Posts about Phil Mendelson

When then-Chairman Gray decided to cut streetcar funding in 2010, for instance, most councilmembers found out that morning. In a very short time, we, other blogs, residents using social media, and others were able to spread the word, which drove 1,000 calls to the chairman's office in just 3 hours. Even so, it wasn't in time to stop the Council from cutting the streetcar program. Instead, after lunch, they had to take a separate vote to restore the funding.

At each phase of the process, new ideas come up, and there is less time to react. There's plenty of opportunity to weigh in on the mayor's budget. But committee chairs don't publicly circulate a draft of the changes they're thinking about before any hearing. Most residents found out, for instance, about Mary Cheh's plan to extend the Circulator to the Cathedral, Howard University, and Waterfront Metro, and pay for it with a fare increase, the night before or day of her committee's vote.

Residents still had time to lobby council to reverse changes, as happened when Muriel Bowser suddenly and unexpectedly sliced funding for a Capitol Riverfront development project in favor of Ward 4 projects. After considerable pushback, Mendelson reversed part of that change yesterday.

But any ideas that come from the chairman have virtually no opportunity for public input. For some changes, those which are changes to the law to support the budget rather than the budget itself, the council has to pass its Budget Support Act twice, so the council could change things on its second reading. Still, that's more difficult; members have already voted for something by that time.

This year, Chairman Phil Mendelson's surprise budget changes went beyond just adding or removing funding for programs. He made some significant policy changes, like the gas tax. Other amendments put new requirements on government agencies' ability to execute programs that already exist. We'll talk about some of those next week.

If the Council restructured the gas tax or made other changes in a standalone bill, there would have to be a hearing, a markup, and two votes. But if the chairman slips a change into the budget the night before the budget vote, it means no hearing, no markup, and virtually no time for residents to weigh in.

Chairman Mendelson is very smart, but he can't think of every implication of a policy. The gas tax switch might be a good idea, but that's not the point. Maybe people have arguments against it that I haven't heard, or Mendelson's staff hasn't heard. Even if it's the right choice, it's dangerous to make even a good move so hastily.

There's a reason the legislative process is supposed to take some time. Residents need an opportunity to see the chairman's final proposal, plus any amendments members plan to introduce, more than a few hours before the vote.

And even a day or two still isn't the right amount for changes that go beyond simply deciding how much money to spend on what programs. Changes like the gas tax shift deserve to at least be part of a committee markup; most likely, changes of such significance ought to happen in standalone bills that get their own hearings and real deliberative thought.

"What am I missing here?"

Many people testified, including representatives from Ward 3 Vision and other supporters of the zoning update, but there were many opponents as well.

After hearing many complaints about proposals to allow Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) and how threatening they would be to the character of neighborhoods, Chairman Mendelson tried to figure out what is so bad about having one in your neighborhood.

He calculated how many could fit in a block, then noted that not every property owner would want one. He asked Justine Kingham, "What am I missing here?"

When Kingham said that the issue is letting neighbors have a say in whether someone rents out a room in their house, Mendelson wondered aloud why it is anyone's business but the resident's own. "But should my neighbors decide whether I want somebody, one person coming in and out of the basement of my house or should I? Because that can be subjective."

Kingham then suggested that the Office of Planning limit the number of people who can live in an ADU, raising the specter of 5 "students" sharing a garage. In fact, there are limits: a main house plus an ADU can have only a maximum of 6 people combined.

Bowser: Enlarging ADUs is the problem

After all of the members of the public testified, Councilmember Bowser spoke about the good work that OP did in her ward but also raised concerns about some aspects of the zoning update, including effects of removing parking minimums and allowing corner stores by right.

Bowser opposes allowing accessory dwellings in existing detached garages. She said the reason is because people who live in them will want to enlarge them. Planning Director Harriet Tregoning pointed out, however, that under the proposed rules enlarging an exterior ADU will indeed require a special exception.

