Posts about Harriet Tregoning

"The first iteration is almost always horrible," said Harriet Tregoning, DC's planning director. Tregoning argued that communities need to be constantly vigilant and to push back through review and input.

An example of a federal building with negative impact is the FBI Building in downtown Washington. When asked if they thought it was "the worst building in DC," a significant portion of the audience raised their hands. Foreboding and removed from the street, this building serves as an example of what not to do.

On the other hand, the sheer number of workers a new federal office brings into an area can activate the neighborhood. This activity can spur more growth and create new urban fabric where there previously was none. They can give birth to entirely new neighborhoods, or revive ones long since written off.

Qualities of many federal facilities pose problems

Federal office buildings are inherently single-use. Office workers do little for neighborhoods after business hours. This can be especially damaging when agencies cluster, creating large single-use neighborhoods. By spreading offices throughout the region, federal projects can invigorate many different neighborhoods instead of negatively affecting just a handful.

Federal buildings farther from transit often use shuttle buses. These could also provide a desirable transit option for neighborhood residents, but security rules often bar them from riding. This has been part of the conversation around the Department of Homeland Security's new offices at the former St. Elizabeth's hospital site between Anacostia and Congress Heights.

Individual buildings can do a lot to help or hurt their neighborhood. The parking garage for the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) in Alexandria is lined with townhouses on two sides, but other sides are just screened and set back from the street with landscaping, creating a dead streetscape. Many projects fall into this same pattern, with a mix of successful and unsuccessful components.

Security drives many design decisions and harms communities

The General Services Administration (GSA) is working to reverse damage to the streetscape from its massive headquarters in Foggy Bottom. The building is currently entirely disconnected from the street, but GSA plans to bring retail back to the building's street frontage.

To do this, they had to get creative with a factor that hampers the design of many federal projects, security. Security drives a lot of design decisions for federal projects.

For example, the US Department of Transportation's building in the District's Navy Yard neighborhood takes up two entire city blocks, but has only one retail space along its entire façade, a Starbucks. It brings many workers to the area, but does little for the street.

In urban conditions, security hurts the streetscape by restricting building access from the street and for­bidding retail from lining the outside of buildings. In more suburban conditions it creates large campuses, cut off from what little grid there is and keeping workers from being able to activate the area around them. These large campuses also restrict the ability for planners to attempt to reconnect neighborhoods.

By adapting, many agencies are tackling these issues. The GSA's headquarters was formerly a Level 5 security building. In its renovation, they created a graduated security system, where not all areas of the buildings require the maximum security. As a result, almost all the security bollards around the building could be removed, a marked improvement to pedestrian conditions.

The lower level of security makes street level retail a possibility, and the GSA is looking into opening the building's cafeteria to the public, allowing the agency to share this amenity with their neighborhood.

Sustainability goes beyond LEED

Federal buildings built today have more environmentally-friendly design features. This demonstrates leadership and forward thinking from GSA and the agencies, but Rollin Stanley, Director of Planning for Montgomery County, was careful to remind the audience that the greenest building is the one that already exists, and urged federal designers not get too caught up in LEED.

A LEED Platinum building with no transit options but hundreds of free parking spaces will do more harm to the environment that a building built to lower environmental standards. There are many different factors to take into account to judge a building's true impact on the environment.

Many federal buildings, like many private buildings, are building more parking spots than they need to. Federal agencies are often surprised by how many workers will choose to commute in ways besides driving. At the Mark Center in Alexandria, offices for the Department of Defense were expected to produce massive gridlock. Instead, 50% of workers utilize transit to get to the site.

Little touches can do a lot

With creative designs, federal buildings can often make the most out of restrictions out of their control. The PTO's work in Alexandria requires constant delivery of packages between offices, so the hallways were placed facing the street. This allowed workers to make deliveries by daylight and activate the streetscape. The building could not have retail, but the PTO activated the street in a unique way.

