Posts about Affordable Housing

That last sentence evokes many of the anti-renter statements that have circulated throughout the debate, where some people insinuate (or outright claim) that anyone who doesn't own property is less worthy of consideration or will even harm the neighborhood.

One person wrote afterward, "I'm especially concerned about ADUs, and sympathized with the parent who expressed concern for his young children's safety if no controls were instituted on who could occupy such units." Steve Seelig replied, "Personally, I am appalled to hear and read about suggestions that those who would live in ADUs are going to have a greater tendency to endanger the children of our neighborhood."

As for age, I actually didn't perceive much of a difference between people who supported the (very much not radical, indeed quite timid) OP proposal, and those who opposed it. One speaker, Tad Baldwin, has gray hair yet said how important he thinks the proposal to allow accessory dwellings is. Others who appeared to be in their 30s argued against some of the changes.

Still, a pervasive theme throughout the discussion was whether the zoning changes would create problems for seniors. Moira Gillick spoke about the virtues of walkable neighborhoods, and a few people (somewhat rudely) shouted over her that walking didn't work for older residents.

In fact, a lot of pedestrians in Ward 3 are seniors, such as those who live in the assisted living facilities in the area. It's also certainly true that some people face mobility challenges, and need access to a car.

The fallacy in this debate comes when people assume that because one mode doesn't work for them, it won't work for others. One speaker called it ridiculous that people would come live in a building, like the proposed parking-free Babe's apartments in Tenleytown, without cars. Yet two speakers just minutes before had talked about how they live in parts of Ward 3 without cars.

One woman said she's not going to take the bus to Safeway with 5 bags of groceries. Fair enough. She doesn't have to. But on a Metro ride home (from Tenleytown, in fact) the next day, I stood on an escalator behind a man with 4 large bags of groceries. The majority of people in Ward 3 have cars, and that's not going to change if zoning allows a few new housing units marketed to people without cars.

Many seniors will benefit from transit-oriented housing choices

Some of those people will be seniors who can't drive any more. Herb Caudill talked about his parents his wife's parents, who live in suburban New Jersey and are afraid of the day they won't be able to drive any longer. He said when they came to visit his home in Cleveland Park, they were amazed that he could walk to the grocery store, and asked if there was a library as well (there is!)

As a result, Caudill said, his parents are going to sell their house in New Jersey and their 2 cars and move into an apartment on Connecticut Avenue where they can walk to the library and museums. They can live independently even as their ability to drive declines.

(They will also become some of those "renters" that people are impugning on the listserv, or which people fear would come move into basements or converted garages and disrupt the character of the neighborhood.)

There is one obstacle for those like the elder Caudills Caudill's in-laws, he noted: affordability. It's far cheaper to live in most of suburban New Jersey than in Cleveland Park "because the supply of housing is so limited," he said. That's why we need proposals like the accessory dwelling plan. "This housing is not just for young people," he said.

This is why we need proposals like OP's that expand the supply of housing. If anything, this plan does not expand it enough. A property owner who doesn't have an external garage today will be able to still build one as of right once the zoning update proceeds, but won't then be able to rent it out.

Richard Layman argued that at least near transit, zoning should encourage people to add extra housing on large lots with enough space for it. We could help more people like the Caudills Caudill's wife's parents to live the retirement lives they want to have, but anxiety about "renters" and scarce parking has already led OP to water down its plans and lose out on one opportunity to let senior couples (and people of other ages) afford to come to DC.

The Office of Planning is holding their Ward 7 information meeting Saturday, 10 am at the DOES building, 4058 Minnesota Ave. NE, and a Twitter town hall using hashtag #ZRR at noon Monday, and finally the Ward 4 meeting at Takoma Education Campus, 7010 Piney Branch Rd. NW by Takoma Metro at 6:30 on Wednesday, January 16.

Correction: Herb Caudill emailed to clarify that the couple in question is his wife's parents, not his parents. I missed that when he was speaking at the event. Sorry for the error.

Demand. Prices and rents are particularly high in parts of the region that have attributes and neighborhood amenities that are in demand. Increasing the supply of these types of neighborhoods would help alleviate price pressures. When the supply of something goes up (and demand stays the same), prices fall.