Bowser responded that she still thinks the Board of Zoning Adjustment will bias its decisions toward allowing people to expand ADUs once created, and therefore she still wants to have a longer process with hearings to create an external ADU in the first place.

Of course, no discussion of the zoning update would be complete without Linda Schmitt. In her vehement testimony, she said that the Office of Planning is trying to "remake every ward and every neighborhood," that her organization is not racist, and that a public input process that involves 700 people plus using Twitter isn't enough.

You can watch the entire hearing here.

In a post entitled "Prosecutor as bully," Lessig wrote:

If what the government alleged was true ... then what [Aaron] did was wrong. ... But all this shows is that if the government proved its case, some punishment was appropriate. So what was that appropriate punishment? ... Our government continued to push as if it had caught the 9/11 terrorists red-handed. ...

From the beginning, the government worked as hard as it could to characterize what Aaron did in the most extreme and absurd way. ... I get wrong. But I also get proportionality. And if you don't get both, you don't deserve to have the power of the United States government behind you.

For remember, we live in a world where the architects of the financial crisis regularly dine at the White House—and where even those brought to "justice" never even have to admit any wrongdoing, let alone be labeled "felons."

Our local criminal justice system also has plenty of examples of proportionality failures.

Drivers who behave recklessly and kill pedestrians and cyclists usually face little punishment unless they are drunk or flee. When a driver was caught on tape assaulting a cyclist, authorities didn't press charges. After police worked hard to investigate a driver who was allegedly on his cell phone when he hit and killed a senior crossing the street, prosecutors brought charges, but a grand jury refused to indict.

Meanwhile, our punishments for some transgressions often go far beyond what's appropriate or what is necessary to stop crime, like suspending students for taking their prescription medication without proper paperwork or a 6-year-old for making a gun shape with a hand.

Even for violent crimes, which we absolutely must vehemently combat, prison terms often far exceed what's necessary or effective. In his most recent column, David Brooks wrote:

If you want to deter crime, it seems that you'd want to lengthen prison sentences so that criminals would face steeper costs for breaking the law. In fact, a mountain of research shows that increases in prison terms have done nothing to deter crime. Criminals, like the rest of us, aren't much influenced by things they might have to experience far in the future.

Instead, it's more effective to fight lawbreaking by adding actual enforcement, so that more perpetrators get caught and punished. In the lingo of the field, you want to increase certainty rather than severity.

Based on this logic, our local government just passed a bill to relieve punitive burdens on drivers who speed. It made sense not to charge punitively high fees on speeders, since the primary objective must be safety rather than revenue. (Unfortunately, Phil Mendelson, who never participated in the task force that pored over research and debated options, then rewrote or deleted most of the key provisions in the bill that would increase certainty, and added new sections that will reduce safety in other ways.)

Now we've applied the certainty-over-severity analysis, or at least the less-severity half, to an area of crime that has a politically powerful constituency—drivers—behind it. Will the council now do the same for other areas of our criminal justice?

Unlike speeding, injustices in the way we prosecute drug laws or the "school to prison pipeline" disproportionately affect poorer and minority communities that have less political clout. The families who suffer from over-incarceration are less likely to be the ones having lunch with a councilmember than the business leader who might complain about some speeding tickets.

Will Wells try to fix laws that over-punish some people to little end, and under-punish others who today don't face any consequences for serious transgressions? Will the rest of the council agree to such measures?

It's not possible to devise a perfectly fair criminal justice system. Some people will get away with serious malfeasance while others suffer excessively. What we can do, both nationally by recalibrating our response to journal article downloading versus financial fraud, or locally in our response to speeding versus shooting transgendered people, is push for more proportionality where possible. There's a lot of work to do.

Plus, they ended up finding the lots going largely empty, thanks in part to a new Metro-North station at the ballpark. The garage operator ended up defaulting on the garage bonds because of low usage. Public spending on garages at any new stadium largely amounts to spending public money to encourage people not to use the Metro that we also already spend public money to operate.

