Posts about Alley Dwellings

Sustainability

Rewritten DC zoning code corrects past mistakes

by David Alpert   •   February 8, 2012 10:47 am

Accessory apartments, corner stores, alley dwellings, and less parking, all of which were legal when DC's historic neighborhoods grew into their current form, could become more prevalent under a proposed new zoning code. The first third of the code is now out as a public draft, and residents will debate these and other changes in the coming months.

Photo by M.V. Jantzen on Flickr.

Formal Zoning Commission hearings to approve or reject the zoning code will come later this year, but there is a sort of preseason exhibition hearing tomorrow. The DC Council's annual oversight hearing for the Office of Planning will bring sparks as advocates on various sides push their cases, though the council doesn't actually decide these issues.

The Office of Planning has been working for 4 years to rewrite the District's zoning code. Now, after hundreds of public meetings and many rewrites, OP's draft of the actual new zoning text clocks in at 458 pages, and that's just for the first third of the text, covering general issues as well as low- and moderate-density residential zones.

The vast majority of the work just updates, streamlines, and simplifies the text. Today, under the zoning code approved in 1958, rules and restrictions appear in general chapters that cover zone types or other, neighborhood-specific sets of rules called "overlays." Many rules use terms that aren't defined anywhere, like "building façade line," which seems very simple until you start thinking about buildings with rounded turrets.

There are also a few significant policy changes. In particular:

• More homeowners will be able to create accessory dwellings, like garage or basement apartments.
  
• A limited number of small art studios, corner groceries, shoe repair shops, hardware stores and the like will be able to open in residential areas when there aren't any commercial areas nearby.
  
• Fewer buildings will be forced to provide parking, or will not be forced to provide as much.
  
• More alley lots will be able to have houses.
  
• Green Area Ratio will require landscaping and other stormwater-managing features in projects, though not the low- and moderate-density residential buildings covered in the chapters released so far.

With the exception of the Green Area Ratio, a very 21st-century sustainability idea, the other changes acually harken more back to a past era than to the future. They correct some of the most egregious problems from the 1958 code, where it imposed social engineering ideas in vogue at the time that ended up eliminating local corner stores, pushed people out of urban neighborhoods, and forced new buildings to take a suburban form incompatible with the walkable communities that previously existed.

If Georgetown, Capitol Hill, or Petworth didn't exist today, they couldn't be legally built as they are. Even many single-family neighborhoods of detached houses like AU Park, Brookland, and Hillcrest are mostly illegal as well under current zoning. Where the new zoning code makes changes, it's to legalize the kind of development patterns that formed the neighborhoods residents treasure today, rather than forcing radically different forms which characterize much of the mistakes of the mid-to-late 20th century.

Accessory dwellings

Anacostia. Photo by DDOTDC on Flickr.

Back when the 1958 zoning code was written, the average DC household had far more people than today. Families had more kids, senior citizens more often lived with adult children, and more young and/or single people lived in group homes and boarding houses than now.

Therefore, fewer people live in DC's existing houses than they did at the time. Allowing accessory dwellings is a way to let those buildings serve their historic population levels in the modern day. An accessory dwelling is a separate legal unit either in the same building as a larger, main residence or in an accessory building like a garage or carriage house.

Row house neighborhoods like Capitol Hill, Columbia Heights, and Bloomingdale already allow these units because they are R-4 districts, which allow 2 apartments per building. But in the few R-3 row house neighborhoods, like Georgetown, the northern half of Petworth, Anacostia, and a few small others, these units are illegal except in those unusual buildings which are completely detached, and then only with a "special exception" from the Board of Zoning Adjustment.

Low and moderate residential zones as of 2008.

There are many neighborhoods with semi-detached houses, where houses are connected in pairs (the orange areas in the above graphic), and accessory dwellings are also illegal in these buildings. Fully detached single-family homes (the yellow areas) can have accessory dwellings, but only by special exception (except to create housing for domestic employees in the 2nd story of a garage), and only in a main building, not a standalone garage or carriage house.

This is bad policy. These houses used to hold more people. Today, many owners are empty nesters who used to have kids in the house but no longer do. Retirees on fixed incomes find it harder to afford to keep up their homes. The simple solution is to let people rent out separate units to get some extra income, or even live in those small units and rent out the main house.

OP proposes a policy change to let people create accessory dwellings by right in the detached and semi-detached residential areas. In the R-3 row house areas, owners could create them as well, but would still need special exceptions.