Small-scale gestures have very positive effects on the areas around government offices. The PTO provides Wi-Fi in a small park adjacent to the offices and installed glass columns that light at night. Despite larger urban design failings, small gestures like these can make a big difference in neighborhoods.

Federal projects have their own strengths and weaknesses, but each gains from the collective knowledge of the projects that have come before. Agencies are generally moving towards better designed buildings, closer to transit, that give workers more flexibility. We will surely witness missteps along the way, but the trajectory for these buildings and the positive change they can bring to the areas is promising.

"Active recreation," like a climbing wall, zip line, and many activities for kids could improve health in a part of the city where many kids are not as healthy as they should be. Autumn Saxton-Ross from the Department of Health said that having spaces for play creates "whole children who develop into whole adults."

The bridge could contain community gardens that grow food, a place for food trucks to hold festivals like Truckeroo, or even trees; an avid community gardener who lives in the area emphasized that last one, as it gets quite hot in the summer and a bridge is exposed to the elements.

Then there is the streetcar. Problems between DDOT and the US Department of Transportation scuttled tracks on the new local bridge now under construction, at least for now, but perhaps that would open up a new opportunity to put the tracks on this "recreation bridge."

Making this bridge succeed might not be easy. A bridge is a very big space; this one is over 1000 feet long. It's in the middle of the river, and connects 2 neighborhoods of only moderate density. Even from them, there's a substantial walk to reach to the bridge itself.

Therefore, any use will have to attract people who are deliberately going to the bridge as a destination, rather than people just wandering by or popping over between work and dinner. It will need to have enough different activities to keep the bridge busy most of the day, every day, lest it turn into a dead space or a haven for crime.

Or maybe there is a way to mix active uses with people who are just passing through? If the streetcar traverses this bridge, and stops a few times along the way, it could make the bridge be more of a continuous connector between Capitol Hill and Anacostia. The bridge could get a cafe or two. It would create "eyes on the street" (or bridge), draw the bridge much closer to surrounding neighborhoods, and bring potential users of the bridge's activities passing right by every day.

The bridge would also get closer to surrounding areas if the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail could remain open more of the time. The Navy Yard now allows people to walk and bike past the base during the day every day, which is more than they initially promised. But can it be open all of the time?

A representative from DMPED was optimistic. He said that the Navy Yard now actually finds it somewhat of a burden to open and close the trail every day, and would like to avoid that responsibility. They've also added more security along that edge of the yard, making them more comfortable just allowing public access along that side. He gave no firm details, but it sounds like residents can hope for a 24-hour trail in the future.

As for the bridge, DDOT already gave out a contract to demolish the 2 old bridges. Tregoning said that while DC could try to renegotiate and keep the existing bridge structure, it's in very bad shape. Instead, they will just keep the piers, since those are very expensive to plant in the river, and remove the entire deck.

Another benefit of removing the deck is that a new one needn't be a simple rectangle. Maybe it will take a different shape. It could be thinner, or wider, or some of each in different places. Maybe it can connect in a few places to the new local road, bike, and pedestrian bridge that's being built right next to it.

OP is hoping to start a national design competition this summer, to find the most creative designs from anyone, anywhere.

The bridge project will probably cost around $25-35 million. That's only a tenth of the cost of the highway bridge project, but it's not pocket change, and DC has many other priorities as well. For this reason, they hope to attract private money, either from local organizations or national foundations. For a project which could become an icon for DC, many may be quite interested.

Getting the streetcar onto the bridge would take some creative thinking, too. The new bridges are using some of the space that's now approach ramps to the old bridge. That means there won't necessarily be a smooth and direct approach to the "recreation bridge" on each side. We'll have to wait for a later design phase to find out if there's even a way to get a streetcar on and off the bridge.

The residents in the room were overall either very eager at least open-minded. Some seemed to primarily come to the meeting to ensure that the vehicular bridge was going to open on time and that nothing was changing with that plan. Others were bursting with ideas.

