Posts about Corner Stores

The commenters who weren't pleased with the rule were not opposed to the corner stores, but rather felt that limiting their hours to closing by 7 pm is too restrictive. One Twitter response linked to a Far Side cartoon which showed a new type of retail, the "inconvenience store," with all products on shelves too high to reach.

Yet another expressed surprise that corner stores in residential zones were illegal at all in the District; that comment's author hadn't realized that, perhaps because of their prevalence in historic neighborhoods like Georgetown.

Read these comments, and you would get the impression that we need substantially fewer zoning regulations. Read a few of the postings on some neighborhood listservs, and you might conclude that each individual change in the zoning code will bring mass destruction upon the neighborhoods of the District.

A blog's commenters are not fully representative of the residents of DC. Nor is a neighborhood listserv, nor the citizen Task Force advising on the rewrite, and certainly not the witness list at today's hearing. All, however, provide insight into one of many facets of the DC population and their views.

Decisions about the zoning rewrite should factor in input from as many residents as possible, even—or especially—those who can't attend an evening community meeting or a council hearing, and even those who don't read blogs and neighborhood listservs.

This zoning code will move DC forward in many ways. Or, in truth, it will actually move DC backward, but in a good way. The biggest changes in this zoning code actually return DC to policies it had before 1958, when our most treasured neighborhoods, like Capitol Hill, Georgetown, or Petworth grew into the form they have today.

Corner stores, garage apartments, alley dwellings, and buildings not surrounded by large parking lots are all characteristics of DC's most historic neighborhoods, which at a stroke the 1958 code made illegal. This code reverses that, and adds some 21st century touches like the Green Area Ratio.

However, I do think many elements of the current draft proposal are indeed "too timid."

• The minimum parking requirements for nonresidential uses in residential zones, even low-density ones right near transit, are potentially quite destructive to our urban fabric as they have been for over 50 years. In some areas, we need maximums instead, an approach which OP recently dropped from the draft.

• The "corner store" rules should apply to more areas, even lower density zones and areas somewhat near commercial zones; should include performing arts uses like small theaters; and should include a path for the BZA to grant exceptions acceptable to neighbors and local leaders.

  I do think many of the restrictions in the draft are appropriate, and disagree with Yglesias on the specific one (cooking of food and grease traps) he was objecting to. OP has tried hard to balance stakeholder interests on a very contentious issue.

• The right to add an accessory dwelling to one's home, proposed for the lowest density zones and already possible for high density ones, should also apply to the moderate density "R3" row house zones.

I understand that in at least some cases, OP officials have met privately with various opponents of the zoning rewrite, and made specific changes to exempt some zones from some changes in an attempt to appease those opponents.

I have no objection to OP meeting with anyone who wishes to talk with them, but I would prefer to see OP propose a zoning rewrite which they believe is the best policy for the District and in harmony with the Comprehensive Plan, regardless of who may or may not oppose it. After all, we have hardly yet heard the views of most DC residents on these changes.

This hearing, of course, is about the performance of the Office of Planning, not the merits of the zoning code. I believe the staff on this project have handled its great complexity with aplomb, and if I have any complaint about the agency's performance, it only comes if and when they have felt restrained from putting forth the zoning code they believe to be right. Let them do so, and then let the Zoning Commission hear from residents and judge the merit of each proposal.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Parking Minimums

P.2.1 has the meat of things, the minimum requirements. Only the zones listed would have minimums under this draft; everything else would not, which is an enormous improvement from the current rules which mandate a minimum for everything. I think that there should be no minimums at all—if a developer feels parking is necessary, they'll build it, and if they don't, then we shouldn't require it.

The R-1 and R-2 minimums supposedly came from the Task Force which wanted to preserve ample parking in low-density areas. This will basically have the impact of impeding walkable corner stores, because any store will need parking. Likewise, keeping the requirement in C-2s (the neighborhood retail corridors) will ensure that policy continues to make driving an appealing alternative. As long as these requirements exist, these corridors won't grow into pedestrian-oriented centers.

