Posts about Planning

Global Solutions President and CEO Dr. Maya Rockeymore, speaking at a panel after the screening, responded to the stark numbers presented in the film. In Baltimore, residents of the Inner Harbor have a life expectancy of 62 years while residents of North Baltimore have a life expectancy of 82 years. "Context controls choice," she said. People need access to parks, transit, safe walking and bicycle routes, and full-service grocery stores to even have the choice to be healthy.

Low-income communities and communities of color have higher rates of obesity and chronic disease. The physical neighborhood of the Inner Harbor contributes to the health disparity in life expectancy. While designed as a walkable community, the neighborhood suffers from vacant houses, streets in need of maintenance and lack of destinations to meet basic needs such as a grocery store. When the physical environment deteriorates, safety becomes an additional issue in neighborhoods.

In the United States, 66% of adults are overweight or obese and nearly 20% of children are obese. Being overweight or obese increases the risk of chronic diseases such as hypertension, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, and asthma in both adults and children.

Pamela Creekmur, the Acting Health Officer and Director of the Prince George's County Health Department, explained that Prince George's obesity and physical inactivity rates are higher than other jurisdictions in the greater Washington region. Though Prince George's faces a bigger challenge, all the region's communities have seen a rise in obesity rates, which range between 18 to 34 percent for adults throughout the region.

Part of the cause of this obesity epidemic is physical inactivity. There has been a 300 percent increase in driving to work since 1960. As the documentary explains, in 1969 almost 50 percent of kids walked or biked to school while today only 13 percent of kids do the same.

The lack of exercise by children extends beyond just commuting to and from school. The documentary shows a mom who takes her children to a parking lot because it is the only open space they have to play. This environment isn't hospitable to the kind of physical activity a good park encourages.

Whether it's questions of commuting or questions of parks, transportation and planning professionals make decisions that affect travel and open spaces every day. These decisions need to be viewed as public health decisions.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the federal agency charged with health promotion and disease prevention, agrees. It has recognized that transportation policy, street-scale improvements, and access to places suitable for physical activity matter to our health. Among the CDC's recommendations is to participate in Safe Routes to School initiatives and adopt Complete Streets policies.

The Guide to Community Prevention Services, written by an independent group of public health and prevention professionals appointed by the CDC director, outlines several more environmental and policy approaches to provide opportunities for people to be physically active. These include the connectivity of sidewalks and streets, providing places for physical activity such as trails, and street-scale improvement such as street lighting and traffic calming. Such urban design features have been shown to improve some aspect of physical activity by 35 percent, not to mention the accompanying benefits of reduced crime and stress.

Of course, these improvements do not come overnight. After the screening, an elected official and audience members noted that such changes are not easy. After all, parks do not generate tax dollars.

But that does not mean that our environments must stagnate while our health deteriorates. Local communities can bring about change even when the federal government or state government seems stuck. Port Towns Youth Council President Erick Vargas talked about how his group took matters into their own hands by doing an audit of the streets and reporting the problems.

Prince George's County is taking action through a partnership of towns within the county. The Port Towns Community Health Partnership has a policy development team focused specifically on the built environment and nutrition policy to improve options for active living and healthy eating.

The group, which includes the towns of Bladensburg, Colmar Manor, Cottage City, and Edmonston, included a community health and wellness section in the Port Towns sector plan with the goals of providing safe places to walk and exercise and access to nutritious foods. The group is following through on sector plan recommendations to formalize a wellness opportunity zone as part of the zoning code. This would include changes in the built environment, access to healthier foods, and improved environmental stewardship.

Across the Potomac, the Fairfax County Health Department established the Partnership for a Healthier Fairfax, a group of community members and organizations concerned with public health. The Partnership created an environment and infrastructure strategic issues team as one of five teams who will make recommendations for improving health in Fairfax County. The first focus is a on local policy. The team is doing a scan of policies, including transportation and land use, that could be modified to promote a healthier and safer physical environment.

In the Washington region, better transportation and planning decisions can improve our health by increasing our access to efficient transit and space to run, bike, and play. We also create a healthier context for our environment—and as Dr. Rockeymore said, context controls choice. Throughout the region, local groups are working to give more of their neighbors the choice to live healthier lives.

In an interview with Bethesda Magazine, Stanley said he'd "never planned on doing suburbs" before coming here. But he took the county's history of progressive planning, going back to the On Wedges & Corridors plan in 1964, and crafted a vision to use its transit corridors and aging commercial centers to accommodate projected population growth.

Allow denser development in the right places, he argued, and raise tax revenues that can pay for public amenities while preserving the suburban neighborhoods so many people like. It's an approach that suburbs around the country are taking, from Overland Park, Kansas to Bellevue, Washington, and even right in our own backyard, in Arlington and Tysons Corner.

