Posts by Cheryl Cort

The bill aims to increase transit ridership, reduce auto dependency, and encourage walking for more trips. It's one of several recommendations county planners say could draw more investment to the county's Metro station areas.

Concerned about attracting unwanted commercial uses, the bill contains a long list of uses that are not eligible for the expedited review, including adult entertainment, liquor stores, pawn shops, strip malls, and drive-throughs.

An earlier version of the bill would have eliminated most requirements for public meetings or site plan review. This could have potentially rushed low-quality projects to approval without giving the Planning Board and the public enough time to review proposed projects.

Not surprisingly, many people opposed it, and the County Council tabled the bill last year before putting together a roundtable to discuss ways to improve incentives for transit-oriented development. The current bill combines 2 overlapping versions councilmembers Eric Olson and Mel Franklin submitted earlier this year.

The bill's most important feature is streamlining the review process. It prevents the County Council from arbitrarily dragging out the process, a power they've abused in the past that creates uncertainty and discourages developers from working in the county. Developers say that the unpredictability of approvals in Prince George's County often makes it not worth the time and money spent there.

While the current bill shortens the review process, it still gives the Planning Board and members of the public enough time to offer feedback. If the Planning Board approves a proposal, the County Council has a few days to decide whether or not to review it as well. Project applicants or residents can also use this time to appeal the board's decision.

Bill CB 20 is just one of many actions Prince George's County has taken to encourage investment at Metro stations. Recently, county officials have also reduced the impact fees developers pay to support schools and public safety. Economic analysts say excessive fees discourage investment altogether, meaning the county won't even receive the fees it seeks to collect.

Another element of ensuring development goes at Prince George's Metro stations is having a good countywide plan. There is a town meeting this Saturday, 10 am-1 pm at the University of Maryland, to work on a plan for the county's growth over the next 20+ years. You can help push for a plan that works in concert with this legislation to encourage TOD at Metro station sites.

Members of the public can offer their input on the county's future at a day-long town meeting next month.

Prince George's is at a crossroads

"Prince George's County is at a crossroads," the Planning Board states. "Will we choose bold action or business as usual?"

The document recounts how the 2002 General Plan vision for growth and land use fell short of its original goals over the years. Without commitment to a new direction, the county can expect more spread out development, continued failure to capitalize on the promise of transit-oriented development, and lagging investment to spark revitalization of communities inside the Beltway.

Tier boundaries from the Prince George's County General Plan.

Between 2002 and 2010, residential growth in the county departed from the General Plan by spreading out into over 6,400 acres of the "Developing Tier," a rapidly suburbanizing area outside the Beltway. The lion's share of the county's development occurred there, including 73% of residential and 60% of commercial growth.

In the "Developed Tier," inside the Beltway, growth lagged. It fell short of goals by capturing 25% rather the hoped-for 33% goal. However, what was built there consumed just 5% of the county's land area.

Development in the pipeline, which has been approved but not yet built, promises more of the same. More than 79% of residential units in the development pipeline are single-family detached houses in the Developing Tier. Yet according to the Planning Board, demand forecasts show that more than 60% of the new housing units to be built should be multifamily units located in walkable communities at transit-accessible locations.

All photos by the author unless otherwise noted.

How and Where We Grow points to the costs of these growth patterns: spread-out development at densities that are difficult to support with quality transit or retail services, long commutes, and a future as a bedroom community to the region. Over the past 40 years, a third of the county's open space, agricultural, and forested land were converted to low-density residential development. The loss of open space has fragmented natural areas and undermined the agricultural economy.

Furthermore, the board notes that the county has attracted the fewest number of new residents of an area jurisdiction from 2000 to 2010. "Without recalibration of county priorities and policies that promote TOD [transit-oriented development] and high-quality, mixed-use development," the paper says, "it is likely that the county will be at a continued disadvantage to its neighbors when it comes to attracting residents and employers who value the connectivity and amenities that other such communities provide."

The county needs a unified vision

The board notes that the structure of county government undermines unity and fosters internal competition through the lack of at-large council members on the county council. "While the County Executive can focus and coordinate resources, the nine different Council members, oftentimes with nine different priorities, it is difficult to agree upon a single vision for the county," says the paper. "In practice this means that public dollars get spread across the county, instead of being concentrated in a few places to make a truly significant impact."