This is a good change, but there's no reason to impose such burdens just on people in these row house districts, especially when only slightly denser row house districts allow far more by right. OP should amend its proposal to permit accessory dwellings by right in R-3 zones (which will be called R-14 in the new code) as well as in lower density ones.

Corner stores in residential areas

Georgetown. Photo by M.V. Jantzen on Flickr.

A big part of historic development patterns was the local corner stores selling many of the necessities of life. Far more Americans could walk a short distance to do their daily shopping than today. Those days aren't coming back, because malls and online shopping can be quite convenient, but there's still enormous value in having some local options.

The local shops of today might be different than those of the past, like yoga studios rather than general stores, but the principle remains. Under current zoning, however, no commercial use can locate in a residential zone.

OP's proposal would allow some limited retail in residential areas, but with a great number of restrictions:

• Only "Arts Design and Creation" (arts studio, furtniture making, radio broadcast station), "Food and Alcohol Service" (deli, ice cream parlor), "Retail" (drugstore, grocery, jewelry store, but not auto shop or firearm sales), and "Service" (bank, travel agency, tailor, but not daycare, animal boarding, health clinic, or sexually based business) uses are allowed.
  
• They can't be in any building within 500 feet of a commercial or mixed-use zone, so this doesn't let existing retail corridors expand (though, arguably, some of that might be a good idea).
  
• There can't be more than 3 other arts, retail or service uses within 500 feet, or more than 1 other food establishment, to prevent too much of a concentration of these non-residential uses in one area.
  
• It can't be above the ground floor of any building, except for artist live-work spaces. This prevents a building from becoming entirely commercial.
  
• It can't be larger than 2,000 square feet.
  
• It can't be open after 7 pm or before 8 am.
  
• There can't be more than 4 employees at the business at any time.
  
• It can't have more than 1 sign, a lighted side, or a sign sticking out from the building.
  
• All of the trash and materials have to be stored inside; there can't be a dumpster, for instance.
  
• Any alcohol sold has to be for consuming elsewhere, not at the business, and can't take up more than 15% of the business's floor area. That means a small grocery could offer some beer and wine, but there can't be a wine bar or liquor store.
  
• Food sales can't involve cooking food on-site, but reheating pre-cooked food is okay. Grease traps (a part of kitchens that do frying or other cooking with grease) aren't allowed.
  
• There can't be dry cleaning chemicals, so a dry cleaner in a residential district has to be the kind that sends its clothes out to be cleaned rather than doing the work in the building.

Despite these regulations, a number of people are nervous about allowing any commercial use in a residential area. They understandably worry about noise, traffic, and other effects of commercial activity. OP seems to have tried to set rules that cut off the problematic impacts, like late night activity.

Maybe there need to be additional restrictions, or maybe some of the proposed uses are just too risky for neighbors to be comfortable. If so, we should amend this section rather than scrap it entirely.

Minimum parking requirements

Dupont Circle. Image from CSG.

Few zoning rules have done more to harm urban neighborhoods than parking requirements. The view in the 1950s was that since everyone would drive everywhere all the time in The Future, all buildings need to have lots of space for cars.

It turned out, however, that many of the parking requirements were far too high, forcing buildings to dedicate precious space to parking lots. That makes construction more expensive and creates gaping holes in the urban fabric. It also pushes architects to design buildings around cars rather than people, making them less pedestrian-friendly and forcing residents to drive more and walk less.

In the low- and moderate-density residential areas covered by the zoning rules OP just released, buildings of 9 or fewer units don't have to build any parking. That's great, but many buildings still do. Nobody can build larger residential buildings in these zones, but existing ones become nonconforming.

All non-residential uses in these districts also have to build parking. That includes churches, schools, daycares, rec centers, chanceries, and retail. These are the very kinds of buildings that shouldn't be car-oriented in residential neighborhoods. A daycare in a residential area ought to be serving the neighbors, not attracting people from far away. If it has no parking, that's more likely.

Many neighborhoods have fought with churches which want to tear down historic row houses just to create parking lots for parishioners who don't live in the city. Minimum parking requirements only exacerbate this problem instead of solving it. Neighbors have fought with embassies about converting grassy yards to parking lots. Why make this mandatory in the zoning code?

The rationale for these requirements is that curbside space is limited, and neighbors don't want the patrons of these other uses to take up curbside parking. But the proper way to solve this problem is by pricing or restricting curbside parking, not to force such buildings to devote a lot of their space to parking which makes traffic even worse. If DCPS builds a new school in a residential neighborhood, building less parking, not more, lets kids have more space to play and encourages as many teachers as possible to take the train or bus.

