schools?
4. Will my view change?
5. How soon will my appliances and systems need replacement?
6. How much do utilities cost?
7. Is it an HOA, and what are the rules and regulations?
8. Can I rent my home to short- or long-term tenants?

All the houses on this block of Queens, New York were damaged in the flooding that resulted from record rains from Hurricane Ida.  Photo from "They Put Everything Into Their Homes. Not One Was Spared in the Flood."

I realize while I captured broader risks like public safety or say "airport noise" (citation in a comment on the article) in "House Use Value," "Neighborhood Place Value," and "Community Place Value", I didn't acknowledge what we might call "climate change risk" -- floods and fires, water supplies, city systems risk, specifically stormwater and sewage systems, lead in pipes ("A Black town’s water is more poisoned than Flint’s. In a white town nearby, it’s clean," Guardian, "How Can New York City Prepare for the Next Ida? Here’s a To-Do List," New York Times) and extreme rain (e.g., we had to add a second! sump pump to our basement last year, because our house was on the edge of an area where it rained 5 inches in one hour, and the blocks in our area have a "high" water table--a creek was undergrounded by the land still treats the area like a creek).

Obviously, climate change risk is starting to be captured in housing values for areas subject to sea level rise ("Residential Property Markets and Exposure to Rising Sea Level" National Bureau of Economic Research),  and in updated flood risk maps beyond the coasts ("New Data Reveals Hidden Flood Risk Across America," New York Times; "Canada will not pay for people to rebuild homes in flood zones," DigitalJournal).

The collapsed Champlain Towers South on June 25 in Surfside, Fla. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)

Multiunit housing risk.  The original list is "biased" towards single family houses, neglecting concerns specific to apartments, condominiums, and cooperatives. 

With Post article point 7, HOAs, especially with condominiums is the quality of the board and building/complex management, age of the property, the maintenance fund and identified needs for expensive systemic improvements ("Revisiting stories: the need to provide programs to step in and deal with multiunit properties as they age").  These factors contributed to the failure of the Champlain Towers Condominium in Surfside, Florida which killed almost 100 people ("Surfside agonizes after condo collapse, with a memorial hanging in the balance," Baltimore Sun). 

Housing decision making guide.  Ironically, both with our house in Manor Park DC, near Takoma Park, Maryland, and our house in Salt Lake City, in neither case did we do a full scale "evaluation of amenities" wrt the choice.  

With Manor Park, we knew that the Metrorail Station and Old Town Takoma were close by, the latter with a couple decent restaurants, a weekly farmers market, and a pharmacy, and a couple of grocery stores within about 1.25 miles, that it was bikeable, and only 5 miles from Downtown.  (Two years after we moved in a hardware store opened, a real plus.)  We didn't look at the specifics of bus service (fortunately, one of the lines was modified to have direct service to downtown during rush hours), and other elements.

In Salt Lake, we were very rushed to act as we were combining our household with that of my wife's aging parents, for medical reasons.  I didn't even look at the house, as I was busy fixing up our house in DC.  But key was the ability to accommodate four adults.

Suzanne knew about one specialty grocery store being close by, but didn't look at anything else, other than it was in Salt Lake, and not too far from Downtown (5 miles) and another major community district (2 miles).  Other than that, no real evaluation, not even the health needs of her parents (oops).

So, in recognition of this failure, the recent Post articles, and my previous writings, it's worth putting together a checklist to help people consider some of these place-based factors as opposed to "housing use value" characteristics, more systematically.  

Fortunately, the amenity proximity with the Salt Lake house turned out to be fabulous.  It's a bit farther out from Downtown than I would wish, and the hills are killers as it relates to biking, but frankly, the amenity package here is better than what we had in DC, and DC has more than 3x the population of SLC.

Here goes.

I think that I should go back and revise the "The eight components of housing value" entry to more carefully delineate risk factors within each element, as appropriate.