A "clear mismatch in stated goals and actual infrastructure investment" emerges when assessing the county's transportation spending priorities, the board finds. There's also far more commercial and mixed-use zoning than the market can support. The paper notes that the county's weak commercial tax base makes it a challenge to compete for employers or have the financial resources to address community needs, like crime and poor schools.

Given these tough observations, the planners put forth a realistic agenda for the future with this set of specific recommendations aimed at leveraging existing infrastructure:

• Define density targets and growth goals for the tiers to shift the focus of development to the centers and the Developed Tier.
• Make a stronger commitment by targeting new growth to the Developed Tier and increase the growth objectives for the tier.
• Locate the new hospital center and key government functions at a transit-oriented development location.
• Reduce the backlog pipeline development (which can linger for decades). Prioritize and phase development by requiring bonding for infrastructure improvements. Also use the water and sewer process to more aggressively discourage greenfield development.
• Prioritize and fast track building permits in targeted areas (County Council is currently advancing a bill to do this).
• Revise surcharge fees for schools and public safety, encourage development in the Centers and Developed Tier by reducing fees, and phase growth in the Developing Tier through fee increases.
• Adopt new zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations. Ensure they are supportive of the General Plan goals, including encouraging transit-oriented development.

The planning board's honest, stern assessment of the county's challenges and practical list of reforms offer the chance for Prince George's County to change its ways. County leadership has shown some appetite for meaningful reforms. At the request of the county council and executive, the state delegation enabled the county to reduce fees for developments around Metro stations during the last Maryland legislative session.

The County Council is also advancing a bill to expedite development review for projects close to Metro stations. Meanwhile, the debate over where to locate the proposed Regional Medical Center has shifted away from expansive open sites to parcels around the Largo Town Center Metro station.

However, the county's spending priorities still reflect business as usual, with a focus on building costly intersections for new communities like National Harbor and Konterra instead of investments to enhance access to transit stations or improve bus service. Expensive sprawl-supporting highway projects remain high on the county's wish list for state funding, such as roads to support the 6,000-acre greenfield Westphalia development located outside the Capital Beltway and miles from the nearest Metro station.

Despite the mixed and sometimes contradictory priorities pursued by the county, the Planning Board and staff are making waves by pointing out the costs of continuing old ways that will allow the county to fall further behind.

Check out the Plan Prince George's 2035 website, and plan to attend the half day town meeting on June 15 beginning at 9:30 am at the University of Maryland College Park.

IZ brings many benefits

IZ sets aside 8-10% of new housing construction for households earning 50-80% of Area Median Income (a 50% AMI household of 3 earns $49,250 per year, a 80% AMI household earns $78,221 per year). IZ is worth fixing because we have plenty of evidence that this kind of program can produce results beyond what other housing programs can. IZ provides affordable housing in mixed-income and wealthier neighborhoods throughout a jurisdiction rather than concentrating it in a few neighborhoods.

This benefit of economic integration has been documented. Low-income children in programs like IZ perform better in school than their peers, because they live in low-poverty neighborhoods and attend local low-poverty schools. Another other advantage of IZ is that it does not require a direct subsidy from the government to construct the affordable unit, but rather lets the developer to build extra market-rate units, and uses that value to pay for the below-market ones.

Other than a nominal administrative cost, IZ is a very cost-effective way to sustain the city's production of new moderately-priced homes. There are many successful similar programs throughout the country, including Montgomery County's long-running IZ program, Moderately-Priced Dwelling Units (MPDUs).

DC IZ also has a sister program which creates affordable dwelling units through PUDs and public land deals. (Confusingly, these are often called ADUs, which is the same acronym, but not the same thing, as Accessory Dwelling Units, market-rate basement or garage units inside someone's house). This program does not appear to have problems filling units at the same income levels. That success shows that IZ can also overcome its challenges with some concerted attention.

Three problems have stalled IZ

Three debilitating problems with the program's administration can be fairly easily corrected and get it back on track: severe understaffing, rigid regulations, and rigid FHA lending rules.

Severe understaffing: Only 1-2 people administer the program inside DC's Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). Without a few more staff people, IZ and the sister affordable dwelling units (ADUs) cannot be administered effectively. The Mayor and DC Council need to provide a few more staff positions to manage these programs.

An alternative to administering the program entirely inside the DC government would be to give responsibility for the for-sale units to a nonprofit experienced in managing permanently affordable homeownership programs. CityFirst Homes is already doing a similar job with the District's first major housing land trust. Evidence suggests that more hands-on assistance from a non-profit like CityFirst Homes can drastically cut foreclosure rates and yield more successful homeowners.

