>> PRESS ALERT — July 5, 2019 << Contact: Maurice Cook, dc@grassrootsplanning.us, 202-341-1732 Mendelson releases DC Comprehensive Plan Amendments; Recent Court Decisions Show Why Plan’s Language Needs to Be Clearer & Stronger In the first published news from the Council about the DC Comprehensive Plan since March 2018, Chairman, Phil Mendelson released 50+ pages of changes to the DC Comprehensive Plan’s leading chapter, the Framework […]
Change Is Inevitable, Justice Is Not The strength of development protections today will define the city forever In early 2019, Mayor Bowser proposed a plan for the development of 36,000 new units, claiming the plan would bring prosperity and affordable housing to the city. This plan and it’s promises are reminiscent of Mayor Williams’s 1999 plan for 100,000 new residents, which was wildly successful despite […]
Public Resources For The Public Good Communities, not land owners, should benefit from publicly derived land value increases Where it had once envisioned a boutique squash gym , the notorious developer EastBanc finished off its luxe new West End development with a public recreation center. One block away, where the developer had planned to cram in as many luxury two-bedroom apartments as it could possibly […]
Heal the Past, Make Communities Whole The year is 2034 and many of DC’s black and brown communities, long plagued by poverty and exploitation, have experienced a renaissance over the past 15 years. One such community is Brookland Manor in Ward 5. At the very beginning of this movement, toward the end of what became known as the “Gentrify Here” period of DC’s history, the […]
Clean This Place, Don’t Displace A case study on the urgent need for binding impact assessments Buzzard Point, a predominantly African American neighborhood that had long suffered the effects of industrial toxicity, has become a shining example of how publicly-oriented development can right past wrongs. Once DC’s equivalent of Flint, Michigan, Buzzard Point residents now breathe easily thanks to a comprehensive effort to clean up […]
Page 37 of Office of Planning’s Redline Framework Amendments: DCMR 10A-216 FROM VISION TO REALITY: GUIDING PRINCIPLES This section establishes 36 underlying principles for the future that reflect this context. Most of these principles are based on “A Vision for Growing an Inclusive City,” the policy framework for the Comprehensive Plan Revision endorsed by the Council of the District of Columbia in 2004. 216.2 The […]