The higher-density residential, mixed-use, and other areas of the city will distinguish between transit-oriented areas, near Metro, high-frequency bus or streetcar lines, and areas without good transit access. While it's probably unnecessary to require it in zoning, there's some argument that a store in a commercial area far from transit might need some parking.

But these parking minimums for non-residential uses in low- and moderate-density residential areas even will apply right next door to a Metro stop. A potential school just a block or two from Takoma, Potomac Ave, or Deanwood Metro will nonetheless need to build considerable parking. That's wrong.

Alley lots

Blagden Alley. Photo by thisisbossi on Flickr.

Residences in alleys are a big part of DC's history. African-Americans came to live in many DC alleys after the Civil War, and a number of alley residences remain. While the ones in the late 19th Century weren't the most sanitary or well-built, there's no reason modern ones can't be perfectly safe and habitable.

Current rules allow alley dwellings as long as the alley lot is 400 square feet or greater, it has adequate plumbing and so on, and the alleys serving it are particularly wide, at least 30 feet. The new code removes the 30-foot alley rule, but any alley unit will still have to get a special exception and satisfy DC agencies on fire safety, traffic, waste and more.

If the fire department doesn't think it can put out a fire in an alley dwelling, it shouldn't go in, but if one satisfies them, DDOT, DPW and the others, an arbitrary alley width shouldn't be the obstacle.

Example Green Area Ratio for a property.

Green Area Ratio

A 21st-century change creates a new "Green Area Ratio" for large buildings. Projects which have a GAR requirement must include a certain as a percentage of the lot area. Grassy space, green roofs, water features, trees, and other sustainability elements each give a certain number of points based on their size, and the sum of all of those must equal a set fraction of the lot's size.

Parking lots, in particular, also have landscaping requirements, mandating a certain number and size of trees and grassy areas to ensure that parking lots have shade, don't form urban heat islands, and can handle some stormwater runoff.

This version is still just a draft. OP will make changes from comments by residents including a citizen task force, hold more public meetings, make more changes, and finally move to formal public hearings before the Zoning Commission. You can send OP your comments here.

Opponents of these changes are organizing groups to attend tomorrow's oversight hearing, which starts at 10 am. If you want to speak, email aphelps@dccouncil.us to sign up, or you can watch the fireworks online.

History

The physical evolution of Blagden Alley-Naylor Court

by Daniel Nairn   •   March 29, 2010 10:25 am

Blagden Alley-Naylor Court is a designated historic district in the Shaw neighborhood, contained between O and M Streets and 9th and 10th Streets. What makes these blocks significant are the alleys that remain almost perfectly intact in their original 1865 alignment.

Many homes were built on alleys throughout the city in the late 19th century, particularly to house an influx of African American residents. Living conditions were difficult, and most of the alleys had been cleared of residential use before the city's 1934 Alley Dwelling Elimination Act.

Using historic survey maps, I've reconstructed the blocks around Blagden Alley-Naylor Court to observe how the alleys were formed and used. Click on any of the images to see in full size.

The 1861 model is based off of the Boschke survey, carried out between 1857 and 1859. This is probably how the blocks looked immediately before the alleys were installed. Some of the structures were built right up against the street frontage, but many more were simply scattered haphazardly in the interior. Since the blocks of the L'Enfant plan are quite large, measuring roughly 500x500 feet, more access was obviously needed to allow for orderly development. As far as I can tell, none of these buildings are currently in existence, at least not in any way resembling their original form.

The 1888 model is based off of Sanborn fire insurance maps. By this point, the blocks are just being fully built out. Many residential row houses have been completed on the outside, including the Victorian home on M Street where Blanche K. Bruce, the first African American senator, lived. 9th street was emerging as the commercial corridor, but N street had a bakery and other shops. Many of the small tenant homes were already completed on the alleys, especially in the southern block around Blagden Alley. Stables were spaced throughout, with the major livery housed on Naylor alley.

This is a closer look at the shape of the alleys themselves (north is now up). Blagden Alley was formed in an H shape with a central vertical axis, a design that was latter maligned as a "blind alley" for its tendency to attract crime. The Naylor Court block is formed completely differently with a strong east-west axis. At this point each of the alleys in this block had different names, but all of the others have since been dropped.