While we can't move existing neighborhoods closer to job centers, we can facilitate development around transit, encourage amenity-diverse development, and incentivize high-quality construction. Places like the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor—where demand and rents are very high—could serve as a model for the types of neighborhoods most in demand (although each locality will want to place its own flavor on these desirable places to live).

Whereas in the past we built single-family houses on suburban lots, future demand will be for more urban and smaller units, close to jobs, shopping, recreation, and other amenities. If local governments and developers are aware of this new demand, and set up the appropriate framework to achieve that type of development, the overall supply will increase and price pressures will not be as extreme. Their ability to do so will in large part depend on solving the next four issues.

Planning, zoning, and application processes. Counties and cities in the Washington area need to get ahead of the demand by preparing master plans and sector or neighborhood plans that allow mixed uses, higher densities, and transit infrastructure in certain areas where jobs and housing will concentrate. Once the right plans are in place, it is much easier for developers to tailor their development plans in the desired direction and also easier (in terms of time and money) to get plans approved.

Local governments also need to review and revise their zoning ordinances to provide more flexibility, allow mixed uses where they were previously prohibited, and encourage the development of more affordable housing. Montgomery and DC are currently reviewing their zoning ordinances, and it is likely that these two jurisdictions will be able to make the right types of adjustments to support more appropriate levels of housing development which will encourage housing affordability.

Developers recognize that their projects need to pay for some public infrastructure and community amenities. Done right, these contributions enhance their projects' chances for market success. The problem has been the complexity of development approval processes, and their lack of transparency and predictability. Developers would prefer to know up front what they need to contribute (whether it is a fixed dollar amount per unit or per square foot) rather than to think they have reached agreement only to find a new reviewing agency has additional requests.

When plans, zoning, and development applications align, it reduces costs and timeframes for development. This provides some margin to reduce housing prices.

Neighborhood opposition. Fear of change is natural and understandable. The demand for more urban lifestyles is increasing. Yet we are trying to undo more than 30 years of sprawl and suburban living—which many people have enjoyed and want to perpetuate.

One solution is to defuse the fear of the unknown. Our suburban housing stock will continue to be available to people who prefer that lifestyle. But there are places in the metropolitan area that are well suited to a more urban form of development, and those places are the ones where more and higher density housing close to transit and jobs can be built. Each jurisdiction should clearly identify those places in master plans, legalize them through zoning changes, and educate residents about them.

To educate people, leaders and developers need to share information about successful projects, defuse fears of traffic impacts by making data on traffic counts widely available, and document environmental and lifestyle benefits of this new (though old) form of development. Financial and economic data exist too, but tend to be less persuasive to current residents. Education, information, and understanding won't happen overnight, but it is important to have an ongoing conversation.

State and federal regulations. Reducing the impact of state and federal transportation and environmental regulations on the cost of housing production is a bit more difficult, and seems out of reach of the local jurisdictions.

Perhaps the best way to do this is to elect representatives to state houses and the US Congress who are conscious of the impact of regulations on the cost of providing new housing units. This will require the local population gaining an understanding of the relationship between regulation and housing affordability. It is time for advocates of housing affordability to transcend the local government level and be heard at higher levels of government.

Regional coordination. The region's political fragmentation makes coordinated action difficult, but regional coordination and cooperation are necessary to ensure the continued high quality of life in the metro area. Furthermore, regional coordination needs to include all groups that have a stake in the economic vitality and housing availability in the region—local governments, affordable housing advocates, and businesses.

Groups like the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments that convene local leaders to discuss regional issues are critically important to keeping these policy concerns in the public eye. However, the problem cannot be solved by discussion alone: regional coordination on housing issues requires true commitment in the form of money and leadership.

The Washington DC metro area would benefit from the creation of a regional housing trust fund¹, a source of dedicated funding not tied to a particular jurisdiction and contributed to from both the public and private sectors. The fund's resources could be used to subsidize construction of affordable housing in the locations around the region where there is the greatest need.