I'm particularly disappointed in the rule that any multi-unit residential building requires 1 space per 3 units if it is within 400 feet of a low or moderate density residential zone. Since moderate density goes all the way up to R-5-B, which encompasses dense row house neighborhoods like Dupont Circle and Logan Circle, and since 400 feet is an entire block or more, the vast majority of the city would be subject to this rule. Dupont, for instance, has many row houses that have been converted to 3 or 4 apartments but have no parking, and the 4-apartment houses would require two spaces. My current building has 13 units and no parking, and would require 7 spaces. These requirements would maintain the status quo that row house neighborhoods could not be rebuilt as they are today unless they are designated "transit-oriented districts" (see below).

Still, many parking requirements are gone. Retail developments in high density areas no longer require parking. Same for hotels and offices outside residential districts. And in some of the highest density residential districts that aren't near row houses, even apartment buildings won't require parking.

Transit-Oriented Minimums

One factor in the Nelson\Nygaard report and from the working group discussions didn't make it into the draft rules: transit-oriented districts. The group agreed that if a district is designated as transit-oriented, then no minimums should apply at all. This could potentially relieve many of my objections, but that depends on two factors: first, that the right districts are designated as transit-oriented, and second, that the designation does indeed eliminate minimums. Right now, there's nothing in the regulations that says this, which means that in the future, whatever law might be passed to designate districts would also bring out many people arguing to keep some minimums. And I'm not confident in the fortitude, or even the desire, of the Council to entirely eliminate minimums in this case.

I've encouraged the Office of Planning to include language in these rules that clarifies no minimums for transit-oriented districts. With that, the only debate would be around which are designated. Georgetown might not be, meaning it would keep too-high minimums. But areas like Dupont Circle and U Street almost surely would. Then, the question would become whether to designate areas served by future streetcars, like H Street; buses but not Metro, like Georgetown or Logan Circle; or farther-out areas that ought to become transit-oriented in the future, like Benning Road or Fort Totten.

Parking Maximums

The draft language calls for parking maximums, but doesn't specify what they are. This means that the Task Force or the Zoning Commission will have to specify these, and who knows what they will decide. The same transit-oriented objection applies as well—if an area becomes designated transit-oriented, will maximums start to apply? The working group agreed they would, but this is just going to become a future political fight.

Parking Exemptions

The too-high (but still a big improvement) minimums are offset by some important exemptions in addition to the theoretical TOD rules:

Shared parking. The draft allows "shared parking," where two non-residential uses, like a bar and an office building, could get an exemption from parking requirements by signing an agreement that allows the office to use most of the parking in the daytime and the bar to use it at night. Today, most jurisdictions with minimum parking have most of the parking unused most of the time since they are planning for peak demand even when the peaks happen at different times of day.

Still, this also requires a study to show "no negative impacts," which means that the sharing agreement has to completely satisfy all of the parking demand that would be satisfied with entirely separate parking, and "the uses have different time and day requirements," which makes sense as long as "different" doesn't mean "completely different": would the office building have to be completely closed by the time the bar opens? What about the office sharing with a store that gets most of its business at night, meaning it needs little parking during the day, but which is open all day? Does that count as "different"?

In-lieu fees. A development can automatically get out of 50% of its requirements as long as it pays a fee to a DDOT transportation fund to offset the loss of parking. This money could become a significant source of revenue to enhance the non-driving experience in the city, as the performance parking revenue should be in Columbia Heights and the Ballpark district.

Parking Lot Design

The new rules also include some key improvements to the way parking lots are designed and sited:

Location. Under the draft rules, parking lots cannot be located between the building and the street. On a building that's not a corner lot, the parking has to go behind the building; it can no longer go on the side. And on a corner lot, it has to go on the side that's behind the building when you are facing the building from the larger of the two streets. This is a great improvement.

Allowing mechanical parking. Mechanical garages are used in many places around the world to fit more parking into a smaller space by having machines store and retrieve the cars. DC's current regulations mostly forbid this; the draft rules allow it.

Trees and landscaping. Parking lots that are just a sea of pavement are terrible for the environment and for aesthetics. They are impermeable to rainwater, so rainfall sweeps dirt into the rivers and drinking water (the stormwater runoff problem). Sunlight heats up the pavement creating "heat islands" that add to air pollution and air conditioning costs. The draft regulations have two options for requiring landscaping, including "canopy trees" which provide shade and dissipate the sun's rays.

Bike Parking

Coming up in a future post: the draft bike parking requirements.