Much has changed by 1928. The first five or six story apartment buildings have been constructed, particularly the Atlantic and Henrietta apartments on N Street. The effects of the transition to automobiles is obvious. A large number of the residential units on the alleys now serve as garages for the homes fronting the outside streets, with a 21 car parking garage and gas station located just off of 9th street. There is some industry, mostly auto body shops, in the interior of the blocks. The first floor of the old livery is used by DC street cleaning, but the second floor still functions as a stable. North Presbyterian Church had been replaced by Salem Baptist Church in 1925.

Today the blocks look much the same, with the exception of a number of gaps in the urban fabric. These lots are either currently vacant or serve as parking lots. Some buildings on the internal alleys have been re-purposed for commercial or office use, something that was not common in the earlier days. The old livery became the host of the DC city archives in 1988, but the buildings labeled industrial are actually still vacant as far as I can tell. All of the brick alleys retain their original shape.

Development

More WalkingTown tomorrow

by David Alpert   •   September 20, 2008 3:30 pm

[Autoposted while I'm in France Gander]

Blagden Alley/Naylor Court tour last spring. Photo by rockcreek on Flickr.

Did you go on any WalkingTown DC tours? How did they go? Did development around the Metro station come up in the Brookland tour? Post your summaries, revelations, links to photos, etc. in the comments.

There are more exciting tours tomorrow. Here's the schedule and my graphical version.

Here's what looks like it might be interesting. Again, I've never attended any of these tours, so don't take my word for it, but I'd try to hit some of these if I could:

Shaw: Where DC Comes Together: This tour is two parts. The first, from 10 am-12:30 pm, covers the historic houses of Shaw (meeting at 7th and Mount Vernon Pl NW). The second, from 1-2:30 pm (meeting at 7th and R NW) visits the artistic and cultural landmarks of the neighborhood.

H Street Alley Exploration: This is another tour by Richard Layman and Frozen Tropics. Visit alley dwellings including the insides of two occupied ones along the H Street area. 10 am-1 pm, New York Ave Metro (outside M Street exit).

East Dupont - Home to Gay and Lesbian Activism, Community Organizations, and Literary History: I live on the edge of this area, so if I weren't in France, I'd want to learn more about the history of the area which has so closely intertwined with the gay community for many decades. 1-2:30 pm, meet at 2335 18th St NW (near Belmont Rd in Adams Morgan).

If This Street Could Talk: Eighth Street, SE from 1801 to 2008: "This tour will recount the legends, gossip, and recorded history of the first commercial corridor of the Federal City." There are many Capitol Hill tours it's hard to know which is the best, but this one looks particularly interesting. 1-3 pm, outside Eastern Market Metro. If you're more into food, there's Capitol Hill and the Landmark Eastern Market, focusing more on the Eastern Market food market. That one is 10-11:30 am and again at 1:30-3:30 pm, also at the Eastern Market station.

Sumner School and Its Lost Neighborhood: Like Federal Center Southwest, the now-downtown area northwest of the White House was once much different than it is today. This tour talks about the neighborhood with a specific focus on the old schools of the area. 1-3 pm at Charles Sumner School Museum, 17th and M.

Bicycling

WalkingTown tomorrow

by David Alpert   •   September 19, 2008 2:00 pm

This weekend is WalkingTown DC, full of free walking (and biking) tours all across the city.

Here are some of the tours that catch my eye. Except for the Florida Market one, I haven't been on them, so I can't vouch for them. Still, it's hard to go wrong with a WalkingTown tour.

Explore Florida Market: I went on this tour last winter, hosted by Richard Layman and Frozen Tropics. It's a glimpse of a side of DC most people never see. You tour DC's largest functioning wholesale food market and see the stores that also sell retail, where you can buy food items just like the restaurants do. It's also facing substantial development pressure. Will new mixed-use development be able to coexist with a working wholesale market? 9-11 am at New York Ave Metro (outside Florida Ave exit).

After you finish, you're right near the start of the Gallaudet University Campus Tour, 11 am-noon at the Gallaudet Visitor's Center lobby (8th St Street and Florida Ave, NE). The tour is repeated from 2-3 pm.

The Secrets of Federal Center SW: This area used to be much different than the monolithic concrete office buildings of today. Some of the history remains. 10am-noon or 1-3 pm at Smithsonian Metro (outside Independence Ave exit).

Blagden Alley and Naylor Court: Alley Life in DC, 1850s to the Present: After the Civil War, freed slaves moved to DC and settled in the back alleys of black neighborhoods. Most of the buildings they lived in were never very solid, and are gone, but a few residential alleys remain to this day. Noon-2 pm at the southeast corner of 9th and N, NW (near Mt. Vernon Square Metro).