Why do these apparently bad deals keep resurfacing? It's simple: some people think that having professional sports teams here is integral enough to our civic pride that it's worth large sums to get them, even if the deal doesn't pay off economically and wouldn't fly if it were a deal for just a generic private development.

A few months ago, I was on NewsTalk with Bruce DePuyt right after Jack Evans. We mainly talked about development without underground parking and Evans spoke to that issue as well in his segment. But they had an interesting exchange about sports stadiums, who've had no greater booster than Evans.

DePuyt asked Evans about plans for a soccer stadium at Buzzard Point, and what the District's subsidy might be. Evans asserted that it would pay off economically, but even if it doesn't, he said the District should pay to bring in professional sports simply because of "civic pride":

There's a civic pride that comes from this. When I was pushing the baseball stadium, I used say to people, we're we do it because we want a team. Start with that. Whether it's economically viable or not, who cares? We want a baseball team because Washington, DC was the only major city in America without one.

Do we economically analyze every museum we build? If we did, we wouldn't build any museums. It's a part of our culture.

I'd note that actually, most museums get their funds from private individuals, foundations, and the federal government. The District cut arts funding during the recession, and doesn't spend $611 million on a museum. On the other hand, it has contributed to help many local theaters and other prominent arts organizations buy and renovate their buildings over the years.

(a) By November 1, 2013, the Mayor shall complete a District-wide assessment that evaluates the speed limits on the District's arterials and other streets. The report of the assessment shall include the criteria used for assessing the speed limits. Upon its completion, the assessment shall be posted to the District Department of Transportation's website. The assessment shall:

• (1) Utilize factors common among transportation officials for the determination of speed limit;
  
• (2) Evaluate whether comparable arterials should have comparable speed limits, and similarly do so for other streets;
  
• (3) Include, based solely on an engineering perspective, speed limits for the District's arterials and other streets.

(b) By January 1, 2014, the Mayor shall revise, through rulemaking, existing speed limits throughout the District. The speed limits shall include comparable speeds for comparable arterials, and other comparable streets. Notwithstanding this requirement, the Mayor shall not cause an anti-deficiency as determined by a fiscal impact statement obtained by the Mayor from the Chief Financial Officer.

"Engineering perspective" shouldn't be only factor in speed limits

Mendelson apparently is trying to ensure that speed limits get set without regard for revenue or politics, and fairly between different arterials in various parts of the city.

Those are good instincts, but requiring an "engineering perspective" for speed limits is the wrong approach. The traffic engineering profession has a deeply ingrained practice of setting speed limits solely for car traffic, and with the motivation of making roads move traffic as fast as possible for the safety of drivers.

They traditionally use a simple "80% rule": Set the limit at the rate that 80% of drivers move on a particular road. The idea is that some people are speeding, but if most people travel at a particular rate, that rate is probably safe. And on a limited-access highway, that's not a terrible idea, because there is only one kind of road user (maybe two, if motorcycles are separate).

But our neighborhood streets, including arterials, have to balance the needs of many modes. 80% of drivers gives no thought whatsoever to the speed that will allow people to cross the street at unsignalized intersections (where it's legal) without the danger that a driver won't come around a curve so fast that they can't see the pedestrian or stop in time. It doesn't consider the traffic flow that would allow bicyclists and drivers to coexist safely and efficiently.

The "engineering perspective" doesn't have to ignore these factors; engineers could easily devise another algorithm that is better. But they generally haven't, and the guy in charge of speed limits for DDOT, James Cheeks, personally wrote a whitepaper when he worked for the Institute of Transportation Engineers advocating for the 80% rule.

That document says the 80% rule is "a case of majority rule." Actually, we often don't set laws just based on majority rule. We protect vulnerable minority groups and have legal processes to ensure majorities don't trample their needs. On the roads, motorists are the majority but pedestrians and cyclists are a vulnerable minority we need to protect.

