Breakfast links: Building near Metro

by David Alpert • April 27, 2010 9:22 am

Photo by David Clow.

Southwest becoming more livable, walkable: The mixed-use Waterfront Station, including a Safeway, has opened in Southwest, repairing a bit of the damage from 1950s urban renewal. People are excited. Also, Lisa Rein does a nice job with an article containing no backhanded slaps at urbanism whatsoever (Post) ... And speaking of reporters we've criticized, Adam Tuss notes that no, DC isn't actually anti-car. (WTOP)

Will Grumman be near Metro? Does Leggett know Metro exists?: Northrop Grumman has chosen Virginia, not surprisingly, and between two sites, one near Metro in Ballston and one nowhere near Metro in Falls Church (WBJ) ... In his statement of disappointment, Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett touted the County's greenfield efforts but made no mention of more infill development like White Flint. (MPW)

Tickets getting overturned. Problem?: The Examiner found that 3/5 of people who challenge tickets are successful, though only a small number do. Overworked adjudication staff could be part of the reason. The useful followup would be to gauge whether the overturned tickets were wrongly issued in the first place and why, or whether the adjudicators are wrongly letting people off the hook. (Examiner)

Battle of the colors: Jack Evans is saying he may bow out of the race for Council Chair, but Vincent Orange could run if Evans doesn't. IMGoph is no fan of Orange, but it'd at least be good to have some competition so that the race can actually involve a debate over the future of the Council. (DC Wire)

Next up, bottles?: Tommy Wells and environmentalists might next tackle plastic bottles, now that the bag fee has been working so well. Bottle deposit? (NewsChannel 8 via Loose Lips Daily)

Too much preservation in NYC?: The debates over whether we're landmarking too much aren't just in DC. Ed Glaeser argues that New York has too many historic districts, limiting development and keeping housing prices high. However, New York actually puts development far above preservation in most cases. (City Journal, Madison)

And...: It'd be nice for cities if we abolished states, but absent that, how about channeling some federal money through MPOs instead of just states? (BeyondDC) ... A much-acclaimed condo project in Alexandria won't get built (DCmud) ... And while the policy arguments failed, budget considerations may force the end of subsidized parking at the Rockville library. (Gazette)

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16 comments

Tags: Alexandria, Arlington, bag fees, bottle fees, DC, DC Council, development, economic development, enforcement, environment, Falls Church, historic preservation, Ike Leggett, Jack Evans, library parking, links, Maryland, Montgomery, MWCOG, New York, politics, press, Rockville, Southwest Waterfront, TOD, Tommy Wells, Vincent Orange, Virginia, White Flint, windshield perspective

David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington. He has had a lifelong interest in great cities and great communities. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater.

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That bottle deposit story is awful. No actual comments from anyone in CM Wells's office or in the environmental community, yet it implies something is actually happening.

by rallycap on Apr 27, 2010 9:33 am

To be fair, I don't think Ed Glaeser is saying historic districts are the sole reason for New York's high housing prices. His research and his position are consistent - that various regulatory schemes to limit density and development below what the market can bear (and historic preservation is one of those regulatory schemes) all contribute to increases in housing prices.

I don't think anyone has ever effectively refuted that point - the question is one of trade-offs. Surely, regulation accomplishes some things well in terms of urban design, land use, transportation, etc. The policy question then becomes one of matching those benefits with the right regulatory structure to get the best overall outcome

by Alex B. on Apr 27, 2010 9:33 am

No way a bottle deposit will work without either MD or VA passing the same in concert. I'm a big proponent of bottle bills having grown up in NY and CT, it's easier to manage than a bag fee, but honestly DC can't do it alone without taking a major hit from people redeeming products from out of DC.

by Jason on Apr 27, 2010 9:36 am

I'm not sure one has to refute the fact that historic areas increase the price of realestate by restricting redevelopment. Over development has a way of ruining an area and therefore depressing values. Like it or not, there are limits to how much development should take place, just as there are limits to how fast one can drive through town, regardless of the car's power. Plus, the article goes on to describe a measly 16% of land in these historic areas. It's not as if they are no fly zones, if one wants to be a good neighbor, then the process is much less onerous, but fitting in harmoneously isn't one of the values enshrined by most of our architecture schools. Plus, the development might actually be pushed to derelict areas that could actually use redevelopment.

by Thayer-D on Apr 27, 2010 10:04 am

David -- What would the feasibility be of adding a "sort by date" option for searches of your site?

by Dennis Jaffe on Apr 27, 2010 10:28 am

4/5's of 7% of parking tickets is a 2.8% dismissal rate of all parking tickets issued. 38% of 3% of photo citation tickets is a 1.14% dismissal rate.

2.8% and 1.14% seem like perfectly normal dismissal rates.

89.3% of Examiner editorial staff hate government and will publish anything that might make government look bad.

by crin on Apr 27, 2010 10:53 am

@Thayer-D

Over development has a way of ruining an area and therefore depressing values.

Well, 'ruining' is awfully subjective, and 'depressing' values is likewise a loaded term. The case Glaeser makes is that these historic areas are rampantly unaffordable. This was not always the case, and his argument is that the reason they are now unaffordable is a lack of new housing supply to meet growing demand.