Right now, this project largely seems to be taking advantage of an opportunity. I can imagine Tregoning sitting in a meeting, hearing a status update about the bridge, and suddenly saying, "Wait a minute! We have this bridge over the Anacostia and we're just going to rip it out? When the District is so concerned with figuratively bridging east and west of the river and there are so many needs especially on the east side?"

So far, all the government proposes to do is essentially preserve a bunch of piers to make it far cheaper to build a recreational bridge. Whether something ever gets built is up to residents, leaders, and designers to figure out a way to make it a great public space worthy of the investment.

Tregoning hasn't pushed much on development plans on Wisconsin Avenue, partly because a bolder plan under prior planning director Ellen McCarthy riled up neighborhood activists who then pushed Fenty to replace McCarthy. That didn't stop them from also trying to get rid of Tregoning when Mayor Gray came to town, though.

Another critic, at least for a while, was Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Victor Hoskins, who wasn't sure he supported OP's approach to historic preservation. A fascinating email DePillis acquired through FOIA shows that Hoskins worried about "an unreasonable level of desire to keep things the same" in some preservation decisions.

Those decisions come mainly from the Historic Preservation Review Board, whose members the mayor appoints. At a confirmation hearing, several people warned that recent Gray appointee Nancy Metzger takes more of a "keep things the same" view.

The Council just confirmed 6 appointees, only 2 of whom are reappointments, so we will soon see what balance the new board strikes between "keep things the same" and helping the city grow and change.

On the zoning update, the Office of Planning has tread very lightly on policy changes, to the point that many commenters and bloggers criticized them as "too timid."

At a recent Federation of Citizens' Associations meeting, many local activists (almost all from Ward 3) railed against the zoning update, but the fact is that it does almost everything skeptics want. It takes great pains to keep single-family home neighborhoods essentially unchanged; the new "corner store" rules, for instance, won't apply there. Some side setback requirements are actually getting larger. And so on.

The other policy changes aim to achieve exact Committee of 100's stated goal: "safeguarding and advancing Washington's historic distinction, natural beauty and overall livability." Tregoning has upheld historic preservation's strong role in DC planning. OP proposed Green Area Ratio largely to promote natural beauty, along with environmental sustainability.

As for livability, corner stores, accessory dwellings and reducing mandates to build unnecessary parking lots all enhance livability. In fact, nearly every decision from OP and every speech Tregoning makes has livability at the core. When Tregoning pushes back against DMPED, it's usually when a development project neglects livability in its quest to get a project in the ground.

Nevertheless, many neighborhood activists continue to push back forcefully against OP. They might want to consider that had they succeeded in replacing Tregoning, or if Hoskins got his way, the policy outcomes might be even less to their liking.

One theme became clear: our regulatory structure and business practices are very good at accommodating permanent enterprises, but when it comes to temporary uses, we apply the same licensing burdens, lease agreements, and review processes that are unsuitable for projects that may only last 4 weeks.

If you want to try opening a Christmas market in an unconventional space for just one month, it may be New Year's Eve before you get the necessary approvals to make it happen. All this assumes you were able to find a landlord who knew you existed and had an interest in a one-month lease in the first place.

Landlords prefer long-term tenants, even if it means they have to keep a property vacant for a year to find one. Real estate brokerages are set up to find long-term tenants and are often unaware of a neighbor who has a dream project that is only meant to last for a month. Often our regulatory structure makes short-term leases not worth the administrative and legal hassle.

Tregoning noted the irony that our regulatory and business structures are geared toward permanent uses even though many aspects of our society are increasingly ephemeral. The Office of Planning, she said, while currently in the process of overhauling the District's zoning code, is looking to for ways to make the revised code flexible enough to accommodate temporary uses.

Let's say several artists who live in your neighborhood want to exhibit their art work just for two weeks and they found a vacant home they could lease for two weeks. To turn it into a temporary gallery where they could sell their work, they would need to hire a land-use attorney, appeal to the Board of Zoning Adjustments, and seek ANC support.