Over the past four years, I've watched Stanley speak to groups ranging from developers to senior citizens; participated in a blogger panel he organized; and reached out to him personally for advice. His ability to make good planning and design relevant to ordinary, politically uninvolved people is why I want to become a planner myself.

Stanley not only talks about the tax benefits of new development, but the potential to create cool places like downtown Silver Spring, where he and his wife lived. Silver Spring's food carts or the street life on Ellsworth Drive were frequently mentioned on his blog, which along with another blog run by planning staff gave residents an inside look at how the Planning Department worked.

The Planning Department also became more active in the community under Stanley's leadership. His "walkabouts" in various neighborhood allowed him meet with residents in an informal setting. In 2010, the agency held a speaker series where community leaders talked about issues affecting the county. A series of open houses are being held this month to educate residents about a rewrite of the zoning code that'll make it easier for anyone to understand.

It's this inclusive approach that has earned Stanley support for his initiatives, namely a plan for the redevelopment of White Flint, where the tallest building in Montgomery County recently opened. People who don't normally write their elected officials or place lawn signs in their yard were receptive to his vision of a dense, walkable town center, and with the help of a solid organizing campaign by the White Flint Partnership, they came out in support for it.

While working for Montgomery County Councilmember George Leventhal, I was responsible for answering correspondence about the White Flint plan. Of the roughly 700 e-mails we received, two-thirds were in support, while at the County Council's public hearings for the plan, supporters outnumbered opponents.

Stanley was a polarizing figure, earning the ire of civic associations and even people within his agency who didn't agree with him. Plans for additional development in the Great Seneca Science Corridor and Kensington were met with significant community opposition before eventually being approved.

Detractors claimed that he was "dismissive" of residents' concerns and didn't "value opposing opinions." And he occasionally made inappropriate comments, such as referring to an organization that disagreed with him as "rich, white women" that led to calls for him to resign.

Those who demanded Stanley's ouster may be satisfied to see him go, but the ship has already turned. Montgomery County was well on its way to becoming a taller, denser, more diverse place before he came and will continue to do so after he leaves. The question is whether we can find another planning director with the same passion and vision who can keep us moving forward.

If a locality rejected a project outright, local taxpayers would have to reimburse VDOT for any money it has spent, even if they've rejected it based on hard data, or if the locality never wanted the project in the first place.

Governor Bob McDonnell has until mid-April to either sign the bill into law or use his line-item veto authority. Local officials and groups such as the Virginia Municipal League and the Virginia Association of Counties are asking McDonnell to remove the provisions giving VDOT its new powers, as are smart growth advocates, and many local governments.

The Coalition for Smarter Growth (CSG) has an action alert for Virginia residents to ask local governments to challenge the bill, and to contact the governor directly.

Stewart Schwartz of CSG says, "VDOT is notorious for failing to consider a range of alternatives and community impacts, but can now punish local governments and local taxpayers for daring to offer alternative solutions or for recommending cancellation of ill-advised projects based on information about environmental or community impacts. In the end, the state will waste billions of dollars."

Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling, who cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass the bill, described the legislation as "a modest effort to ... improve the coordination of land use planning and transportation planning."

Critics might substitute "coercion" for "coordination," and "overreaching" for "modest." In editorials, the Roanoke Times observed that the bill "promotes ill will rather than harmony," and the Lynchburg News & Advance raised the specter of VDOT as a "mega-agency with vast powers over local governments." Both alluded to the bill's incompatibility with Governor McDonnell's professed attitude toward mandates.

The McDonnell administration's approach stands in contrast to a bipartisan 2007 law that required localities over a certain size to designate "urban development areas" (UDAs). These are specific areas where zoning would allow future growth and reduce pressure for more sprawl. The law called for siting UDAs near existing infrastructure that could handle the growth.

At the time, Republican Delegate Clay Athey promoted the concept as a cost-saving measure, since the state pays for roads to serve far-flung developments that come from poor local planning. The state would save money on roads, local governments would save on infrastructure and services, and residents would save on transportation.

The UDA rule enjoyed broad support from smart-growth proponents, fiscal conservatives, and the Kaine administration. But this March, Governor McDonnell signed legislation that makes UDAs optional and allows local voters to abolish them. He portrayed UDAs as "burdensome mandates on localities," despite the fact that the state paid to help 32 localities meet the law's requirements, and despite evidence that compact development saves money in many ways.

Why would the state weaken one bill that coordinated land use and transportation planning to the benefit of both state and local governments, only to replace it with another bill that forces coordination at the expense of local voices and priorities?