The other component that requires sustained support is the housing counseling agencies who educate applicants and help them through the process. Ensuring the city's budget provides for this is another key ingredient to success. In all, these administrative costs amount to a modest budget item and are a fraction of what it costs to subsidize new affordable housing construction.

Rigid IZ regulations: DHCD manages a process for connecting a person who qualifies for affordable housing to available units. This involves a centralized application and lotteries. Details of that process have proven too rigid to accommodate the realities of matching housing seekers and available units.

The city is in the process of revising the regulations to give the program necessary flexibility. This revision should be in effect in a few months.

An alternative to the current lottery system would be to let the developers market the units to qualified households, and simply have the District housing agency certify the applicants as qualified and provide general oversight. This is already the process for the PUD and public land "ADUs."

With sufficient support from housing counseling agencies, residents in search of an affordable home should be able to get enough help to conduct that search, especially with the city's useful website, dchousingsearch.org.

Rigid FHA lending rules: The Federal Housing Administration has emerged as the predominant mortgage backer in the post-2008 affordable homeownership world. Nationwide, most local housing programs have encountered a critical conflict with FHA rules where local programs (like IZ and ADUs) often require that the affordability provisions survive foreclosure. FHA does not allow for this.

The only way to deal with FHA mortgage lending standards that conflict with local program requirements is to change the program to conform to FHA's standards, and get FHA to sign off on the changes. DC is acting to change its standards to comply with FHA. The timeline for receiving FHA's approval is uncertain but the city hopes it will happen shortly, we hope in the next month or so.

If a unit goes into foreclosure and then sells on the market, the city would lose its investment in an affordable home. There are other safeguards the city could put in place that do not conflict with FHA. They would at least allow the city to recover the value of the affordability of the unit, should a foreclosure occur and the unit sell on the market.

With these three administrative fixes in place, DC should be ready to smoothly operate a program to place the right applicant in the right unit as 900 more IZ units come online.

Mend it, don't end it

IZ's growing pains have led to some calls to more fundamentally modify or scrap the IZ program. We should consider and debate these suggestions only once DC fixes the immediate problems and the program administration is running smoothly.

Some opponents continue to question the policy itself, but experience across the country points to IZ as a valuable and effective tool to create moderately-priced housing in strong markets with virtually no direct cost other than a small budget for staffing the program.

Matrix of case studies. Click to view full size.

Envision Prince George's Community Action Team for Transit-Oriented Development, the Coalition for Smarter Growth, and American Institute of Architects Potomac Valley collected the design case studies. They provide examples of mid- to large-scale hospitals with footprints of 1.5-48 acres. In fact, larger hospitals (measured in number of beds) are at the lower end of this range of acres, while the smaller hospitals tended to occupy more land area.

While Prince George's continues to pursue additional federal offices (like the new FBI headquarters), a new $600 million medical center could be one of the best opportunities to jump-start transit-oriented development at one of the county's 15 underutilized Metro stations.

In contrast to courting federal agencies, the state and county control the decision about where to locate and how to design a new medical center. Not encumbered with stringent federal security requirements, a regional medical center offers a better opportunity to connect to surrounding uses and fuel spinoff economic activity than an FBI or Homeland Security building.

Why a smaller, urban footprint?

Hospitals must plan for growth, and a working "rule of thumb" for traditional suburban or rural 200-bed hospitals (similar in size to the Prince George's facility) is a minimum of 40 acres. This footprint provides a suburban or rural site with room for the initial building, associated drop-offs, parking, and room for future growth. Growth is common in medical facilities, whether for outpatient clinics, specialty centers, or the hospital itself.

Seattle Children's Hospital. Photo from ZGF.

Hospitals in a more urban context plan for similar growth, but within sites that are typically 10 acres or less. This smaller footprint offers several benefits over a suburban medical campus. Connecting a hospital center to a larger mixed-use environment where people can work, shop, and live helps attract and retain highly sought-after skilled healthcare workers. By better integrating into the surrounding community, an anchor institution like this can support a vibrant, walkable, thriving new hub.

Designers also point to sustainability benefits from a more urban design and context. A limited footprint disturbs less land and reduces the heat island effect. Placing a more compact medical center in an urban hub also allows for more environmentally-friendly transportation choices with frequent transit service, and walk and bicycle options for short trips. Driving and parking will remain an important mode of access, but a more urban hospital allows for lower parking supplies, greater access for those who do not have a car, and the choice to take some trips on foot or by bicycle.