That's a daunting and expensive task if you want to open an art gallery just for two weeks. Even if all the neighbors and the ANC commissioner supported the idea, the regulatory framework makes little distinction between this two-week project and the next Corcoran Gallery.

We need a new regulatory and commercial infrastructure to bring temporary projects to fruition:

• "Ephemera" brokerages that connect potential short-term tenants with landlords who have space that's vacant temporarily.
• Lease templates and leasing regulations that treat temporary leases strictly as term-limited and allow landlords to terminate the leases quickly the moment they find a permanent tenant.
• Zoning and regulatory flexibility for short-term uses. Most commercial activity is not permitted in residential zones and DPR prohibits the sale of food in its parks. We should consider permitting exceptions for modest, short-term projects.

One of the great things about living in a city, Washington especially, is the level of delightful surprise. Seeing a new restaurant open, seeing a neighbor paint their house a new color, or spotting a new work of public art can enhance the quality of life.

Whenever I walk around my neighborhood or over to U Street, I always see something new or something existing that was refashioned in an interesting way. These changes are often small, but the frequency of change tells a consistent story: our city is alive.

We have the creative talent to bring short-term projects to fruition, but we need the business and regulatory infrastructure to catch up to make these plans feasible.

The Region Forward report identifies goals in several categories with specific targets relating to accessibility, sustainability, prosperity, and livability. The goals range from minimizing economic disparities and achieving balanced growth throughout the region to maximizing connectivity and walkability.

The report's land use goal sums up the overarching theme very succinctly: "We seek transit-oriented and mixed-use communities emerging in Regional Activity Centers that will capture new employment and household growth."

The purpose of the RFC is to oversee the implementation steps recommended in the Region Forward report, and to advise the COG Board on future regional planning activities. The RFC consists of 80 members representing area jurisdictions, planning committees, and advocacy groups. Prince George's County Council Vice Chair Eric Olson serves as the RFC chair, and Arlington County Board Member Mary Hynes and District of Columbia Planning Director Harriet Tregoning serve as vice chairs.

Our kickoff meeting offered excellent opportunities for RFC members to engage with each other on a variety of topics, including the question of what's included in the concept of "complete communities." What surprised me the most was the fact that there was a great deal of agreement among participants about the essential elements. These included a variety of transit options to integrate activity centers into the region, a mix of land uses to enhance walkability and livability within the community, and the presence of a variety of economic and social opportunities nearby.

I was also impressed by the initial focus on transit-oriented affordable housing. Too often, large scale planning exercises like this pay only lip services to things like public safety, education, and affordable housing. I look forward to a process that ensures these priorities are factored into planning in a meaningful way.

The next step will be to organize working subcommittees that will consider the definition and identification of "regional activity centers," taking baseline measurements of those centers, and developing future planning approaches to help them grow according to the goals identified by the Region Forward plan.

As with any diverse coalition, the goals and needs of members will not always align, but everyone involved is committed to the vision in the Region Forward report. I am excited to be serving with so many outstanding public servants and representatives from such diverse communities, but I am even more excited about strengthening the dialogue between these groups and the GGW community.

It was obvious from the kick off meeting that there is great potential for GGW to have an impact on regional planning through the course of the RFC's work. In the future, we envision live chats, guest posts and other forums to ensure that your voices are heard as we continue planning the future of the greater Washington region.

Three other Fenty cabinet members are staying in their jobs in today's announcement: Lucinda Babers at the Department of Motor Vehicles, Eric Richardson at the Office of Cable Television, and Soohyun Koo in the Office of Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs.

Finally, Gray appointed Roland Ronald Collins to head the Office of Boards and Commissions, which helps the Mayor select appointees for the various boards such as the Zoning Commission, the Historic Preservation Review Board, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, and more. The Committee of 100 had been circulating letters asking Gray to appoint Denise Johnson, former member of the Historic Preservation Review Board and a big Gray supporter, to the post, but Gray did not follow their advice.