At the task force meetings, Cheeks reiterated that the 80% rule was his preferred way to set speed limits, but when pushed, also added that DDOT always talks to residents and also thinks about pedestrian and bicycle safety. My fear is that the "engineering perspective" in Mendelson's provision will specifically push DDOT to follow the dangerous method in this whitepaper, which specifically comes from engineers, and not to incorporate other needs or listen to communities.

ANC 3E wants escalating fines

The Advisory Neighborhood Commission for Tenleytown, AU Park and Friendship Heights, ANC 3E, asked the Council to turn down the bill entirely, saying, "We believe the stated basis for enacting the Bill does not support the Bill's passage. Without material changes, we believe the Bill would fail adequately deter repeat offenders and lead to unnecessary deaths and injuries."

The ANC primarily is concerned that repeat offenders will get off easy for ignoring the laws time and again. The task force originally supported having some system that would give first offenders lower penalties, and chronic repeat offenders higher ones. The original bill also prescribed much higher fines for higher levels of speeding on the belief that traveling 20-30 mph over the limit is act much more intentionally flouting the law than speeding 11 mph over.

The ANC's resolution states:

ANC 3E believes the current fine regime, which per the legislative history puts DC near the middle of state fine regimes, is not unduly harsh. Evidence is strong that speed cameras save lives in DC. By contrast, the evidence is weak that higher fines do not promote more safety, as economic theory predicts, or that a majority of DC residents want to see fines lowered.

Whether or not the Council chooses to reduce some fines, however, we strenuously urge the Council to establish a system of fines for moving violations that escalates after a set number of offenses of a given severity. The escalation scheme should parallel the point system for violations in a police officer's presence. Thus, an owner whose vehicle is ticketed three times in a two year period for driving 16 mph over the limit should receive a fine on the third offense whose magnitude would be akin to the magnitude of license suspension for a 6+ months. Although we do not formally recommend such a sum, we believe that it should be at least $500.

If the Council does not amend the Bill to create such an escalating scheme, we respectfully urge the Mayor to veto it, and respectfully urge the Council to reconsider creating such a scheme.

The resolution also argues that absent more evidence that lower fines don't lead to more speeding, it doesn't make sense to lower the fines. It says that most residents do support the fines, and asks the Council not to listen to organized lobbying from a few special interest groups.

Update: Tina pointed out that this gem of a video is very relevant here. Everyone who thinks that the same old "engineering perspective" is the right way to make traffic decisions needs to see this.

Contractor parking bill takes the right approach

The contractor parking bill (committee report) will let licensed contractors get day passes to park on residential streets where they have jobs. Each pass will let them park for one day, until 5 pm. DDOT will set up a system for them to buy these passes, at a cost of $10 per day, and can adjust the rates in the future with a rulemaking.

This is a terrific solution to an important problem. (Full disclosure: I talked with Cheh's staff about this approach.) Our streets are reserved for residents, but residents often have contractors working at their houses. Contractors currently get in the habit of just parking illegally and absorbing some number of tickets as the cost of business, a cost they broadly pass on to homeowners.

Instead of making a contractor play a "reverse lottery" that they might get a big ticket, it makes far more sense to simply charge a reasonable fee. Over time, it would make sense for DDOT to customize the fee to different areas. In neighborhoods with plentiful daytime parking, the fee could be lower, and maybe in the neighborhoods with greatest demand it should be higher.

You might ask, should this just apply to contractors? Some people have housecleaners, or nannies, or elder caregivers come to the house. What about them? The answer is simple: a day pass program can work for them too. Maybe the rates would be lower, but this is generally a good solution to the weaknesses of the residential permit parking (RPP) program, and a better approach than annual placards that are too easily abused for areas with high parking demand.

Will the speed camera bill bring peace?

Meanwhile, a committee print of Tommy Wells' and Mary Cheh's bill on lowering speed camera fines (committee report) has many changes, which Council sources say mostly came from Chairman Phil Mendelson. Mendelson is still chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, and he referred the bill sequentially to both committees. Therefore, he has the opportunity to make changes.

One significant change is that the bill no longer dedicates any revenue from cameras to more cameras, safety education, traffic officers, or redesigning roads for lower "design speeds," as the original bill did.