The reason may be less about coordination or cost, than a simple preference for highways. VDOT and the governor have been pushing contentious highway projects. Here are some examples:

• Charlottesville Bypass, widely opposed at the local level. VDOT has largely disregarded the better "Places29" alternative.
  
• Widening most of I-81 to 8 lanes at a long-term cost of $11.4 billion.
  
• The Coalfields Expressway in the far southwest, which could cost $2.1 to $4.2 billion.
  
• A new Potomac River crossing and Outer Beltway, which past Loudoun County Boards have opposed.
  
• Route 460. McDonnell replaced most of the Virginia Port Authority's Board of Commissioners to move the project forward, ignoring regional officials' requests to spend the money on bridge and tunnel bottlenecks.

Schwartz believes that Virginia's Secretary of Transportation and VDOT Chair, Sean Connaughton, "isn't interested in better land use at all, but in the ability to force controversial highway projects through communities. In the process, he is destroying the necessary coordination and discussion between local, regional, and state officials."

The governor should restore 2007's conservative, cost-saving approach to transportation

Unlike other states, Virginia does not allow its cities to mandate that developers replace every unit of affordable housing lost to redevelopment, or to require a fixed percentage of affordable units. But affordable housing is a priority for Alexandria, so the City Council and Planning Commission are working together with staff, developers, and residents to find innovative ways to provide it.

Over the course of the next year, the City Council should adopt a new Affordable Housing Master plan. We just completed a plan for senior services that specifically called for new, affordable retirement living options. Soon our public housing authority should complete its own master plan. And the city should finish work on the Beauregard small area plan. All of these will have a significant impact on the future of affordability in Alexandria.

The Beauregard planning study demonstrates the limits of our power. Without a new plan, current rentals, which are barely affordable to people earning under $50,000, would become luxury rentals or townhouses. Thousands of currently affordable units would vanish. The city may be able to gain a small number of units out of these conversions, but it would be limited. We can do better.

The proposed Beauregard plan saves about 700 units of affordable housing. The Council has asked that this number be raised and that we find a way to provide housing to a broader range of incomes, especially those earning under $40,000 per year.

To maximize the number of units saved, the city will need to create a more flexible approach to housing. We need to increase the contributions from developers and use those funds to preserve existing units whenever we can because it is often much less expensive to preserve an existing housing unit than to build a new one. This helps us spread the value further.

We need to ensure that the structure of developer contributions makes it easy to combine with private and non-profit money to build new mixed-income projects over the 30 years it will take for the Beauregard plan to get fully built. Over that time, over $90 million in payments could go towards affordable housing. The scale those funds creates an opportunity to attract other investment.

We need better incentives for developers to create and preserve affordable housing and mixed-use development. The city should look at every new development as a chance to add affordable housing.

Alexandria should update its home ownership and rental assistance programs, to bring them up to date with national best practices. The city should revisit its zoning to allow "granny flats," so that families can rent out affordable spaces in their home and give seniors and others living options. The city should also encourage housing on top of retail strips.

The master plan won't solve all of these issues. There isn't a silver bullet, and no one jurisdiction can solve this problem on its own. Alexandria also needs help from regional partners to build more rental housing. The federal government should also step up. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has been too silent on our national rental housing problems for too long.

Alexandria's problems are not unique. Rental rates are consuming more of people's monthly income than can be sustained all over the country. But hopefully, Alexandria's work in the coming months can provide a model for our region and state to follow.

The campaign against Stanley uses language more politic than Mrs. Crenca's, but the hostility to urbanism is the same. The county's Civic Federation, in its letter demanding Stanley's resignation, said that the county is "comprised of suburban communities, more densely developed transit centers, and rural areas." Aren't downtown Bethesda and Silver Spring, which have long since turned urban, part of the county too?

Councilmember Marc Elrich charges (in the article that triggered the controversy) that Stanley wants to "make roads so bad people only use transit." This is the language of the "war on cars" that we hear whenever motorists are asked to make the slightest concessions to pedestrians and bicyclists.

The county benefits from open debate over land use, planning, and transportation. Land use policies affect income groups differently. For example, limits on the supply of new housing are more popular among owners who bought long ago than among renters and those trying to save up a down payment.

Focusing on the substance of policy rather than personalities can bring the entire population into discussions that too often include only developers and long-time homeowners. This gives newer and less affluent members of the community a chance to challenge policies that put them at a disadvantage.

Despite the wishes of Stanley's critics, the county is already changing, and it will continue to evolve. The question is, how should the county adapt? Should we embrace demographic and cultural trends that allow us to build more livable communities, or should we stand firm against change until we are overwhelmed by it?