David Bowers is a minister, and his oration shows it. Standing before the audience, Bowers told stories: of an African American couple in their 70's that moved to the District five decades ago, when they were redlined out of certain neighborhoods; of growing up all too aware of the 8th & H gang; of his coworker, a 25-year-old Georgetown graduate who lives with friends and volunteers at her church. He punctuated the end of each anecdote with, "And that's DC!"

The point? As Bowers says, "DC is a diverse city that has changed over time and will continue to change." That change includes housing. "People have been priced out of neighborhoods, not by some nefarious plan, but by the market... It's not going to be static."

Bowers also serves as the vice president and impact market leader for Enterprise Community Partners, Inc., which through its Continuum of Housing Campaign, works to promote a diverse mix of housing that can accommodate low- and moderate-income earners.

During his presentation, he asserted three key points critical to that end: acknowledging that all people have inherent worth and deserve dignity and respect; all people have the need for safe, decent affordable housing; and that all housing is affordable, but the question is, "for whom?"

Tregoning's presentation, in contrast to Bowers', was filled with data points on the District's demographics. Since 1960, the District lost 200,000 people, with some neighborhoods in the city's core losing up to 50 percent of their population. Within the past decade, however, DC has been regaining population. The release of 2010 Census data later this month is expected to show the population again surpassing the 600,000 mark.

"I like to think of Washington as the city of the future," Tregoning said. With our smaller household sizes and concentrations of both recent college graduates and retirees, "we already have the demographics of the United States in 2050," she said. "Part of the challenge is to right-size our housing stock so we can have the type of housing that matches the needs of our residents." For example, Tregoning pointed out, the multi-unit building she inhabits in Columbia Heights used to be a single-family home.

Along with this changing population comes a change in how District residents get around. When compared to our region, DC residents are three times less likely to own car and three times more likely to walk to work. And while the city's population grew by 1.7 percent between 2005 and 2008, the number of motor vehicle registrations dropped by nearly 6 percent during the same period.

What does transportation have to do with affordable housing? First, the cost of parking is usually bundled with new housing, even if homeowners or tenants don't have cars. In DC, only 65 percent of households own a car, and in neighborhoods like Columbia Heights that plummets to only 20 percent. Developers often overestimate how much parking is actually needed, and in other cases parking minimums require developers to spend lots of money to build parking spaces. Structured parking, for example, costs between $35,000 and $50,000 per space. That's a high cost to include in the price of housing.

Second, reducing transportation expenses to households makes living in our region more affordable for everyone's bottom line. Washington-area households in neighborhoods well-served by transit spend an average of $9,000 per year on transportation, while the regional average is closer to $19,000. In some car-dependent areas of our region, households spend up to $25,000 per year on transportation.

Don't believe it? Ask AAA, which estimates the annual cost of car ownership at over $9,500. It's easy to see that car-free and car-lite households save money on transportation, and households in denser areas like the District have access to more transportation options.

Because housing and other land-use issues are inescapably linked to transportation, these related costs should be factored together when considering affordability. Especially in DC, where the median income is lower than the region at large, increased transportation costs have a dramatic impact.

Already, 90,000 households in the city pay more than a third of income to housing, while 47,000 households spend more than 50 percent of income on housing. Ensuring low transportation costs is especially important for these families.

Tregoning said that the city's transportation efforts—such as more transit options and better places to walk and bike—aim to reduce household expenses. 40 percent of all DC auto trips are 3 miles or less. "Those trips can be converted to walking, biking, or transit trips," Tregoning said. "I don't expect anyone to make an extraordinary effort" to bike, walk or use transit, she said. It's up to the city to ensure that "for many trips, it should make more sense and be easier" to use modes that save residents money.

Both speakers mentioned inclusionary zoning (IZ) as the primary tool that could be used to keep housing in the District affordable and diverse. The city's IZ policy was enacted in 2006, when data demonstrated that, as Tregoning said, "we were either re-segregating the city or reinforcing the segregation" through development patterns. Currently, all new construction of 10 or more units must set aside 8-12% of those units as affordable housing.