Neighborhoods you may not have been to: DC is more than Dupont, Adams Morgan, and Capitol Hill. Each neighborhood has unique history, great architecture, and its own community. If I were around (and had enough time) I'd check out Eckington: Washington's Urban Oasis, 1-2:30 pm at New York Ave Metro (Florida Ave exit); History of Brookland, many times throughout the day at St. Anthony’s School cafeteria, 3400 12th St, NE; and Hillcrest and East Washington Heights, 2-4 pm at Hillcrest Recreation Center, Camden and 32nd Streetss, SE.

Public Spaces

Fall WalkingTown DC visual schedule

by David Alpert   •   September 5, 2008 10:50 am

September 20 and 21 (two weeks from now) is the fall WalkingTown DC, a weekend chock-full of free walking tours of neighborhoods, alleys, cemeteries, gardens and more around DC. This spring, I made a visual sechedule to help people more easily visualize the possibilities.

Here, for your walking pleasure, is this fall's:

Click to enlarge (PDF).

Development

Scrutiny and liberty in zoning

by David Alpert   •   May 13, 2008 6:42 pm

At last week's Low & Moderate Density zoning review meeting, the group discussed what aspects of the residential zoning code don't work well. Many mapped to real problems with the zoning code, like the fact that numerous neighborhoods are illegal to build under the current zoning because most of the current buildings are closer to the lot lines than the rules allow. As I've argued in the context of parking, we should write rules that, at the very least, allow the type of buildings that exist today.

Preventing this kind of building is a
reasonable basis for a zoning law.

But other issues crossed a line into busybody-ism, regulating behavior rather than buildings. For example, we discussed whether to limit the number of families allowed in a building. Current zoning in low-density areas also specifies the buildings as being single-family. Should we continue that?

I believe that it's not the business of zoning to decide whether people are related to each other or not. Families 50 years ago were much larger, and a single-family home may have housed 6-8 people. Today, that's more likely 2-4, meaning unless we allow two families per building, we're forcing a lower population than previously lived in the neighborhood.

Late in the meeting, a few members of the Office of Planning said something that frightened me. When discussing R-5-B zones, which allow a wide range of building types, the presentation (slide 30 here) listed as a problem that the zone is "open-ended" and has "no predictability". One of the Planning staff opined that "some regulation is better is no regulation."

I beg to differ. While planning is a valuable tool, we must resist the urge to plan everything. Not regulating something should be our default position. (Arguing this in the meeting, I even found myself sounding like anti-planning zealots like Randal O'Toole!) Where I part ways with the libertarians, however, is that regulations are reasonable when they are solving a specific and valid problem. Simply putting in zoning to ensure "predictability," however, is not solving a specific or valid problem.

What's the difference between a good regulation and a bad one? Let's look at the standards courts use to declare laws constitutional or unconstitutional. In the "strict scrutiny" form of review, a law must satisfy three requirements:

• It must fulfill a compelling governmental interest
  
• It must be narrowly tailored to accomplish the goal, meaning it should avoid affecting other behavior outside the compelling interest
  
• It must use the least restrictive means possible

A good example is underground development. At the meeting, Anne Lewis, architect and former member of the HPRB, brought up a problem of people building structures underneath their backyards, like a basement rec room that is larger than the rest of the building. The current zoning rules allow this. Should we change them to prohibit it?

Lewis mentioned several problems that can arise from such structures. They prevent any trees from growing, could create drainage issues, and might affect surrounding property owners' foundations. But under the scrutiny principles, banning such structures outright doesn't fly. Having trees, ensuring drainage, and protecting neighbors' foundations are legitimate interests, but we could instead narrowly tailor the rules to mandate that such development must leave enough soil for a certain size of tree, must be designed with adequate drainage, and must contain support structures to protect surrounding foundations. We can create rules to solve the specific problems without banning the practice entirely. Simply saying "well, they should be able to live without the rec room," as another person did in the meeting, isn't a good enough reason.

Alley dwellings represent another example. Right now, they are only permitted on alleys of over 30 feet. The only rational reason I have heard for banning them is that fire trucks can't reach them. But fire trucks are only about 12 feet wide. We should allow alley units as long as they are reachable by fire trucks, narrowly tailoring the restriction to only prohibit units that violate the actual reason for the rule.