As I've written many times, from an abstract policy point of view, lower fines make sense, as the level of fine doesn't appear to correlate with driver behavior. However, also from an abstract policy point of view, politicians shouldn't base their decisions on who shouts loudest, yet we know they do.

As Cheh noted in her opening statement at the hearing on the bill, the biggest motivation behind the bill is to remove public opposition that could stand in the way of more widespread safety-based enforcement. The question is, will this bill do that?

It could be that lowering fines suddenly creates a peace in the District where drivers and driver organizations generally accept cameras. Or, it might be that people who get tickets will scream about it just the same. While the purpose of the cameras shouldn't be and shouldn't have been revenue, now that they're here, there are other things one could spend money on besides buying down fines. Is it worth it?

We can't really know. The rationale for creating a special fund to help with future camera purchases was that it would make it easier for MPD to get new cameras without such a long and tortured process as it had for this last round. On the other hand, DC budget director Eric Goulet argued in his testimony that the fund wouldn't really end the need for the council to specifically approve new camera spending and contracts anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Another way to deal with this uncertainty would be to make the new fines temporary. Let's see how things work out for a year or so. If there's peace in camera land, then it was the right move and should be permanent. If we're still having the same arguments, then DC might as well take the revenue for all the headaches.

Fortunately, the new committee print does just that. It includes a sunset provision that it will expire at the end of the 2013 fiscal year (in September 2013). This also means that this bill wouldn't affect the FY2014 budget, which the Council will debate this spring.

It still does mean the bill would use up some of the "unanticipated revenue" that is coming in this year, instead of it going to another program such as the Housing Production Trust Fund.

On the other hand, the fines now aren't going down as much. The original bill set fines at $50 for speeding up to 20 mph over the limit, but now proposes levels of $50 for up to 10 mph over (which MPD doesn't usually ticket for) and $75 for 11-20 over. That probably means it will cost less, though it also means it might be less likely to assuage angry drivers who got a lot of tickets.

Another change, and not a great one, is that the bill now does not distinguish between fines for automated enforcement and fines from a police officer. This is simpler, but wrong. The idea behind lower automated fines is that there should be an inverse relationship between severity and certainty: if the chance of getting caught is higher, the punishment needn't be so high. With a camera, that's the case.

But if there's an area without cameras, but officers are doing some in-person ticket writing, the certainty is low again, so the fine needs to stay higher. Besides, low fines could make it harder for MPD to assign officers to writing tickets in safety trouble spots, since the tickets might not pay for the officer's time any more.

Cheh's committee is marking up the bill today, and then Mendelson's will mark it up tomorrow. He could push for changes, for better or worse, at that point. Then it will go before the Council, where members could try to amend it to further change provisions or restore some from the original bill.

Voters will also have the opportunity to choose ANC commissioners, a position which often carries significant influence over neighborhood affairs. There are many great candidates across the city, including Greater Greater Washington editor Jaime Fearer in Trinidad's district 5D07.

DC Council at-large: We recommend voting for David Grosso.

Congress' grant of home rule to the District included a provision that limited how many candidates can be members of the same party, which in practice means that one at-large seat every 2 years goes to one individual who is not formally affiliated with the Democratic Party. We hope voters choose David Grosso over incumbent Michael A. Brown.

More than anything, the DC Council needs stable, ethical leadership at this time. Mr. Grosso has embraced openness and transparency by disclosing any corporate interests that have donated to his campaign. By contrast, whether any laws were broken or not, Mr. Brown's record is marred by a series of personal missteps and questionably ethical political actions.

Michael Brown has been a staunch supporter of many important policies for affordable housing, workforce development and other poverty-related issues. However, when it comes to building healthy and walkable urban places, Mr. Brown simply does not seem to understand the issues beyond a narrow and out-of-date suburban mindset. He pushed for a Redskins training facility on Reservation 13, sent a letter echoing many alarmist and often false fears about the zoning update, wants to spend public money on municipal parking, and more.