While a footprint of 10 acres may seem small compared to a suburban campus of 40 acres or more, hospital complexes around the country and beyond are developing successful, busy hospitals on sites as small as a few acres.

The just-released case studies of 11 successful moderate to small-footprint hospitals of comparable size to the planned Prince George's regional medical center share 3 common success factors: access, flexibility for future growth, and a connection to the surrounding environment.

Success factor: Access

An important factor for any healthcare facility is convenient and easy access to and from the site. High-quality public transportation, stores and services, and housing within walking distance create opportunities for staff and visitors to get outside the hospital while still being nearby, and enable some to come and go without having a car.

Access to Champ de Mars medical center. Image from CannonDesign.

Several of the examples in the report show major hospitals that are integrated into city blocks. Hospital staff and visitors have easy access to a local services and transit options. For example, the Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center is a 448-bed hospital, 7 stories tall situated on 3 acres of land. Within a block is the Red line light rail station and major bus routes.

GWU hospital entrance. Photo from Smithgroup JJR.

Closer to home, the 6-7 story, 371-bed George Washington University Hospital occupies 2 acres. The front door of GWU Hospital opens onto the busy entrance of the Foggy Bottom Metrorail station and is embedded in a thriving urban district that mixes health, university, private office, retail and housing uses in a highly walkable, transit-accessible environment.

Medical facilities woven into the fabric of a larger mixed-use district served by transit can have an advantage when competing for medical professionals who desire to be in a lively, diverse place, and need flexibility with their commutes in a two-worker household.

Success factor: Flexibility for future growth

While suburban hospitals are typically designed with extra acreage to accommodate future growth, urban medical centers can anticipate similar growth, but plan smartly within a more constrained footprint.

Main entrance, American Hospital Dubai. Image from AECOM.

Planning a smaller-footprint facility guides planners to take into account their overall surroundings, making better use of pedestrian connections to the surrounding community and supporting services. In the case of both the vertical high rise addition to Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, with the 260-bed Bunting Center inpatient hospital on 1.5 acres, and the 350-bed American Hospital Dubai campus on 11 acres, planning for growth accounted for the sites' larger surroundings.

The hospital designers from AECOM point out that an urban design and location provides significant advantages in offering the ability to walk to a nearby restaurant to avoid yet another meal at the hospital cafeteria or the convenience of staying at a nearby hotel for someone visiting a sick relative.

Success factor: Connection to green spaces

Numerous studies show that access to outdoor places and views of green spaces create a state-of-the-art healing environment. But urban hospitals don't need to concede healing green features to their suburban and rural counterparts. Roof gardens, courtyards, and natural light are all achievable in small-footprint hospital centers.

Roof garden view, Bunting Center at Mercy, Baltimore. Rendering from AECOM.

The centerpiece of the Bunting Center at Mercy Hospital healing environment is a multilevel roof garden, accessible on various floors and overlooked by room occupants above the midway point along the rise of the building. The 9th floor garden offers direct access from the ICU waiting room.

On the 28 acre campus of the 600-bed Seattle Children's Hospital, 41% of the campus is dedicated as open space. Pedestrian paths are provided throughout the facility to promote walking and offer outdoor connections.

Innovative design and urban context show the possibilities

The 11 case studies offer examples of innovative architectural design, connectivity to the surrounding context, access to transit, green features and compact footprints. These features highlight how a regional medical center for Prince George's and Southern Maryland could establish a new leading healthcare facility that not only attracts the staff and patients it needs to succeed, but fits into a larger district that thrives on the influx of activity.

IZ policies have been widely practiced around the country for decades, and very successfully in Montgomery County. Beginning in the early 2000s, the District of Columbia government recognized that it needed more tools to address the growing shortfall of affordable housing for DC residents in a revived housing market. The IZ policy is one of the new tools the city adopted to address its growing affordability problem.

IZ became DC law in 2006, but implementation was delayed until summer 2009, well after the housing market crashed. Thus, the effect of IZ has been minimal because the market has taken time to re-energize, and clear out restarted projects approved before IZ rules were finalized. The city's robust recovery has generated a full pipeline of residential developments, many of which will produce IZ units as part of the larger project.

IZ and affordable housing by the numbers

According to the IZ annual report, as of December 2011, there are 82 projects in the IZ pipeline: 3 under construction, 29 in planning phases, and 50 in conceptual phases, slated to produce a total of 930 IZ units when complete. In addition, there are 120 IZ-exempt residential projects in the pipeline, slated to produce an additional 5,645 affordable units.