Again, I'm not suggesting courts should strike down most of our zoning laws under strict scrutiny principles. In fact, I'm a supporter of leaving most decisions to the political process instead of to judges, except in extremely important areas like civil rights. But whether we're talking about parking minimums, accessory dwellings, underground structures, height limits, blocking windows in ground-floor retail, or historic preservation, it's helpful to keep these principles in mind.

Zoning rules are absolutely appropriate to solve these problems. But we must take care to regulate only in order to address the specific issues, not simply for the sake of doing it or to ban anything that's unusual. If we over-regulate, then we're giving credibility everything the absolutists say about planning and planners.

Development

Multi-family conversions, alley and accessory dwellings under attack

by David Alpert   •   April 29, 2008 9:40 am

Mark your calendars for next Monday, May 5th, 6:30 pm. Smart Growth needs you.

Alley dwelling in Treto Way NW.

May 5th is the next meeting of the Low & Moderate Density zoning meeting. The attitudes of the citizens who attend this group will determine whether DC's zoning code makes it easier or harder for existing buildings to house more people.

Should it stay legal for property owners to add rentable units in their basements? Should we limit the number of condos one can make out of an existing building? Should alley dwellings be legal? Last week's Historic Structures meeting comprised many people who want to restrict most of this.

Under the rubric of historic preservation, they pushed for rules which would essentially prevent new residents from coming into old neighborhoods. And while we should preserve worthy buildings including the townhouses in our historic neighborhoods, increasing unit density without much changing the buildings is an important way to allow people to live in our city at reasonable prices.

There weren't very many people fighting for the don't-let-anything-ever-change position. But there were almost no people fighting for an alternative viewpoint either. These meetings aren't large—about 20 people total at the last one, with maybe five doing most of the talking. But these meetings are far from useless. If most of the people in the group push for a particular change, then the Office of Planning can't ignore the consensus.

For example, right now someone can convert their townhouse in an R-4 district (like Capitol Hill or Mount Pleasant) into a multi-family building as long as they have a 2700-square-foot lot and each unit is at least 900. But the group had been pushing to limit this to bigger buildings and fewer units in historic districts, which would restrict the people that can move into a neighborhood. In their draft recommendations, the Office of Planning folks suggested that the issue be referred to the Low & Moderate Density working group to come up with a city-wide rule instead of one rule for historic areas. Since this rule doesn't have anything to do with changing the building itself, it's hard to see how restricting it would "change the character of the historic district" as some argued, unless having more and often younger people in your neighborhood is an adverse impact to your neighborhood character.

Despite OP's recommendation, almost everyone in the room supported changing the rule to allow only two units per building. I was the only one to speak against it, and without my opposition, OP would have been forced to put the rule in. Instead, it got pushed off to the Low & Moderate Density group.

But the same people are going to be at the Low & Moderate Density group too. When that group considers whether to relax the rules against alley apartments, we need to be there to support them. When the group considers how many condos one can make out of an existing building, we need to keep them from excessively restricting the number. Even five people at that meeting would tip the balance. I hope you will come.

Low and Moderate Density working group
Monday, May 5th
6:30-8:30 pm
441 4th St (One Judiciary Square)
South Lobby, 11th Floor

Development

Pop the top or pack 'em in the back?

by David Alpert   •   April 23, 2008 7:05 pm

Few people argue with building in undeveloped areas like Near Southeast, with empty lots and where the few existing residents want more neighbors. But there are few of these sites. Most undeveloped land is in or next to an existing neighborhood. Where do we put housing?

Is it better to build new tall buildings near low-density neighborhoods, as has been proposed for the Armed Forces Retirement Home? Should two-story row houses grow to three, as often happens in non-historically designated neighborhoods like Bloomingdale or Petworth where the zoning allows it? Or should we fit more people in between the current housing, in alley dwellings?

In the recent discussion about inclusionary zoning, several people brought up alley dwellings. DC has a rich history of people living in alleys, but current zoning and codes don't allow them. Should we bring them back? Some people in the Low and Moderate Density zoning working group brought it up as a possible alternative to pop-ups. Some have suggested giving more local control, at the neighborhood or even block level, over certain zoning decisions. Should we let each block pick—allow taller new buildings on commercial streets, continue allowing pop-ups, or legalize alley units?

Alley dwellings have drawbacks, too. Right now, we use alleys for parking and loading. But when people live in the alleys, they can create pressure to build garages and loading areas right on the street to avoid impacting the alleys, like on the 14th and U project. Access for fire trucks can be a problem. What other issues do alley dwellings bring up? Would you prefer them to taller buildings in your neighborhood?