Mary Brooks Beatty, the Republican candidate, has proven even worse, voicing the tired "war on cars" theme during a recent debate. After nominating an avowedly pro-urban candidate 4 years ago, it's too bad the DC GOP's standard-bearer is so out of touch with the changing District.

Mr. Grosso, meanwhile, supports better bicycle infrastructure, removing minimum parking requirements, and also wants to shore up funding for affordable housing. Tommy Wells, the DC Council's most ardent voice for smart growth, has thrown his weight behind Grosso, as has the DC chapter of the Sierra Club.

District voters have the opportunity to cast 2 votes. For Mr. Grosso to win, he will have to place in the top 2; most expect that Vincent Orange, the Democratic nominee, will gain the most votes, and that the 2nd will come down to Mr. Grosso or Mr. Brown.

There are also a number of other candidates running, several of whom have promise, such as AJ Cooper, our 2nd highest vote-getter in our contributor poll, but none received a clear consensus required for a formal endorsement. However, voters can certainly use a 2nd vote for one of these other candidates without fear of upsetting their top choice's chances to win.

DC Council chairman: We recommend voting for Phil Mendelson.

Mr. Mendelson is well suited to bring order and credibility to a damaged DC Council. His record of ethics is impeccable, and he is well-positioned to get the council working together collaboratively instead of fracturing into warring factions as it did under former Chairman Kwame Brown.

Some council staffers say that Mr. Mendelson will need to work on shifting his attention to the big picture issues rather than the narrow, often nitpicking hyper-attention to detail he has become known for. He also continues to lean toward sympathy with those who don't want to see the District change or grow much at all. Zoning is not the council's purview, and since becoming chairman he has stayed away from taking a position on such issues that won't come before that body. However, voters need to keep careful watch on this issue.

Shadow representative: We recommend voting for Nate Bennett-Fleming.

The shadow representative is an unpaid position whose purpose is to lobby for District voting rights. Current shadow representative Mike Panetta is not seeking reelection, and we hope District voters will choose Nate Bennett-Fleming.

Mr. Bennett-Fleming brings a youthful energy to District politics. He is able to work and talk with people from all over the city—rich and poor, young and old, black and white, advantaged and disadvantaged. The shadow representative is a relatively thankless position, but it needs someone with the vigor to stir things up and push for equal representation. Mr. Bennett-Fleming's political science background and law degree will also help him know what can work and what can't, instead of pushing for absolutely unworkable ideas.

Ballot questions: We recommend voting FOR all 3 charter amendments.

The proposed charter amendments will officially empower the DC Council to expel a member for gross misconduct, and disqualify any candidates with a felony conviction while in office from serving as councilmember or mayor.

Each of these takes a small step toward improving the laws around ethics in DC. They leave many ethics issues unresolved, and most DC leaders have been reluctant to take the stronger steps necessary to bring more substantial ethical reform to city politics, but these are a step in the right direction.

Update: The original version of the endorsement said that 2 charter amendments disqualify any candidate with a felony conviction from holding office. In fact, they only disqualify candidates who have gotten that felony conviction while in office, which makes the amendments even less meaningful as ethics reforms, but still worth voting for.

These are the official endorsements of Greater Greater Washington, written by one or more contributors. Active contributors and editors discussed endorsements, and any endorsement reflects a strong consensus in favor of endorsing for or against each issue or candidate.

Also tomorrow is a Humanitini panel on gentrification. Washington City Paper editor Mike Madden is moderating the panel, which includes Rauzia Ally and Maria Casarella, two architects who serve on the Historic Preservation Review Board; Jonathan O'Connell of the Washington Business Journal; and former Mayor "that's an old movie" Tony Williams. Sign up to attend here.

Next week are 2 of DDOT's Parking Think Tanks, Wednesday evening 10/3 at the West End Library (large conference room) and Thursday 10/4 at Wilson High School (cafeteria). Both are 6:30-8:30. If you can't make one of them, don't forget to fill out the online survey, which asks about both car and bicycle parking issues.