There are several reasons residential projects currently in the pipeline might be exempt from IZ requirements. The biggest category of exempt projects are grandfathered—projects that would have been subject to IZ, but were approved prior to IZ regulations going into effect in late 2009. There's a big list of grandfathered projects because the Fenty administration delayed final regulations during the height of the housing market boom. Those projects are now getting going again.

Approximately 53 projects and 16,000 units in the city's development pipeline were approved before IZ regulations went into effect. This means that upwards of another 1,000 IZ units would also have been produced but for the Fenty Administration delay in issuing regulations by more than two years after the DC Council and Zoning Commission put the IZ policy in place.

While these projects are "exempt" from IZ regulations, many of them will nonetheless provide affordable units through a mechanism other than IZ. In some cases, this means an all-affordable or largely affordable project that exceeds IZ standards. Other projects are exempt because they are providing affordable units similar to IZ through an alternative zoning review process called a "Planned Unit Development" or PUD.

A PUD is a special review process where the Zoning Commission gives a development greater flexibility including more density in exchange for additional public benefits and features. Approximately 5,645 affordable units are in the exempt projects pipeline, yielding 17 percent out of a total 32,535 units. See Table 1 for the tally of IZ and other affordable units in the pipeline, as of 2011.

On a policy level, IZ is working as designed

As of 2011, the DC housing market's strong recovery is in full swing. The third annual report on IZ notes that DC's overall development pipeline is going gangbusters with permits to build 4,726 units issued in 2011, which far exceeds 2010's total of 1454 units, and is nearly double the number of residential building permits issued during the last peak year of 2005. Many of these projects are Planned Unit Developments (PUDs) and will meet IZ requirements, though technically outside the program.

In the future, as IZ takes full affect, the program will cover most residential development outside PUDs and geographically-exempted areas, providing 8 to 10 percent moderate and low cost housing for DC residents in these developments. The city's remarkable acceleration of residential development projects seems to indicate that IZ won't be holding it back as some critics had suggested.

The city's IZ report also tells us that only one project in the pipeline is receiving full relief from IZ regulations under unique circumstances. This is another important early sign that IZ is already generally accepted by the development industry.

In contrast to projects being exempt because they are grandfathered, in an exempt geographic district (e.g. downtown, two historic districts), too small, or are providing the same or greater amounts of affordable units through an alternate process (PUD or affordable housing development), zoning relief means the project is let out of providing any affordability due to extraordinary circumstances.

The one project that has requested and received relief is the West End Library PUD project which is providing a new library and fire station. These new public facilities were recognized as a significant public benefit for the Planned Unit Development that qualified the project for IZ relief. Additionally, the city has also committed to funding a 52-unit building all at 60 percent of area median income (AMI) above the fire station.

One piece of information missing from the brief report is the expected income split between 50 and 80 percent AMI. For 2011, 50 percent AMI was $53,050, and 80 percent AMI was $84,900 for a family of four. DHCD has struggled to provide accurate information on affordable housing unit production, and getting the details on income targeting appears to be even more elusive.

As IZ units come online, we can expect to get specific information about the income split with the IZ law's reporting requirement. The report does tell us that of the 2 for-sale IZ units on the market, one is at 50 percent and one at 80 percent AMI. We expect to see that most future IZ-covered projects will be providing affordable units at the 80 percent AMI level, given most new development is high rise multifamily.

Major hospital complexes can use far less space, and do so efficiently, if they are designed to be transit-oriented. A more compact site design will allow room for the facility to grow and will better connect to a nearby mix of housing, retail, and other uses that would thrive on a large workforce and steady stream of visitors. A design with great pocket parks and plazas would create health benefits by encouraging walking and offering cleaner air through transit. It would also ensure access to new jobs for those without cars.

Housing a leading regional medical center at one of Prince George's several underused Metro stations is a tremendous opportunity for the county. The regional medical center will be a major investment to address health care needs for the county, Southern Maryland and the region. It also brings to Prince George's one of the most important economic development opportunities in many years.

UCSF shows the way

Prince George's County should look to the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)'s Medical Center at Mission Bay for an example of a transit-oriented medical center. The Mission Bay complex will anchor a medical and biotech research cluster that is attracting young professionals to live, work, and play in an emerging neighborhood built on old industrial land and rail yards.

UCSF is adding 3 hospitals to its current 43-acre satellite research campus for a total of 878,000 square feet, but it will only take up 15 acres. This expansion will add 289 beds and give the new complex a 58-acre footprint.