In the future, and when the economy rebounds, Tregoning suggested that as many as, if not more than, 170 units per year would be set aside for households earning between $32,000 and $80,000. And, per the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative's mandate, new construction in some East of the River communities must comprise of at least 30% affordable units.

Though inclusionary zoning has its detractors, it's not just a hot topic for the Office of Planning. Mayor-Elect Vince Gray has repeatedly referenced IZ as a way to mitigate potentially skyrocketing housing costs. IZ is here to stay for the foreseeable future. If wielded effectively, it should keep the District more affordable than it would be otherwise.

Beyond the statistics and the programs, the most important takeaway from the forum was Bowers' call for engagement. "Get informed and get involved," he told the audience. "These conversations about the urban hipster vs. the long-time resident, black vs. white, black vs. Latino—that divides." The city's chances of overcoming these challenges, he said, hinges on involvement from a cross-section of its population.

Bowers encouraged forum attendees to substantively engage in places where not everyone looks or talks like them. He counseled the audience never to be apologetic in the face of hostility as they attempt to bridge the city. As complex as housing policy can be, it begins with simple discussions. "Start talking with people," Bowers preached, "instead of about people."

Gabe Klein was the poster child for Fenty's reliance on fast-acting, agile agencies that were willing to push new policies quickly into fruition, evaluate them on an interim basis, and, assuming successful outcomes, work quickly to push for broader implementation.

This style is anathema to Vince Gray's affinity for more reserved, intricately studied, broadly discussed, and carefully compromised policy-making. As many have stated, this move does not necessarily amount to a rebuttal by Vincent Gray of those smart growth and alternative transportation policies that were coming out of DDOT. Though some of Gray's supporters would like that, it is still too early to tell.

While I'm disappointed by Gray's need to very apparently distance himself from the Fenty administration, despite his continued statements of support for a smart growth agenda (David didn't endorse him for no reason), it's pretty much standard operating procedure in changing political administrations for the biggest heads to roll. We will have to see who Gray picks to succeed Klein, to make a better judgment on where DC's transportation and growth policy is heading.

What is perhaps more disappointing is the dismissal of DCRA's Linda Argo. Argo has been relatively low profile throughout their tenure, despite making major strides in their agencies. Under her leadership, DCRA has undertaken a variety of daunting regulatory rewrites in an open and informative way, to the benefit of Washington business.

Bryan Sivak, another cabinet member let go today, has pushed OCTO to continue open up DC government to the public, releasing mountains of data and creating a variety of tools to provide District citizens with a window into the workings of their government. While relatively low key in DC, Sivak has become something of a superstar in Gov 2.0 circles for his great work in the District.

As such, I will be eagerly awaiting Gray's cabinet announcements to see if he keeps any Fenty appointees on board. Gray's announcement that he will promote Fenty's head of DCPS school modernization, Allen Lew, to City Administrator is encouraging on this front. Rumors have also begun swirling that Office of Planning chief Harriet Tregoning will be asked to stay or even promoted to Deputy Mayor for Economic Development.

Most disappointing in this whole saga was this morning's revelation that Gray and Klein have not spoken in 3 months. I'm baffled that the man who ran on a platform of "One City" and touts himself a public servant who believes in the importance of hearing opposing viewpoints, listening to all the disparate voices, and making compromises, was unable to find time to discuss the direction of the city's transportation department with its current head.

Perhaps neither is true, and the two just simply didn't have time to talk. After all, they have both been extraordinarily busy with running the city. All in all, I think it's too soon to make summary judgment about where Vince Gray will take the District.

While I voted for Fenty, I'm not ready to throw the towel in on the incoming Gray administration. If anything, now is the time to make our voices heard, as Gray looks for new people to fill these positions.