Also next Thursday, October 4, the Office of Planning is having a Citizen Planner Forum to talk about how planning projects can engage more residents. They held 4 focus groups with residents about ways planning processes can work better, and will talk about the results, new tools to involve the public and more. The event is 6:30 to 8 at the District Architecture Center, 421 7th Street, NW.

Finally, there's a pretty important hearing for those of you who can make a 1 pm DC Council hearing on a Friday. Zoning update opponents convinced former Chairman Kwame Brown to hold an oversight hearing on the zoning update, even though the topic already came up during the annual oversight hearings for the Office of Planning each of the last 4 years. Phil Mendelson kept it on the agenda when he became chairman. It was originally supposed to be today, but since it's Yom Kippur, they moved it to Friday, October 5.

Zoning update head opponent Linda Schmitt sent a predictably provocational and misinforming email, claiming that a process over 4 years with hundreds of community meetings (and more to come) is about "high-handed decisions by city officials ... who make every effort to play "hide the ball," deflecting questions, maligning civic advice and avoiding
stating their intentions." To sign up to testify, email cgordon@dccouncil.us with your name, address, and phone number.

Representatives of the Committee of 100, Federation of Citizens Associations and similar groups will surely show up to complain about the zoning update, as they have at each Office of Planning oversight hearing for the last four years. They might be joined by some residents who believed some of the scare tactics and outright falsehoods that anti-update agitators sadly continue to spread.

For example, on a Chevy Chase listserv post, opponent-in-chief Linda Schmitt asked, rhetorically, "Will parking be 'eliminated' a half mile radius of [sic] every metro stop?" This conjures up images of government agents in sunglasses and black helicopters coming to take away your parking.

Nobody will be forced to remove a single parking space as a result of the zoning update. What it will do is stop forcing new buildings to include more parking than their owners think is necessary, rules that forced costly boondoggles like the largely-unused garage at DC USA or make housing more expensive than it needs to be.

The Office of Planning has listened to thousands of residents and attended hundreds of community meetings over the last four years. The zoning update keeps most rules in place and avoids much change to single-family neighborhoods. But it also fixes a few of the worst mistakes of the "social engineering" from the 1940s and 50s, where leaders deliberately tried to drive people out of urban neighborhoods they considered "problem areas" and "obsolete."

The authors of the current zoning code banished neighborhood-serving corner stores under the now-debunked notion that all commerce needs to be far divorced from all residences. It mandated far too much parking under the misguided assumption that everyone would drive all of the time, instead of having some people drive and some use other modes.

It also forbade people from renting out garages and basements in many neighborhoods, not predicting that young people would have children later, seniors would live longer, and families would get smaller, which forced the population in single-family communities to decline over time.

The code has gone though many amendments since, which is why the core set of rules remains intact in the rewrite. However, those amendments have also made the code extremely complex and unwieldy, forcing a homeowner to check 2 or even 3 separate sections, with directly conflicting rules, to understand what restrictions apply to his or her home. The rewrite reorganizes the code to put all of the rules that apply to a specific property owner in the same place as much as possible.

Chairman Mendelson has long represented the whole city, but has focused primarily on issues around crime and the police, his policy area of focus. He also has periodically sent letters opposing one zoning case or another, mostly to please his older and upper Northwest-centric base. As chairman, he has a responsibility to take a broader and more inclusive view of policy areas such as planning.

He needs to hear from residents who like their walkable neighborhoods with basement apartments and corner stores, or who want to be able to afford to live in one. We need to remind the chairman that allowing a thing does not mean forcing something or taking away something from any property owner, and that this zoning update does not do so. The limited reforms in this zoning update will restore what worked in the past and allow DC to effectively grow to the future.

Please come testify at the hearing on September 26 if you can. To sign up to testify, call 202-724-8196 or email Crispus Gordon III, CGordon@dccouncil.us. If you can't, send comments to Chairman Mendelson using the take action form below.