Mission Bay has great public transportation access, including two stops of the new Third Street light rail line and the local bus system. Transportation assessments of current users show most get to the UCSF Mission Bay facility by a mode other than single-passenger cars: 25% ride with others, 23% take light rail or other transit, 9% walk or bike, and 43% drive alone.

Making the proposed center a truly regional destination requires connecting it to the region while offering a distinctive experience once you arrive. Metrorail access and walkable design can create that connectivity and sense of place. A sprawling hospital campus that requires patients and visitors to drive from one parking lot to the next will not. Navigating a campus like that is frustrating, stressful, and can put patients and workers at risk, particularly those with mobility challenges.

Beyond smart growth advocates, industry leaders also see transit-oriented development as the future. Eric Fischer, Managing Director of Trammell Crow Healthcare Services, a major real estate development company commented, "A hospital on Metro is a good thing. It provides easy and affordable accessibility for workers, patients, and vendors. It would be an unfortunate opportunity for Prince George's not to deeply consider the use of one of its Metro stations for such a facility. We have found that public transportation is a key component to the long-term viability for these kinds of institutions."

Landover Mall and Bowie State are not adequate substitutes

Rumors suggest that the Landover Mall site, more than a mile from the nearest Metro, is a leading contender. It's a long, unpleasant walk from Metro at a time when the county has sufficient vacant land at Metro stations like Largo Town Center, Morgan Boulevard, and Branch Avenue.

The Bowie State University MARC station may also be in the running. While MARC commuter rail offers a certain level of transit access, it provides a fraction of what Metrorail service provides: dozens versus hundreds of trains during the week, with no MARC service on weekends.

Running a hospital requires 3 rush hours and a 24 hour, 7 days per week schedule. MARC simply doesn't have the frequency or operating hours to meet more than a small portion of the access needs. Also, the outside-the-beltway Bowie site is far from where most county residents live, forcing long trips for many, whether staff or patients.

Locating the new medical center at a Metro station is a key part of a strategy that will attract and retain workers. With a great walkable design, it can also draw in the large share of Prince George's residents who currently leave the county for their healthcare. Prince George's and the state of Maryland should seize this opportunity and build a truly transit-oriented medical center.

Want to know more about what the city is doing, or could do, to use public lands for more affordable housing? How might a library be a good candidate to become mixed-use and mixed income? Join us on Wednesday evening, June 6 for a conversation with the leading thinkers and decision-makers on what gets built on city-owned land, including Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Victor Hoskins and DC Chief Librarian Ginnie Cooper.

DC's history of affordable housing

Throughout the 2000s, DC has provided thousands of housing units, including a large share of affordable and deeply affordable units, by aggressively managing its surplus lands. 9 parcels on 13 acres of land in Columbia Heights produced nearly 600 new affordable housing units, or 35% of all new units.

The City Vista project at 5th and K NW generated a robust mix of 685 units of housing and retail. 138 units, or 20% of the total, were made available at moderate to deeply affordable levels, including some for those earning no more than 30% of the area median income (AMI).

During earlier decades of disinvestment and population decline, the District acquired substantial amounts of vacant and underutilized land. Many of these properties are now valuable assets that have been or can be redeveloped for housing, commercial uses, or new public facilities. The District also owns large parcels of former federal property as well as scores of aging schools, libraries, and other public facilities with the potential to meet a range of community needs.

Since 2000, starting with Mayor Anthony Williams' administration, the District government has racked up an impressive list of accomplishments putting surplus lands back into productive use through public-private partnership deals. Affordable housing has been a priority for these redevelopment projects, with DC seeking to designate 20-30 percent of the overall units as affordable.

Going beyond some affordable housing deals, DC sought to create a mix of housing opportunities at very low income levels. It's most difficult to pay for deeply affordable housing, but there is the greatest need for this housing because it's expensive to build and most low-wage jobs don't pay enough to cover even that cost.

A promising success story: The Hine school

The Hine School project stands out as an example of how a project on public land can balance affordable housing and other public benefits with market-rate development. Located between the Eastern Market Metro station and the historic market house, the Hine School project has an extra challenge of rebuilding in an historic district.

Residents and prominent local community groups engaged early in the decision-making process to express their vision for the site and influenced the selection of the developer, design, and uses. The project will include 46 low-income housing units, with 5 units at 30% area median income (AMI), 29 at 60% AMI, and 12 at 80% AMI.