For example, at a recent preservation roundtable, Committee members Charles Robertson and Anne Sellin said they were "concerned" about the loss of "green space" from zoning changes that affect side courts and yards, though the effect of these will be very minor and even remove incentives to fill in small courts.

However, a major zoning proposal will drastically increase green space: the Green Area Ratio, a requirement that new buildings and those that more than double in size (excluding single-family homes) include a certain amount of landscaped, permeable surface, whether trees, lawns, landscaped areas, green roofs, and more.

In other words, instead of just requiring empty land and calling it "green space" even if it's a trash-strewn alley or parking pad, the zoning code will actually require green space that's really green. It will also increase environmental sustainability, another element of Clark's list. Yet the Committee of 100's letter does not praise Harriet Tregoning or the Office of Planning for this meaningful innovation.

You also wouldn't guess from listening to Committee of 100 rhetoric on the zoning rewrite, but under OP's proposals for residential zones, many neighborhoods would gain zoning limits that are stricter than those in effect today.

For example, current low and moderate density residential zones (R-1 for single family homes up to R-4 for rowhouse areas) all currently allow building heights of up to 40 feet. That means that any house or townhouse can get a "pop-up" 3rd above-ground story as long as it complies with lot occupancy and other restrictions.

The proposed zoning changes will change this. Areas with mostly two-story houses will get zoning that only allows two-story houses, for example. This will do far more to "preserve neighborhoods" than the current zoning. Those that believe in fewer regulations may oppose this change, putting OP on the side of the Committee of 100. Oddly, though, the Committee isn't praising this element.

Meanwhile, I live in an R-5-B area, which allows far denser development than row houses like mine. In the last few decades, including in recent years, residents in some R-5-B zones like the area around 15th and T got their zoning changed to R-4, limiting development to something closer to what exists there now. However, this was a very time-consuming process, requiring long hearings and lengthy waiting periods for each small area.

OP, instead, is proposing new zoning that will set development limits in all row house neighborhoods to a level that matches existing buildings. For some reason, however, we haven't seen any statements from the Committee of 100 cheering this development, which achieves a goal they have been pushing for decades.

Why is the Committee of 100 so apoplectic about a zoning code where planners have strengthened zoning rules to preserve neighborhoods and required green space? Richard Layman might have an answer from a hearnig a few years ago on the zoning code:

[George Clark] said it was basically fine. I said it was automobile-suburban oriented (it is a document from the 1950s after all), and that every overlay and special zoning category is an indicator that the underlying code is inadequate and not robust.

The current code might not be great, but it is predictable, and all the people against the rewrite have a lot of experience dealing with it as it is. They are comfortable with it, even if it is in fact very flawed with respect to urbanity.

Perhaps this is why all of the advocacy that's come from the Committee of 100 in recent years has focused on stopping undesirable projects. Members, including our commenter Lance, insist they support many of the same things as Greater Greater Washington readers, but I can't recall a single case during our existence where the Committee has actively pushed for a change.

Martin Austermuhle put it another way on DCist:

At the end of the day, both the Committee of 100 and Greater Greater Washington are forward-looking organizations—but what has changed is the time from whence they claimed to start looking forward. The Committee has been around long enough that it's harder to define what it does as being particularly "progressive." In fact, it seems downright conservative.

Truly responsible planning tries to shape the city's growth in a positive way. Build here, but not there. Don't change this; change that instead. Arlington did this with their famous "deal" around the Metro: build very densely right next to Metro, but protect single-family neighborhoods elsewhere. DC could likewise shape its growth into specific areas around Metro stations and in neighborhoods that want new residents and businesses.

As Layman pointed out in that preservation roundtable, groups like the Committee of 100 grew up during an era of a shrinking city. Now, we have a growing city, which brings different challenges and different solutions. The Committee has a great opportunity to shape that growth into the places in the city they want to see it and suggest the form it could take. That, however, would require moving beyond the current mindset that everything is "basically fine" and the best approach is not to change.