Rhode Island Ave. Plan: Dense Development by Brentwood Metro
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Last month, the city released a new vision for Rhode Island Avenue in Northeast. We read it, so you don’t have to.
This part of the corridor, subarea 1, is home to the Rhode Island Ave-Brentwood Metro station, so of course there’s going to be future chatter about transit-oriented development, maximizing space, mixed-use projects, walkable communities—people casting their car keys to the wind and using Metro.
This area is slated to get more housing and office space than any other—and in fact, the entire corridor will receive less and less development as you travel out to Maryland.
The plans include 879 new rental units and 1,097 new for-sale properties, most of which should be completed within the next 11 years. Mind you, there’s currently no housing in this specific area—It’s not allowed within the zoning, according to Derrick Woody, a coordinator with the Great Streets Initiative. (Brentwooders—You would know better than I.)
Highlights from the plan:
There is already a planned development for this site by MidCity/Urban LLC. The project will contain 274 housing units, 70,000 square feet of retail, a 215-space Metro garage and two other garages with more than 500 spaces total.
The site across the street from Metro will be anchored by a new supermarket and some other big box use, plus retail, mixed income housing, and minimal parking to “encourage use of transit.”
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Linked From: July 7th, 2009Links – Harumph. « city block
10:04 pm[...] Complex looks at the plans for Rhode Island Ave, starting with some woefully underutilized land near one of the original 1976 Metro stations. [...]
7:33 am
Housing for whom? Families (stability) or singles (transience). Can’t just throw “affordable housing” out there without delving in to the details. Get below the surface.
12:19 pm
I’m currently looking into buying in the RI Ave./Brentwood/Woodridge area. Lots and lots of affordable 2 BEDROOMS. That would be good for families. Also, surprisingly low crime rates and a good, solid community (lots of people on the streets/front porches in the evenings, kids w/their parents, dogs, they even say hi when they see someone new, well-kept yards, homes, and alleys, etc.). Sure, there are some sketchy blocks, but underneath the surface I think the city might be on to something good.
10:28 pm
Operative words: “porches” ; solid – families.
The more condos you build, the more transience you bring. Compare neighborhoods like Capitol Hill – what a HUGE variety of retail. HUGE. And most of it is independent, and been there – FORever.
We need more creativity than greedy condos.
I’m not saying everything has to be stand alone houses,
just think outside the box.
10:30 pm
Also, I bet the majority of 2 BR condos go to DINKs and singles. I just bet. Yeah, 2 BR is good for a single parent and a single child. And that’s about it.
3:11 pm
Well, the condos are largely apartment building conversions, which are more transient than condos, which are more transient than single-family homes. It’s moving a step up in the grand scheme of things. So far, no one has torn down single-families (the ones in the area are not well-suited to condo conversion) to build condos. The proposed development in this article is on a PARKING LOT.
An ideal neighborhood would have a mix of development for people at all stages – families, DINKs, singles, single parents, and everyone else. A 2 bedroom condo is good for a DINK, single parent, or a couple ready to start a family now or in the near future. Even on the Hill, do you REALLY think most people with kids stick around once those kids are school-aged? The answer is no, as I currently live on the Hill and there aren’t a lot of kids older than 5 to be seen…only the very wealthy stay and put their kids in private school, the rest move to the suburbs.
Moreover, the world is becoming more transient in general. Younger people are likely to have many more jobs and move many more times than earlier generations. This is a fact of life nowadays, so building a community where people stay for 50 years is absurd today…it’s just not going to happen. Just because a neighborhood isn’t full of lifelong residents doesn’t mean it can’t be stable and desirable. In the past, people who were not going to live in a community for a long period of time didn’t care, didn’t attend community organization meetings, didn’t care about property values, etc. As transience becomes more and more common, people will HAVE to care about their short-term neighborhood or the whole country will be a cesspool and people will start losing A LOT of money on real estate. We might become a nation of renters, but given the incentives to purchase and the ingrained attitude that owning a home is just what you do at some point, I don’t see that happening soon.
As for retail…yes, more is needed. There are structural challenges to keeping a new independent business going rather than a long-standing business, but a number of the places on the Hill are new and thriving (under very high rent/purchase costs, I might add). Nothing is going to locate near RI Ave. unless there are shoppers available, so it’s smart to get the people there first, then focus on the retail.
Is there a possibility this plan will fail? Sure. Is it DOOOOOOOOMED? Nah. Increasing urbanization and it’s locus to transportation and employment centers bode well for potential.