Although the District of Columbia and the states of Maryland and Virginia also have housing trust funds (with different funding mechanisms—some dedicated, some not—and supported activities), the Washington DC region needs a regional trust fund because the people living and working here are all interrelated and support the economic health and well-being of the region. A regional housing trust fund would be different—and perhaps more challenging to establish—from those mentioned above because we live in a region with three states. Challenging, but not impossible.

Our region's trust fund should also be supported by both the public sector (e.g. local governments) and the private sector.² The business community has a tremendous stake in the availability of housing in the region.

We must meet the challenge

There are no easy answers here, but there is a set of approaches that could individually and together ease the housing affordability crisis and to ensure that we produce enough housing to support our region's economic vitality and sustain our quality of life.

Just as we need DC, Maryland, and Virginia to work together, and the region's component counties and independent cities, we also need the public and private sectors to collaborate on regional housing needs. Regional leadership, setting housing affordability as a priority over other priorities, and education of existing residents are all prerequisites to solving the problem. If we don't put these solutions to work soon, our region runs the risk of diminished economic prospects in the future.

Fortunately, many organizations have had success developing affordable housing in Ward 5. One of the smallest is Open Arms Housing, which provides permanent housing and wrap-around services to 11 chronically homeless and mentally ill women.

Marilyn Kresky-Wolff is the Director of Open Arms, and she spoke at the Housing Town Hall about the success her program has had in the lives of these women: none of their residents have returned to homelessness. Two of the residents spoke about getting back on their feet and rebuilding their lives.

Open Arms Housing, like many other projects in Ward 5, have succeeded by paying attention to the needs of the community they serve. This was particularly important when they rehabilitated the 258 units at Edgewood Terrace VI, an extensive complex just across Rhode Island Avenue on 4th Street NE.

In the early 1990s, Edgewood Terrace served as one of the largest drug markets in Washington. Today it is a mixed income apartment community with on site services for residents including adult education, computer training, and day care programs for children. The key ingredient in the outstanding change was the commitment of the developers, Community Preservation and Development Corporation, to tenant engagement in every step of the revitalization process.

In 1995, when the Community Preservation and Development Corporation (CPDC) bought the first section of Edgewood Terrace from HUD, CPDC immediately sat down with tenant association leaders. The relationship between CPDC and the tenants resulted in renovated apartments, as well as common areas for youth programs, job training, computer classes, and community events.

With more people drawn to public spaces and a partnership between CPDC, the tenants, and the Metropolitan Police Department they were able to break up the drug trade. Residents who had once been afraid to venture outside after dark now had reclaimed their community.

Affordable housing developers continue to find solutions to meet the diverse housing needs of the community. Ward 5 residents can look forward to the opening of Metropolitan Overlook, a mixed income condominium on 2nd Street NE, just blocks off of Rhode Island Ave. Rehabbing a property that has sat vacant for 20 years, Metropolitan Overlook will be a 37-unit condominium with 11 permanently affordable units.

Ward 5 will continue to benefit from the investments in affordable housing that build vibrant spaces for current and future District residents.

We suggest 5 here, and look forward to reading your discussion of these and others:

Burdensome local processes: The local process for getting residential projects approved and built is complex, costly, time-consuming, and uncertain. Fees and proffers can add between $30,000 and $50,000 to the cost of a housing unit.

The developer also is required to provide many "extras" that may not specifically have been among the items demanded by the buyer. The most recent buyer ends up paying for amenities that the entire neighborhood enjoys—parks, bike racks, benches, and walking trails, among other benefits.

Contrary to popular belief, it is not necessarily the developer who pays; the extra costs usually are incorporated in the final sales price or rent amounts. If the cost is more than what the market will bear, the project simply won't get built.

Neighborhood opposition: As the nature of housing demand changes to favor more urbanized areas served by transit, development of new units often is confronted by massive opposition from existing residents. Understandably, they are concerned about a change to their way of life and are not eager to invite potentially more traffic to their neighborhood. They haven't always received enough information to understand that new development, when designed properly, may actually lead to less traffic and more community-serving amenities.

When demand is already being felt in an area, but the locality's comprehensive plan and zoning haven't been updated, an individual development proposal encounters the strongest headwinds. It may take 18 to 24 months for a new neighborhood or sector plan to be prepared, and to overcome opposition.

