Neighbors For Smart Growth

01/25/2022

Our city, like others in the megalopolis, is falling behind the surrounding urban sprawl in emissions of carbon. If we want to stay current with the strip mall fiefdoms' higher carbon emissions we're going to have to cap density and hobble public transit. How are we going to keep up irresponsibly if we're not being irresponsible?

02/06/2020

Need a recipe for housing disaster, because the next generation is coming to visit? Here's one.

Of course our seasoned palate has moved on to fetishizing the SFTownHouse, but the recipe is the same.

Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you might be unable to afford the rent.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/opinion/california-single-family-housing.html

California’s lawmakers once again failed to allow more housing in the state. They’re afraid to accept the single-family home is outdated.

01/27/2020

Historic Preservation Board's weighing of solar wattage vs rooftop watching still rages on, and on, and on...

As we confront the climate crisis, DC officials have set ambitious goals to lead our city toward a more sustainable future. One of the primary goals is having all of the District’s electricity generated by renewable sources by 2032. While we’ve made

10/14/2019

HPO still thinks solar panels are out of sight. Can you dig it? Just chill about this climate whatever.

“I applaud your greenness and your desire to save the planet,” said architect and preservation board member Chris Landis, “and I realize that we are in crisis politically as well as sustainably. But I just have this vision of a row of houses with solar panels on the front of them and it just ....

09/20/2019

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49687478

BBC commisioned this piece on Los Angeles homelessness. Would you be homeless if you lost your job? If so, where would you go?

This article provides a snapshot of who is on the street now, and how it used to be in the city of angels. NYC and Boston are different, and it notes how affordable housing plays a role.

Don't miss how LA taxpayers voted to pay for more housing but don't want it nearby.

Will DC solve its encampments, untreated mental illness, stoplight panhandling with last minute solutions, or will its fountains of braintrusts plan a path away? Will it be homes, or jail for the future unemployed?

It is not only glitz and glamour in Los Angeles, which has a big homelessness problem. How has it happened?

09/17/2019

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-17/atlanta-startup-padsplit-sees-high-demand-for-low-cost-housing

As housing costs skyrocket in DC, will the SFTH become embedded in the solution? Take a look at Atlanta, and prepare for PadSplit. It's a management company promoting weekly rentals in single family homes.Circle the Wagons? Or, dig out your basement?

PadSplit says property owners can make more money from single-family homes.

07/26/2017

Our newsletter from January 2015, (protesting the Zoning Commission's initiative to downzone 35,000 single family row houses throughout DC.), resurfaces as a photo for an article about land use at Greater Greater Washington.

Spoiler Alert: The Zoning Commission downzoned all those homes.

https://ggwash.org/view/64168/land-use-policy-can-push-for-an-inclusive-city.-ours-does-not

DC’s Comprehensive Plan is a land use and policy document that is supposed to be a guide for inclusive growth in the coming decades. Unfortunately, it has too many parts that, in the hands of exclusionary and anti-development neighbors, are the means to push all of DC’s growth and change onto other,...

05/03/2017

Quiet, responsible, employed male seeking room for rent in or near Petworth neighborhood. References available. Long term or short term OK. Can move in any time on or before June 1. Can pay $600 per month, possibly more for the right place.

03/16/2017

One year anniversary of Lanier Heights neighbors filing multi-part, 260 photo documentation of Lanier Heights neighborhood to Zoning Commission in a doomed effort to keep our zoning rights.

Here is what neighbors showed the Zoning Commission one year ago:
http://www.nadz.org/exhibit-56
http://www.nadz.org/exhibit-57
http://www.nadz.org/exhibit-58
http://www.nadz.org/exhibit-59
http://www.nadz.org/exhibit-60
http://www.nadz.org/exhibit-61
http://www.nadz.org/exhibit-62

03/16/2017

One year anniversary of Lanier Heights neighbors filing multi-part, 260 photo documentation of Lanier Heights neighborhood to Zoning Commission in a doomed effort to keep our zoning rights. Zoning Commissioners not interested: Lanier Heights row houses officially downzoned a few months later (although the Zoning Commission had for all practical purposes established the new reduced zoning rights in December 2015). But the rest of Adams Morgan continues its residential development boom.

http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/adams_morgan_rundown/12325

As spring draws nearer, UrbanTurf continues updating its look at the residential development pipeline in the DC area by revisiting the Adams Morgan neighborhood.

01/27/2017

http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/hprb_approves_suntrust_plaza_design_refinements_with_comments/12091

In October, the Historic Preservation Review Board approved the design for the redevelopment of the Suntrust Plaza in Adams Morgan while highlighting some elements that could use improvement. On Thursday afternoon, the Board approved a revised version of the design for the site.

01/19/2017

President & Mrs. Obama: We miss you already.