In addition, the project would rebuild C Street SE as a curbless street and plaza and provide room for weekend vendor tents that can accommodate much (but not all) of the flea market currently using the existing school parking lot. Unlike many public land deals, the developer is also adding office space, which can diversify the activity in the area throughout the day and generate revenues that contribute to what the city collects as both taxes and rent.

In all, the Hine project adds up to a winner of a public land deal. Its design fits the historic context of the neighborhood while offering a mix of affordable and market-rate housing, along with office, retail, and public space in a highly desirable neighborhood and adjacent to a Metro station.

A missed opportunity: The Tenley Library and Janney School

One of the big ones that got away was a mixed-use proposal for the Tenley Library and Janney School. Few chances exist to provide affordable housing in the affluent upper Northwest neighborhood of Tenleytown. This project would have provided 53 units (30% of the total) at 30% AMI, offering low-income residents the chance to live in the community, rather than only commute to it.

The deal would also have accelerated needed upgrades to the popular Janney Elementary School at the same time, using up-front payments from the private developer, and it would brought $5 million in cost savings to the library.

The plan followed a lengthy and tortured path until 2009, when leaders decided to defer the project's housing elements with a promise to allow for putting it partly on top of the library in the future. However, it's hard to see how that would be feasible, let alone affordable.

Instead of using money from the project to fund Janney, the city reallocated money to pay for the school, exacerbating an already inequitable tilt in capital school expenditures towards Ward 3. The result was no affordable housing, no added resources leveraged by private investment, and a more inequitable distribution of school modernization dollars.

Community supporters for the mixed-use plan were disappointed. "The [school and library] agencies had no interest in combining land and resources, said Allison Barnard Feeney, a Janney School parent and advocate for the mixed use proposal. "By the time the mayor got behind it, this idea had quite a lot of entrenched opposition."

What's next?

Public land deals have delivered a lot of affordable housing in the District through the 2000s. But the future direction for public land redevelopment is unclear. The recent request for proposals for the site near the Shaw Metro station (Parcel 42) has not specified specific amounts of affordable housing, which is a change from practices in the past decade.

The administration of Mayor Vincent Gray has not established its policy for future public land dispositions but has continued to execute deals with substantial amounts of affordable housing.

As for future deals, according to Deputy Mayor Victor Hoskins, the city may no longer insist that projects on public land require a specific amount of affordable housing or target income levels as they did under the Williams and Fenty administrations. Instead, the administration may ask developers to maximize affordable units below 80% AMI in their proposals, as with the Parcel 42 request. Under such an approach, achieving affordability reaching all the way down to 30% AMI is less likely. Deputy Mayor Hoskins has suggested that the Mayor's Comprehensive Housing Strategy Task Force, convened in February 2012, will help provide broader guidance on this question.

High costs of construction, a tighter District budget, and a shrinking federal role make the path to more affordable housing uncertain. While the District has completed many successful projects, many more opportunities remain to realize public benefits from public land.

Even with the additional costs of these very affordable units, the planned redevelopment that replaces these aging facilities and adds housing and retail is a good deal for the city.

While the cost of the affordable units isn't cheap, it's on par with similar efforts in the region. Moreover, its location is unparalleled. Rebuilding "One City" requires investing in rare opportunities like this one. Offering low income DC residents the chance to live in such a well-located mixed-use neighborhood builds a better future for our city, where everyone can share in the District's rising prosperity.

The West End and nearby Foggy Bottom are home to some two dozen large and medium-sized hotels, as well as George Washington University and its hospital center. These institutions are all major employers, in particular providing a concentration of entry-level and moderate-wage jobs, often filled by people who are likely to be eligible for very affordable units.

By committing to this project, the chairman can indicate that he recognizes the importance of giving low income households the chance to live and possibly walk to a nearby job in West End, Foggy Bottom, or even downtown.

With this project and future ones like it, we can help share the success of the city with those who find it increasingly difficult to stay and enjoy the new libraries, parks, schools that are made possible by DC's growing popularity.

We applaud Chairman Brown for restoring critical housing programs in the 2013 operating budget. However, this West End affordable housing project would be paid for through the capital budget and requires separate action. It is another essential part of ensuring our city's growing wealth gives better opportunities for the DC residents who are struggling to keep up.

With a waiting list of 20,000 for subsidized units, it's time for the District to make another major commitment to conveniently located, affordable housing.