When zoning has not been recently reviewed or updated, it effectively prevents newer housing designs by requiring obsolete lot sizes, unit sizes, and configuration of parking spaces; and mandates too much parking, doesn't allow enough height, doesn't allow retail under residential units, and a multitude of other "don'ts." Often densities are too low in areas where local leaders and staff agree that mixed use development or mid- to high-rise housing development is desirable.

All this means a good project can be prevented or delayed until the appropriate zoning framework is in place. By then, time has passed, costs have increased, and the market window may have closed. The needed housing units are not built.

Demand: Strong job growth and high wage earners push housing prices up across the region. Proximity to jobs, access to transit and other transportation, high-quality housing construction, and diverse neighborhood amenities are all associated with relatively higher housing costs.

We know that income growth has not kept up with the increase in housing costs; however, we live in an area where many households have very high incomes. Higher income households that can afford to pay more put upward pressure on rents (and home prices) in high-demand neighborhoods.

As a result, lower income households—for example, the half a million households in the region making less than $50,000 per year—face two options: 1) spending more than 30% of their incomes on housing to be close to jobs and amenities or 2) moving further out and enduring longer and more expensive commutes.

Federal and state regulations: In addition to local regulations, a variety of state and federal regulations relate to new home construction. States have transportation and environmental regulations that apply to new projects. for example, a requirement to conduct traffic impact analyses when traffic is expected to be over a certain threshold, and the power to deny curb cuts or access to state roads.

At the federal level, water quality regulations are controlling runoff to local watersheds, pre-empting local decision-making on the right location for new housing units. The developer has to work not only with local planning staff, but often also with a range of state and federal agencies and reviewers during each development application.

As there is no one who can coordinate agencies at different levels of government or unify their comments on a development application, there is the potential for prolonged back and forth on certain requirements where different governmental levels have regulations that conflict with those of other levels.

Regional non-coordination: A lack of regional coordination has exacerbated the housing supply problem in the Washington region and has contributed to an inefficient geographic allocation of housing. Each local jurisdiction employs its own process for approving new housing developments. Not only are the processes complex, they vary widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In all cases, local elected officials focus assiduously on the desires of their constituents and the impacts of new development on their current residents.

Jurisdictions across the region constantly compete with each other—to attract jobs, to build better amenities, to have lower taxes—and it is in their self-interest to focus very narrowly on their own priorities, rather than the regional good, when approving new housing.

The problem of a lack of coordination is heightened in the DC metro area, where we have three state regions—DC, Maryland and Virginia, or four, if we count the one county in West Virginia that is part of the metropolitan area.

There is no regional governing body with the authority to coordinate efforts to plan for and get constructed a sufficient supply of housing, of the right types and in the right places. Virginia and Maryland have some combined coordinating bodies, for example the Northern Virginia Regional Commission and the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission, but these don't cover all the jurisdictions in the metropolitan area.

The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and other organizations convene groups of local leaders to discuss regional issues, but without legal or regulatory authority. The regional discussion tends to culminate in the signature of "compacts" which are broad philosophical agreements, but true coordinating action in housing or transportation is hard to come by.

All this adds up to big problems

These, as well as other issues not highlighted here, are obstacles to providing a sufficient amount of housing and the appropriate types of housing this region will need to support population and job growth.

Local officials are well aware of these issues, but in the daily travail of meeting their budgets, maintaining their bond ratings, and satisfying their constituents, they are hard-pressed to focus on long-term regional goals, instead meeting challenges as they arise, one at a time. This is exhausting for all concerned—elected officials, local staff, developers and home builders, and the citizens who try to keep an eye on each new proposal.

Is it possible to step back, and take concrete steps that would help us achieve our regional housing goals? In our next post, we will present some initial solutions.

Many of those who spoke at the task force hearing had direct experience as victims of DC's ongoing housing crisis. Over a dozen residents who were homeless, or had experienced homelessness, came out to this hearing in Ward 8. They told stories of working, raising children, and going to school while experiencing homelessness or unstable housing.

