New homes at the corner of Florida and West Virginia Avenues

This summer, DCRA's Office of the Zoning Administrator issued a preliminary ruling on a plan for new houses to be built on the piece of land at the southwest corner of Florida and West Virginia Avenues in Near Northeast. Today, the plot includes a pine tree and weeds that tend to get very tall before being occasionally trimmed.

That hasn't always been the case. Three rowhouses existed here until late in the last decade. Here's an image from DCRA's website, dated August 22, 2004, after the homes had fallen into disrepair.

You can see where they were located on the block in the aerial image below.

Here's how the 3 lots on the block are currently platted.

The developer plans to combine the 2 easternmost lots. This is how the proposed buildings would be laid out on the resulting lots. I'm not a fan of the fact that these buildings won't directly address Florida Avenue. Hopefully the small, oddly-shaped front yards will not be an afterthought in this design.

It's worth noting that the current zoning for these lots calls for at least one parking space per building. DDOT has already let the developer know that they will not allow any curb cuts on the perimeter of this block, so the developer will have to go before the Board of Zoning Adjustment to get a variance. Only if they receive that variance will DCRA issue building permits.

The variance should be a no-brainer. There is plenty of room for street parking on the surrounding streets, and the lots are a short walk to many bus lines one block south where West Virginia Avenue meets 8th and K Streets.

Here are the (very preliminary) sketches representing the front, rear, and sides of the proposed buildings.

I always thought this would be an interesting candidate for a park, either for people, dogs, or both, but more housing opportunities in a city that sorely needs them is a good thing as well.

Finally, a big thank you to Mark Eckenwiler for pointing me towards these documents!

The Ivy City-Trinidad Neighborhood Stabilization Initiative

Photo by Trialogue Studio

Last Wednesday, I attended a meeting of the Housing Focus Group of the Ivy City-Trinidad Neighborhood Stabilization Initiative. This program is being run by the city's Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC). It's part of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development's Neighborhood Stabilization Stimulus Program. HUD has allocated money to the city to aid in the creation of affordable housing opportunities in the city. The plan can be viewed here.

The city is spending this money in Ivy City and Trinidad in Ward 5, Deanwood in Ward 7, and Anacostia in Ward 8. Housing opportunities in Ivy City were discussed at the Wednesday meeting.

Fifty-eight houses are being constructed in Ivy City by Habitat for Humanity, Manna DC, and Mi Casa. These houses will be heavily subsidized and are being marketed to neighborhood families who are currently renting, offering people an opportunity to remain close to where they've already put down roots.

At the meeting, we discussed barriers to home ownership for an hour or so before getting into details of the program. When the price of the houses was announced (between $90,000 and $150,000), there were disappointed faces. An underemployed carpenter said it would still be tough to raise a family and pay a mortgage at the upper end of that scale. He currently averages 25 hours of work a week and delivers the Washington Post as a second job to make ends meet for his family.

The mood shifted as the meeting facilitators discussed the subsidies available to bring the prices down. Up to $70,000 worth of HPAP funding could be available for homebuyers. That's a 40-year interest free loan with the first payments deferred for 5 years. As the potential for real financial aid was made clear, most of the renters at the meeting sounded very enthusiastic about the likelihood of home ownership.

The one problem I had was the program's advertising. The photograph at the top of this post shows an enormous banner selling the program to automobile traffic on New York Avenue NE. Meeting attendees were all from the northern part of Trinidad, and don't regularly travel that stretch of highway. Therefore, few knew about the home construction getting underway.

I recommended either moving the sign or adding additional signage in areas where more people from the neighborhood would see them. Perhaps a sign at the corner of Mount Olivet Road and West Virginia Avenue, or at Montello Avenue and Florida Avenue, would actually catch the eyes of someone who would benefit from this potentially transformative program. I'm looking forward to see how this works out, as it looks like it has the possibility to vastly improve the lives of many people in the neighborhood who just need a little help to ensure a stable future.

Vince Gray on IZ, New Communities, and rent control—oh my!

Both jaime and IMGoph contributed to this post.

We sat down with Vince Gray at Ben's Chili Bowl on Monday, along with DCist, We Love DC, and Borderstan for the first "Blogger Roundtable" discussion of his mayoral campaign. Gray's stated goal is to unite residents in "One City," and he noted that while DC is currently "very divided by geography, age, gender, and race," ultimately "people have got to feel like there's a place for them." While education, economic development, and workforce education are pieces of this puzzle, without suitable and ample housing for all, we will continue to struggle as a divided city.

Gray noted that he pushed for inclusionary zoning from the start of the two-and-a-half year struggle to get the regulation on the books, working through one emergency legislation after another while the Fenty administration delayed implementation. Lamenting the loss of potentially hundreds of affordable housing units during the hold-up, Gray says that if elected mayor, he will "aggressively implement" IZ.

Another housing issue we discussed was rent control. Under current legislation, which Gray co-sponsored, rent control is up for re-authorization every five years. Gray promised that, as mayor, he would work to make rent control permanent, (ed. note—Lydia DePillis reported on this today at the City Paper's Housing Complex blog) though he acknowledged it could potentially be challenged as unconstitutional.

Avoiding displacement is perhaps one of the most daunting challenges to housing equity. Under federal programs like HOPE VI, new mixed-income, and sometimes multi-use, developments are built with the intention of providing homes for both current and new residents of the community. A hiccup comes when low-income residents "temporarily" move to make room for new construction. Under the New Communities Initiative—established at the end of Anthony Williams' administration—Barry Farm (Ward 8), Lincoln Heights/Richardson Dwellings (Ward 7), Northwest One (Ward 6) and Park Morton (Ward 1) are to "transform [from] highly concentrated low-income neighborhoods into healthy mixed-income neighborhoods." Perhaps the most important component of this initiative is the guiding principle of "build first" which "calls for new housing on publicly-controlled lands to be built prior to the demolition of existing distressed housing to minimize displacement."

When asked how best to retain current residents while improving housing, education, and economic opportunities, Gray pointed immediately to New Communities. While not a new initiative, it is one we seem to have lost track of as the economic boom turned into a bust. The reality is that while most of us are facing challenges in the current climate, many residents in our city who were struggling at the peak are in further distress now. Gray, at least on the campaign trail, is able to recognize this gulf that continues to divide DC, and he seems to be genuinely interested to continue to push for solutions that have been staring us in the face for years now. Issues like inclusionary zoning, rent control, and New Communities are all ways the city can help bridge that gulf—they just need to truly be championed in order to work. It will take serious sustained effort from all the city's leadership to accomplish these goals.

Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.