And remember, DINKs and singles are people, too. There are lots of them in my Hill neighborhood and they are good, decent, community-oriented people. I think, given the new focus on limiting population growth and the amount of resources (land and mineral) that each person sucks up, not to mention an increasing focus on career before family, you’re going to need to change your definition of family to include DINKs, singles, and single-child households. A 31-year-old single condo owner or young DINK couple are entirely different animals, in terms of neighborhood involvement, than a 23-year-old renter.
6:43 am
“Even on the Hill, do you REALLY think most people with kids stick around once those kids are school-aged? ”
Oh my God YES! I see them all the time. And no, not all are as wealthy as you describe.
The overall trend might indeed be towards transience, but the micro trend is towards stability and permanence, ESPECIALLY in lovely places like Cap Hill. People are tired of moving. Ask them.
3:15 pm
It’s interesting how you can see these school-aged kids and I can’t. I see some on the weekends, but during the week it’s almost exclusively stroller-aged kids. The kids I do see are mostly on their way to the PRIVATE SCHOOL up the block. Most of these kids are to be seen coming out of $1M+ residences. Sorry, not everyone can afford that, and if you think people who live in a home that expensive aren’t wealthy, then you must have the same definition of “rich” that the Bush Administration did.
Sure, there are some people who want to make a life in one spot and just stay there forever. I did a little thinking, though, about the people I work with, because I happen to work in this fabulously young office (late 20’s to early 40’s, with an average age of 32), and almost EVERYONE has lived in 2 or 3 different states and had a number of jobs, many people have even changed industries over the course of their careers. We offer a program where our employer will pay for your education if you agree to work for them for 3 years, and 50% of the staff won’t take advantage of it because they don’t want to be “stuck” (for 3 WHOLE YEARS!!!). This despite a fun environment, engaging work, high morale, and great pay and benefits. We often talk about “places we would love to live” (and the discussion doesn’t go “The Hill…no Georgetown,” but “Seattle…no Paris!”). I’m good friends with the hiring manager, and he’s indicated that he’s had to get used to seeing 2 or 3 or more jobs on a 20-something’s resume, because “that’s just how people live nowadays.” That’s the cultural shift I speak of. Yet, despite this shift, my friends and co-workers are still buying homes, still attending ANC meetings, and still worried about property values (maybe more so than others because they intend to sell in a shorter period of time). Perhaps the people YOU know are sick of moving, but the people I know (in their prime homebuying years) can’t wait for a new adventure.
The Hill might be a good model for certain people, but I can tell you that my little nook of the Hill is mostly populated by older people. Our building and the building next door are 20-something renters. Almost all the rest of the houses are occupied by empty nesters. There’s one 30-something lawyer, single, no kids, on the block. The other side of the street has another rental building with young people, one family with school-aged children that only weekends in the city (does someone who owns a house that would easily go for $1.5M and only uses it on the weekend qualify as “wealthy” in your world?), and more Boomers. There is one other family somewhere on the block with toddlers (I don’t know where they live but I see their nannies with the strollers all the time…again…are you “wealthy” if you have multiple nannies?). So…1 1/2 families (1/2 for the weekenders), 1 single, Boomers, and a handful of renters. That may be “stable,” but it certainly doesn’t meet the needs of most of the population. If I wanted to buy on the Hill, I would have to work for 20 years just to save up the down payment, and then eat Ramen for the remainder of my existence just to swing the mortgage.
If you really want the whole city to be single-families that are unafforable to 90% of the population, fine, that’s your point of view. It’s completely unrealistic to expect every neighborhood to be a carbon-copy of one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country. If we REALLY want to make neighborhoods livable, then mixed development is absolutely necessary. Houses, condos, and apartments all serve different segments of the population. If there is a mix of development, it’s possible that people will be MORE likely to make a neighborhood a more permanent home, because they can just move a block or two when they need an upgrade, instead of across town. But that’s not possible if ALL that is available are very high-priced single families, a very small number of very high-priced condos, and very high-priced rentals that are not well-suited for anyone but a single or a group home (basements on the first count, houses that rent for an amount that only 3 or 4 salary earners (friends) can afford on the second), like the Hill.
12:34 pm
Well, I’m a single and I recently bought a house that previously belonged to a family. The neighbors have told me that this family was involved in drug dealing and the did nothing to maintain the house or contribute to the community.
Needless to say, the neighbors are much happier with me as a single homeowner, fixing up my house than they were with a family. And I would say I contribute more to the community than most families I’ve seen.