Many of them also came with concrete recommendations. Miriam Garcia became homeless when she was the victim of domestic abuse. Now, she lives at a building operated by Transitional Housing Corporation. She called on more resources for the program that helped her get stable housing. "Affordable housing and the Local Rent Supplement Program has allowed me to stabilize my life and has given me the opportunity to offer my child a healthy place to grow up without domestic violence," she said. "I suggest that DC develop 1,000 more units a year."

Manuel Ochoa from the Latino Economic Development Center (LEDC) urged the task force to create a specific and comprehensive plan that addresses the total housing needs for District households across income levels. LEDC focuses on both housing and economic development through their small business technical assistance program, and so they work closely with many residents who struggle to raise their incomes and maintain stable housing.

Ochoa called for returning the Home Purchase Assistance Program, DC's first-time home-buyers program, to its 2008 high. It served 500 people that year with $35 million.

Misty Thomas of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless focused on programs that would impact very low-income residents. One key element was to create of a preservation strategy that would set targets for the types of properties the District would prioritize preserving and maintaining.

The District has thousands of subsidized units, but there is no plan in place to make sure that they maintain affordability in the long term. Such a strategy would both identify the priority for housing types, but also indicate how such preservation would be ensured.

As the task force draws to a conclusion, more specific recommendations are coming to the surface. Not only are the task force members beginning to discuss some of the goals they will ultimately recommend to the Mayor, they are also considering ways to raise the funds to pay for it. Ideas range from simply making a commitment in the District's budget to creating new tools like a local tax credit program.

You can see many of the proposals being discussed on the task force website as well as the schedule for upcoming meetings. The Task Force is still accepting written testimony.

"Our public lands are so valuable, and we're concerned the city is not going to deliver the affordability that it's achieved in the past," says Cheryl Cort, Policy Director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth. "We urge the Mayor and the Housing Task Force to recommit to leveraging city-owned land to create a substantial amount of affordable housing, including at deeply affordable levels."

According to Cort, the study's "main finding is that while the previous administrations were able to produce significant amounts of affordable housing down to deeply affordable levels in city-land redevelopment projects, we aren't seeing the same level of commitment from the new administration."

Major developments like CityVista at 5th and K St, NW and around the Columbia Heights Metro station have integrated significant amounts of very affordable housing into larger, mixed use developments, says Cort.

"DC has had some successful accomplishments when it comes to city-owned lands transformed in to vibrant mixed use, mixed income developments. However, without keeping specific and ambitious affordable housing requirements in future deals, we are likely to see less and less affordability in these valuable city land projects," said Jenny Reed, Policy Director of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, in a statement.

Ideal sites for producing affordable housing are the McMillan Sand Filtration site (25 acres), Walter Reed's Georgia Avenue Campus (67 acres), Saint Elizabeths East Campus (183 acres), and even Poplar Point (110 acres) which is seemingly stuck in place. To maximize the housing potential of public lands adjacent to Metrorail stations and Metrobus routes, the city must override some desires to build a "one or two-story library or other public facility with a surface parking lot," the report says. Instead, a "robust mix of compatible uses" and full use of the building envelope should be a guiding design principle.

The report highlights the development of the Hine School site at Eastern Market, which will provide substantial amounts of affordable housing units, including some at 30 percent of Area Median Income (AMI). However, recent solicitations by the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development's land disposition office indicate that housing set asides for people with 30 percent of AMI in larger projects, are no longer in place as they have been in the past.

While earnings for lower-wage workers have remained flat over the past 10 years, housing costs have shot up. According to the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, between 2000 and 2010 more than 36,000 rental units, priced at $750 or less a month, have been lost. Compounding rising costs for low-wage workers is the natural expiration of federal Section 8 subsidized housing credits. Started under a program created in 1974, Section 8 contracts for private landlords usually run for 20 to 40 years. Many landlords are now turning their properties into market-rate units.

"If the city no longer asks for deeply affordable units as part of an overall project, we don't expect developers will provide them," Cort says. "As our city's housing market gets more expensive, we need to do more, not less to address the challenges that our lower income residents face. Public land is a unique tool that the city has and can continue to leverage to provide substantial amounts of affordable housing, even at very low income levels."