So, Historic Preservation can indeed be good at preserving value, but that's an awfully limited view to take as far as the overall health of a city. If those places are so valuable that they are unaffordable to all but the wealthy, is that a net gain for the city? (I throw that out there as more of a discussion question, I don't know what the answer is)

Likewise, could those same goals of historic preservation be met through a different regulatory structure?

It's a very intriguing set of questions.

by Alex B. on Apr 27, 2010 10:59 am

Southwest is certainly a bit of an enigma at the moment.

The new developments are quickly transforming it into a great place to live. However, it's still very distinctly Corbusier, and even the new developments fly in the face of current urban planning paradigms.

If SW ends up being successful in the long-run, could we begin to see the emergence of a (revised, transit-oriented) form of Corbusier-ism? Could we apply the same lessons to Crystal City's cold, depressing and alienating plazas?

by andrew on Apr 27, 2010 11:11 am

Stop taxing us!

by Steven on Apr 27, 2010 11:17 am

Thank for declaring Southwest Washington "liveable." All these years I never knew that I was LIVING in a place that was not liveable.

Give me a break. Southwest DC is filled with people who find it just fine and quite "liveable." My block still has residents who moved in with the original "urban planning" and raised several generations in Southwest (how ever did they survive such an unliveable mess). When a house in SW goes on the market, it is gone within days or weeks, even in this market.

SW offers the perfect mix of walkability and driveability. You can walk to downtown or Capitol Hill easily, or, if you prefer, drive to anywhere in the region via easy access to the bridges and 295/395. I walk to work. But I also drive out to visit friends in Loudon County on the weekends (or would the urbanists tell me that those friends aren't worth having?). SW has easy, walkable, access to 3 Metro stations and the wide streets have always been easy to bike on (we have been doing it for years before anyone ever heard of a bike lane).

Contrary to popular myth, SW is not isolated. It is quite easy to find and easy to get to. But it is residential and quiet, and guess what, SOME PEOPLE ACTUALLY LIKE THAT! Gasp! People like quiet tree-lined streets and a low crime rate! Off with their non-urbanist-approved heads!

The new Safeway is nice. But so are the three Harris Teeter's within a few minutes drive, and the Shoppers on Route 1 with its lower prices. Choice, and accesibility to those choices is nice.

The new shops and restaurants that will come to SW will also be nice, but also nice will be the ability SW residents have to easily walk, drive, or take the Metro to other areas of the city and Northern Virginia (where most of the best ethnic restaurants are by the way).

So you see, long before there were blogs, and urbanists, and urbanists with blogs, there was a very nice and LIVEABLE set of neighborhoods in Southwest. Maybe you should come down and check it our yourself. Who knows, you might even want to try to live here...

by SW Resident on Apr 27, 2010 12:27 pm

SW Resident - you don't know by now that it's BLOGGERS who discovered the world??

BTW, I totally agree about the restaurants. So overrated in DC.

by Jazzy on Apr 27, 2010 3:28 pm

He didn't say "livable" - he said "MORE livable." As someone who used to be familiar with that shell of a mall and disgusting Safeway, I can't imagine how anyone could take umbrage or disagree with that headline.

by CP on Apr 27, 2010 3:37 pm

@SW Resident: I have a friend who's worked at the Navy Yard for a long time. He's got a very different opinion of SW than you.

by dynaryder on Apr 27, 2010 3:47 pm

@Jazzy, BTW, I totally agree about the restaurants. So overrated in DC.

So true! If you want 'ethnic', the better ones are in the 'burbs. High end ... DC has relatively more of them (per square mile), but quantitatively probably less or no more. And as SW Resident so well explained, that is the beauty of living in a city like DC where you are in the center of it all. A short walk, or metro ride, or bicycle ride, or bus ride, or ... God help us ... a car ride from it all! Packing in density into DC at the expense of the easy mobility it provides because of its centrality would ruin the very essense that makes DC unique among capitals and unique among the powerful cities of the world. As a cousin from Paris once told me, you are really very lucky to live in a relatively small city that has all the best of museums, restaurants, etc. that one normally only finds in a big city. You get all the good things without all the problems that come with really big cities. Yes, we are lucky.

by Lance on Apr 27, 2010 5:02 pm

@dynaryder:

The Navy Yard isn't in SW, its in SE. Fort McNair is in SW.

As for the old Waterside mall, it didn't really affect the "liveability" of SW one way or the other. When it had a few shops, it was convenient. When it didn't have any shops, there were places just as convenient to go to.

If anything, opening up 4th St SW to traffic is bad for both walkability and liveability. One of the things that makes SW so easy to walk around (and bike through) is the many dead end streets and cul de sacs. Roads are usually pretty empty of cars. Police and fire trucks don't race through. Tour busses stay out (usually). Now 4th St is a straight shot from the Mall all the way to Fort McNair, which means more vehicular traffic.

by SW Resident on Apr 27, 2010 5:45 pm

Tommy "Tax and Spend" Wells.

by Fritz on Apr 27, 2010 8:39 pm