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Tear down all of the old WWII housing in Anacostia and along Southern Ave., Alaska Ave. and Congress Heights (south of the old hospital and Alabama Ave.) and simply build green live/work spaces.
High end lofts and river view apartments.
Slap on a $450k price tag and watch as the engineers and lawyers from Loudoun head east to invest.
FYI, that report is funded and supported by major real estate developers in this area (i.e. Thomas Bozzuto-the DC high rise king).
Not surprisingly, they say we need more high rises. I wonder if they will present that to the DC City Council to demand zoning and regulatory changes that make it easier to build a lot more high rises.
Really? Needs??? I don't know DC once upon had 850K people in the 50s. Now granted some of those 850K were children
Household composition has changed radically since then -- living alone was almost unheard of in 1950, but today almost half of DC households are people living alone. In 1950, DC had 230K housing units; in 2011, it had 299K. Still, that's 70,000 units already, many of which I'd imagine were the result of houses being carved into smaller apartments. A lot more of that will continue to happen.
MWCOG, a government agency that coordinates certain aspects of metropolitan planning, forecasts an increase of 73,000 households between 2010 and 2040. CRA forecasts housing demand of 37-122K (midpoint: ~79,500) between 2010-2030, which is more ambitious but still not terribly far off the mark.
Quote:
Originally Posted by clb10
Tear down all of the old WWII housing in Anacostia and along Southern Ave., Alaska Ave. and Congress Heights (south of the old hospital and Alabama Ave.) and simply build green live/work spaces.
There's a lot of scope to redevelop, or infill, older apartment complexes, shopping centers, office buildings, etc. on both sides of the river.
For what it's worth, the DC Office of Planning's city comprehensive plan (see this presentation to MWCOG, starting on slide 18) thinks that the city can easily accommodate another 60,000 units within the existing city. I'm inclined to believe their targets for individual sites, having not seen all the plans that they have. However, I'm inclined to believe that slides 24-25 ("promoting infill" and "strategic redevelopment") are being too conservative. Toronto's comprehensive plan calls for half of its new housing growth to be in (DC Height Act compliant) mid-rise buildings along its "Avenues," and the same approach (seen here along 14th St.) could be applied to, say, Georgia or Rhode Island. The plan also doesn't seem to recognize the potential of post-industrial conversion at sites like Pepco's abandoned plant on Benning Road or Buzzard Point.
As much of a shock as this plan might be, the alternative -- shunting even more housing demand out to the exurbs -- would just worsen traffic, air pollution, flooding, drinking water quality, heat waves, taxes, government and retail services. We'd get all the downsides of being in a bigger city, without the upsides.
You could do a massive redevelopment in Hill East.
(1) Move DC United to Buzzard Point.
(2) City buys DC Armory from the National Guard.
(3) City demolishes RFK, DC Armory, the entire jail complex and heath campus.
(4) City builds new jail to Anacostia.
(5) Start a massive walking redevelopment in Hill East with walkable waterfront, a park the size of Lincoln Park lined by high quality $1,000,000+ townhouses, several large mixed use condo/retail/restaurants buildings, new multi-family townhouses, new public school buildings & new churches, maybe a Target or Costco. Partner with Medstar Georgetown & Children's National to build a new urgent care center.
(6) The city will bring in hundreds of millions in new property & income tax revenue.
Why are you assuming this massive increase in the DC population of 200-300,000? The increase in population over the past 5-10 years in my opinion is really a result of the crime rate dropping. Once the city absorbs all the people who were inclined to move to the city over the years but never did because of the high crime, the city's population will begin to increase at a much slower rate or even decrease if the bad old days return.
The bad old days were closely tied to leaded gasoline. Quite literally people were more prone to violence because of a toxic mix of poverty and lead poisoning.
You could do a massive redevelopment in Hill East.
(1) Move DC United to Buzzard Point.
(2) City buys DC Armory from the National Guard.
(3) City demolishes RFK, DC Armory, the entire jail complex and heath campus.
(4) City builds new jail to Anacostia.
(5) Start a massive walking redevelopment in Hill East with walkable waterfront, a park the size of Lincoln Park lined by high quality $1,000,000+ townhouses, several large mixed use condo/retail/restaurants buildings, new multi-family townhouses, new public school buildings & new churches, maybe a Target or Costco. Partner with Medstar Georgetown & Children's National to build a new urgent care center.
(6) The city will bring in hundreds of millions in new property & income tax revenue.
The problem with your plan is that DC doesn't own the land that RFK is on, Congress does. Congress leased it to DC for recreational purposes only. Massive developments would not get approved because they are not recreational
The problem with your plan is that DC doesn't own the land that RFK is on, Congress does. Congress leased it to DC for recreational purposes only. Massive developments would not get approved because they are not recreational
This really should not be a problem. You are thinking that this is some very difficult task, it's not. The fed has provided land transfers to DC before, and they move forward quickly with or without acts of congress.
The problem with your plan is that DC doesn't own the land that RFK is on, Congress does. Congress leased it to DC for recreational purposes only. Massive developments would not get approved because they are not recreational
Does anyone else find it ironic that a NFL football stadium benefiting a billionaire owner was once deemed recreational?
Perhaps the recreational acreage could be reconfigured. Keep the same total amount of acreage but spread it out along a townhouse lined park, like Lincoln Park (but without the road around it) and walkable riverfront. The land around RFK is not currently being used for recreational purposes. It is empty parking lots, an eyesore and waisted riverfront that could be benefiting joggers, dog walkers, tourists and friends of the Anacostia River. If the city prioritized the project I'm sure Congress would go along with development plans. No residents benefit from the current configuration.
The first step is getting DC United a new home in Buzzard Point and finding a new home for the jail.
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