DC has a shortage of affordable housing, but it has no shortage of public land. The District needs to use this land to guarantee more affordable housing so that we can remain an economically diverse city.

Established in 1988, the Trust Fund did not have a source of funding to make loans until 2002. At that time, Mayor Anthony Williams proposed using 15% of the DC Real Estate Recordation and Transfer Tax. This tax, based on the value of property at the point of sale, grows the Trust Fund as residential and commercial development occurs in the District.

Over the next few years, higher-than-expected revenues from the Real Estate Recordation and Transfer Tax caused some District leaders to propose cutting the dedicated amount in half to 7.5%. 3 years in a row, advocates had to convince the DC Council to maintain full funding of the Trust Fund.

The Trust Fund soon faced a new problem. When the housing bubble burst in 2008, the economic crash particularly hurt the Housing Production Trust Fund. The Trust Fund lost significant funding. At this point the Trust Fund had a long pipeline of projects to which funding had been committed but not yet dispersed, and was unable to make new loans.

Again, there was a push to provide adequate funding for the Housing Production Trust Fund. That fall, the DC Council, passed the "Housing Production Trust Fund Stabilization Amendment Act of 2008." The amendment guaranteed minimum levels of funding from Real Estate Recordation and Transfer Taxes for the Trust Fund: $70 million in FY 2010, $80 million in FY 2011, and $80 million plus inflation thereafter.

Unfortunately, because the legislation was passed subject to annual appropriation, the Trust Fund has never been funded at those levels. The real estate crash and recovery would have been a prime opportunity to clear out the pipeline and begin to fund new projects, had the Trust Fund gotten the appropriations it needed.

Just two years after the Council committed to funding the Trust Fund at higher levels, the Trust Fund received a major cut in the FY 2012 budget. In the spring of 2011, the Mayor proposed and the DC Council voted for a budget that would use $18 million from the Trust Fund to pay for the ongoing cost of the Local Rent Supplement Program (LRSP) by transferring the funds to the DC Housing Authority.

Previously, the LRSP had been paid for from the District's general fund. In FY 2012, the cut, along with other ongoing costs, reduced the amount of funding left in the Trust Fund for new production and preservation efforts to only $13 million.

This trend of decreased funding has expanded. In FY 2013, the total transfer to the Housing Authority for LRSP will be $19.9 million. Unless a permanent alternative solution to using the Trust Fund to pay for the ongoing cost of LRSP is implemented, it will drain the Fund from its intended use indefinitely.

As part of the current Comprehensive Housing Strategy Task Force appointed by Mayor Gray, an explicit goal is to "develop alternative funding sources for the Housing Production Trust Fund to make funding more predictable."

Despite its rocky history, housing providers, funders, and government continue to applaud the Trust Fund. Nearly every elected current official has, at one point, voted to fund, restore, or improve the Trust Fund. Ideally, the next ten years of the Housing Production Trust Fund will be easier ones.

When a household spends 30% or more of its income on housing costs, housing researchers typically identify it as "housing cost burdened." In 2010, about half of all renters in the DC region fell in this category, and 83% of renters with household incomes below $50,000 were burdened. Nearly one-third of the region's homeowners spend more than 30% of their incomes on their mortgages.

On top of that, many so-called "drive to qualify" households, or those households that were only able to find affordable housing far away from where they were looking, have very high transportation costs. According to the National Association of Realtors Affordability Index, the Washington region ranks as the 5th least affordable major metro area overall, with only San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Boston less affordable than our region.

Several factors have contributed to declines in affordability in the Washington area. Some are due to changing preferences of those that seek housing, or demand-side factors:

Population growth. The Washington region added 2.4 million people over the four decades between 1970 and 2010. Over the same period, household sizes were shrinking and more people were living alone which accelerated housing demand.

High-income households. These households created demand for larger and more expensive housing and builders rushed to meet demand. While overall household income growth has been relatively modest over the four decades between 1970 and 2010, a sizable share of the region's workers earned very high wages.

The growth of the high-wage professional and business services sector began in earnest in the 1980s when federal procurement spending increased and the government contracting workforce expanded. Many of these jobs were high-wage jobs in engineering, computer programming, program management, and other fields that suddenly became the fastest-growing sectors in the region's economy.