Before next Tuesday, send Chairman Brown a message and ask him to include the budget authority in the Budget Support Act for the long-promised West End affordable housing deal.

Prince George's County has consistently had more pedestrian fatalities than any other jurisdiction in the region or in the state of Maryland. Between 1999 and 2010, Prince George's suffered an average of 25 fatalities per year, far eclipsing the 16 deaths on average in Maryland's second worst county, Baltimore County. Prince George's even has more pedestrian fatalities than the District of Columbia, which has far more pedestrians.

Prince George's planners won't address this problem without a law specifically allowing them to. This proposed bill would give the Planning Board the authority they need.

Councilmembers Mel Franklin (District 9) and Eric Olson (District 3) are leaders on pedestrian safety issues, and proposed CB-2 to help foster more walkable development and improves safety and access.

The bill asks county planners to determine adequate walk and bike facilities for new developments, similar to the current provisions for roads. If the area lacks needed infrastructure, the developer may be required to construct the most critical missing sidewalk or bicycle links.

The bill caps the cost for the developer at a modest 35¢ per square foot of commercial development, and $300 per housing unit. It also only imposes these new rules for developments in the county's designated urban centers and corridors, which are the most conducive to walking and bicycling.

This bill is a reasonable approach to a real problem. It works with developers to produce a better final product, and to reduce the costs of traffic.

Everyone benefits when more people walk and bike instead of drive. The developer can pay for less expensive transportation infrastructure, residents and businesses enjoy better and safer access to nearby destinations, and surrounding communities experience less automobile traffic.

The County Council will conduct a public hearing on the bill on April 24, at 1:30 pm at the County Administration Building in Upper Marlboro. If you live or work in Prince George's County, contact the County Council or speak at the hearing, and urge them to support this bill.

Click here to send the Prince George's County Council an email in support of CB-2.

For example, in Montgomery County, the state will build a $63 million interchange at Georgia Avenue (MD 97) and Randolph Road, to speed up traffic near the Glenmont Metro station. With ramps and longer crossings, the interchange will further degrade pedestrian access to nearby shopping from residences.

For the amount spent on this project, the county could build much of the long-discussed Georgia Avenue bus rapid transit project from Wheaton to Olney instead.

Montgomery County is pushing another grade-separated interchange at the Veirs Mill Road (MD 586) and Randolph Road. Based on past experience, we can expect that the planned Veirs Mill bus rapid transit project (the county's largest bus route) will continue to lose out to the expensive interchange for priority.

The interchange would not only compete for funds with this proposed rapid bus corridor, it would also make conditions much worse for the many pedestrians who cross these roads to stores and bus stops at the intersection. Read the whole list of the county's priority transportation projects here.

In Prince George's, despite numerous setbacks, the 6,000-acre greenfield Westphalia development project outside the Capital Beltway and miles from the nearest Metro station still maintains a top ranking on the list from local elected officials. The price tag for the road infrastructure to serve this massive tract of largely undeveloped land is $460 million.

The transportation projects would convert Pennsylvania Avenue (MD 4) into a freeway from the Capitol Beltway to Woodyard Road (MD 223), and add 4 interchanges along the way. The Westphalia plan calls for adding 14,000-15,300 new residential units and up 6 million square feet of commercial space.

The county transportation lists also contain important transit, bike, and pedestrian projects, but often these proposals languish while road projects advance. Other important transit, pedestrian, bicycle, and complete streets solutions never even make the list. We need to fund projects that meet the growing demand for more transportation choices that save time, energy, and money.

If Marylanders are asked to pay more, each dollar must be invested wisely. Residents need better and more affordable transportation choices. So where should this money go?

First, let's fix Maryland's existing infrastructure, like our aging roads, bridges and transit systems. Then, let's build modern transit to move more people efficiently and competitively, while providing alternatives to congested highways like the Beltway, I-95, and I-270. It's long past time for critical rail investments like the Purple Line, Baltimore Red Line and MARC expansion, and better bus service.

At the local level, state revenue to local governments should go to fix and maintain local street connections, sidewalks, and bikeways for existing communities.

Moreover, given high unemployment, smart growth transit options can help the economy. Public transportation and road maintenance are the biggest job creators. According to the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership, investments in road maintenance projects create 9% more jobs than spending on new highway capacity; increasing transit capacity creates 19% more jobs than new highway capacity.

If Marylanders are going to pay more, we deserve to know what the money will buy. We need a bill that that specifies smart, fix-it-first policies for the state. Otherwise, we're just throwing our money into the dark.