Skip the housing, get the affordable housing tax credit?
1716 Wilson plans. Image from DCmud.
According to DCmud, due to some bizarre quirks of Arlington’s tax code, a developer building near the Metro is getting affordable housing tax credits… for not building housing. Or maybe not; see the update below.
The project will add 5 stories of offices with ground floor retail at 1716 Wilson Blvd, about midway between Rosslyn and Court House. DCmud cites information from the Rosslyn BID that the developer hopes to include “a ‘small pedestrian plaza’ at the site that will serve bikers” from the nearby bike trails along with some public art. (It’s not clear from the article why a pedestrian plaza serves bikers.) And according to the project page, this development will also add a side street, cutting an existing superblock in two.
Here’s the most baffling part:
The development will [be] eligible for upwards for $400,000 in county affordable housing contributions, despite the lack of a residential component within the project. This is due to a complex system of exemptions within Arlington County zoning and density statutes that reward achieving particularly low-density at a site zoned as “‘Medium’ Office-Apartment-Hotel.”
Low density right in this major corridor is not the goal Arlington’s tax code ought to encourage. Arlington specifically pushed for the Orange Line to run underneath Wilson, instead of in the median of I-66, to encourage walkable density there. They zoned Wilson and the blocks immediately surrounding for large buildings, keeping the surrounding neighborhoods zoned for single family homes.
Not building housing doesn’t accomplish the same goal that affordable housing does. Far from it. Even market-rate housing helps to lower housing costs a little, simply by the laws of supply and demand. Giving credits for affordable housing, of course, creates affordable housing more directly. To give the credit not only for leaving out the affordable housing, but having no housing whatsoever, just defies logic.
If there’s a good place for tall buildings with affordable housing, this is it. Arlington should expunge this ridiculous loophole with all due haste.
Update: Astute reader RichardatCourthouse found the project documents, and it looks like the $400,000 is not a tax credit, but rather a payment the developer has to make for not creating housing. That makes a lot more sense.