The workers in these fields benefited from high and rising salaries and demanded larger homes, more owner-occupied homes, and more expensive housing. Builders were happy to meet this growing demand, and as a result, the region saw fewer rental units and fewer smaller houses built over time.

Homeownership incentives. During the recent housing boom, easy mortgage financing and public policies that encouraged homeownership put upward pressure on home prices and fueled demand for higher-priced homes.

Speculation. Speculative demand by investors artificially boosted prices at the same time. Although values and prices dropped temporarily, Washington's economy and job growth proved stronger than those in much of the country, and home prices rebounded, particularly in areas close to the core.

Demographics. Changes in demographics and lifestyles have increased demand and prices in DC, areas inside the Beltway, and areas along Metrorail lines.

Overall, this demand for homeownership has diminished the supply of rental housing. In 1970, the region's housing stock was split about 50/50 between rental and owner housing. Over the next four decades the development of for-sale housing far outpaced the supply of rental housing.

The rental housing that was built was often targeted at the higher income households, and involved redevelopment of affordable rental housing. Lower income households, who are more likely to rent than own, faced a declining stock of housing with rents they could afford.

Developers and landlords have also responded to the changing conditions in the market. These supply-side factors include:

Land. The amount of land available for residential development is fixed and has grown scarce. Within the geographic boundaries of the Washington metropolitan area, there is only so much land on which to build. Even though the construction of I-495, I-66, and Metrorail have made it easier for housing to be built in the farther out suburbs, land itself remains a constraint on residential development.

New higher-end condos. As builders sought to meet the demands of higher income households given the land constraints, cheaper homes in the suburbs gave way to luxury homes and modest rental buildings were shunned in favor of amenity-rich condos.

Condo conversions. Older and more affordable rental apartments have been converted to condominiums to meet the demand for homeownership.

Zoning. Land is also constrained by local regulations that determine the types and sizes of housing that can be constructed under different zoning and land use categories. Lot size and coverage regulations require that large homes with large yards be built in some areas. Height and density restrictions can prohibit the construction of higher-density, multi-family residential development.

Other regulations. Local government regulations affect the time required to construct new housing, delaying the availability of new units to meet growing demand.

Even as the housing bubble burst and regions across the country experienced dramatic drops in home prices, the Washington region is staring down the affordability issue once again.

Housing affordability is particularly a problem in inner-ring suburbs and the downtown core where land is expensive and scarce. The most desirable locations are those near transit stations or hubs, yet those infill locations are where development is most difficult and time consuming, and where resulting housing will be most expensive.

While there has been an uptick in residential construction, it has been primarily high-rent multi-family development in the District of Columbia and close-in suburbs. Single-family and townhouse construction seemed to slow to a halt and is only now beginning to pick up.

Over the last few years, thousands of workers have flocked to the Washington region to take advantage of its healthy economy. As a result of this recent demand, rental vacancies have been low and rents have been high. In some jurisdictions, home prices are back to the peak seen at the height of the housing boom.

Next in the series: How much housing will the Washington region need over the next 20 years?

These goals seem lofty, and it's good to set aggressive goals. At companies I've worked, employees and managers regularly set and reviewed goals for each employee and division. The better places pushed everyone to set "stretch goals," ones which take some extra effort to meet. Managers shouldn't expect employees to achieve every piece of every goal; if they do, the goals are probably too conservative. But if they meet none, the goals are too tough or the employee not performing.

With education, no kids should fall short of proficiency or drop out, and almost everyone needs a college degree or vocational certification to get jobs in the modern economy. But we know that not everyone will. Nevertheless, it's critical that leaders aim high and push hard to get there.

The report cites a study by IFF on improving schools, which many, including Steve Glazerman, have criticized as fatally flawed. District education officials can give parents and potential parents the greatest confidence in the schools' future by moving beyond that study soon and finding better metrics for judging the performance of schools.