Rollin Stanley's resignation would slow the effort to plan for a better future. But it will not stop change itself.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

K Street at Union Station

Somewhere near Union Station, the H Street streetcar will shift north 2 blocks before continuing west along K Street into downtown. The adopted plan calls for the shift to take place on New Jersey Avenue, but it could be done on 1st Street NE instead.

The 1st Street alignment would provide more direct service through the heart of the emerging NoMa office district, and to the huge Greyhound bus station at the corner of K and 1st. The downside is this alignment would remove direct access to the New Jersey Avenue Walmart, which is sure to become a major destination.

Poplar Point and downtown Anacostia

Poplar Point could one day be the location of a large new mixed-use development. Unfortunately the location is isolated by I-295, and difficult to access by foot or transit. Meanwhile, the MLK Avenue alignment through downtown Anacostia is narrow, and proving difficult to work with. Adding tracks to Poplar Point would add a major new attraction and remove stress from a likely choke point.

Southwest Waterfront

Like Poplar Point, the Southwest Waterfront is primed for major redevelopment. The planned streetcar alignment follows Maine Avenue, but shifting it one block over to Water Street would put it closer to the action, for basically no additional cost. There is so much pavement in this area that it may be a location where a dedicated transit lane is possible. If that is the case, DDOT should put the streetcar wherever they can get the lane.

Buzzard Point

Diverting the M Street SW/SE streetcar to Potomac Avenue would more directly serve Nationals Park and much of the associated nearby development. Unfortunately, doing so would add a lot of travel time for other riders, since it would turn what is currently planned to be a direct 3-block trip along M Street into a lengthy 10-block crescent. Additionally, M Street is one of the few locations where a dedicated transit lane may be possible, so diverting from it would forfeit that possibility.

14th and 15th Streets

Shifting the streetcar from 14th to 15th through downtown DC would be easier to construct from an engineering perspective, and would put the streetcar on a busy tourist street close to the White House. The study does not discuss the implications of running a streetcar on the same street as a cycle track, but if they can both be accommodated it would certainly be an impressive sight.

7th/9th couplet

The adopted streetcar plan calls for both both north and southbound streetcars to use 7th Street south of Gallery Place. Shifting the southbound trains to 9th Street would mirror existing bus service, reduce impacts on congested 7th Street, and permit use of the 9th Street transit lane.

Washington Hospital Center

DDOT's streetcar plan calls for half the streetcars on one line to take Irving Street and the other half to take Michigan Avenue. Eliminating this split around the hospital campus and instead routing the streetcar through the campus, or along its southern edge, would save tens of millions of dollars and have no serious negative effect on service to the hospital or any future development at the McMillan Sand Filtration site.

It would take away convenient service from the Armed Forces Retirement Home and development the home plans at the edge of its property, but that may not happen for some time and the size is still in question.

Columbia/Harvard couplet

The adopted plan calls for bi-directional streetcar travel along one-way Columbia Road. Adding tracks to Harvard Street and operating one-way couplets through Columbia Heights would be similar to the way existing bus service uses Irving and Columbia as couplets, and would improve operations. It would be worth exploring mirroring bus service exactly and using Irving instead of Harvard for eastbound tracks, but doing so would require more complicated engineering and may therefore be more difficult.

South Dakota Avenue and Fort Lincoln

Rerouting the eastern end of the Rhode Island Avenue streetcar to turn south on South Dakota Avenue and terminate at Fort Lincoln would bring service to potential redevelopment areas along South Dakota Avenue, as well as provide a convenient location for a maintenance facility. However, this would add significant new length and expense to the line, and would make it more difficult to ever extend rail service into Maryland.

Silver Spring

The Georgia Avenue line would end at Takoma Metro rather than Silver Spring in order to keep the entire line within the District of Columbia. However, Silver Spring is a tremendously more compelling destination, with very high density and one of the region's most important transit transfer stations. Rerouting to Silver Spring would almost certainly be worth the cost, if Maryland is willing to participate as a partner.

Wisconsin Avenue

Wisconsin Avenue has repeatedly come up as a potentially strong streetcar corridor that was left out of the adopted plan. There is less opportunity along Wisconsin Avenue for substantial infill growth, which makes it a lower priority for streetcar service. However, if the system does expand significantly beyond its current scope, this would be a natural corridor.

Rosslyn

Curiously, the land use study does not consider the possibility of extending the Georgetown streetcar line across the Key Bridge into Rosslyn. Certainly such an extension would be compelling, for many of the same reasons as the Silver Spring extension. It could be that the cost or engineering challenges of extending rail to Rosslyn are prohibitive, but it seems odd to leave out any discussion of the possibility.

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

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.