Transportation

The transportation section lays out some meaningful priorities but also sets a much lower bar. Its objectives:

• 84 new Capital Bikeshare stations in 2012
  
• 5 new miles of bike lanes by 2014
  
• Opening the first streetcar line in 2013

These are all extremely important priorities, but they just recite what DDOT is already doing in the short term, not stretch for the future.

Opening the streetcar line is a "stretch goal" on its own for DDOT, since there's still a lot to do to open the line by 2013—especially if "opening" the line means having enough cars to run a reasonable headway. Many people, including Councilmember Tommy Wells, fear that they will end up starting up the line with only 3 cars, force riders to wait too long, and give the streetcar an early reputation for uselessness. It would be nice if this goal mentioned the headways.

The other goals are more conservative. The plan notes that there is already federal funding (likely CMAQ) for the 84 CaBi stations, and even counts 37 that DDOT has already put in, meaning there are 47 to go. This is great, and very important, but not news.

Growing bike lane miles from 56 to 61 is also welcome, but not very significant, especially since Gabe Klein's 2010 DDOT Action Agenda set a goal of 80 miles of bike lanes by 2012. The One City plan specifies putting in the L Street cycle track, but why not include its M Street companion, without which we'll only have a one-way cycle track?

The fact that bike lanes are one of 3 transportation goals in the plan shows that they're a priority, and we shouldn't discount the fact that even one mile or a single block can be a lot of work, but if this wants to be an ambitious vision, it needs to aim higher.

The transportation goals are also very short-term. Each looks no farther out than 2014. It would be great to include higher numbers of CaBi stations, bike lane miles, cycletrack miles in particular, and streetcar lines a number of years out into the future. The education section and others set goals for dates like 2017; why not here?

The sutainability plan set a goal for 2032 of having 75% of trips use biking, walking and transit. It's now about half for commuting trips, and likely lower for other trips. To get there will require more aggressive progress on transportation than this plan sets out.

Economic Development

The mayor makes clear in this document his commitment to a technology innovation hub at St. Elizabeths, which we have discussed recently. That could be a real game changer for the District if it can succeed.

The plan isn't as clear on how to attract more technology jobs; it only cites recent efforts to give money to LivingSocial not to leave and to give a tax break to "tech companies." Ken Archer has argued that both miss the point, and won't create enough incentive for the really important jobs that innovate, create new value, and build "knock-on effects" for the long term.

Another good goal is one to reduce DC's dependence on government jobs. Today, 66% of jobs are in the private sector, and the plan targets 68% by 2013 and 70% by 2021. We should also think about what kind of private sector jobs those are. Government contractor jobs are okay, since if the federal government downsizes it will have to hire more contractors, but tracking and growing the percentage of jobs that aren't even in the government ecosystem, outside of defense contracting and lobbying and all of that, is even better.

The plan calls for a new task force to look at ways to streamline regulations and help businesses; this has the potential to do a lot of good if it gets good people who can think comprehensively about the biggest obstacles for businesses.

Housing

One of the relatively few disappointing pieces of the mayor's budget was the way it raided the Housing Production Trust Fund, which funds loans and other programs for building new affordable housing, to pay for Local Rent Supplement, another important program but one which just gives people money to offset rent. The plan reiterates this as if it were a good accomplishment.

A numerical goal calls for 900 new units of affordable housing by 2014, which DC needs. However, the plan also notes that 1,114 units are in the pipeline, which makes it sound like the goal is already probably in the bag, and if not, there's little the DC government can do at this point. This is another place that could use a stretch goal farther out into the future.

The plan calls for growing DC's population by 3%, about on par with the last year. We can compare this to the sustainability plan, which targets 250,000 new residents by 2032. 3% of our current population is about 18,000; add that number each year and we get 960,000, which beats the goal; with compounding, it's even more (1.09 million).

The question, though, is whether we can just add that many new residents each year without other policy changes. There is a lot of developable land in the pipeline, but it's finite. Without zoning changes to add housing opportunities, DC may have a harder time sustaining that growth.

And much more

There are many more goals in the plan, some excellent, some poor, some just vague. It's great that the Gray administration put together this plan, and set some ambitious goals in some very important areas. Just enumerating priorities matters as well, even when the goals are softer, but future plans would do well to set stretch goals and longer-term metrics for all areas.