April 2025 Ward 3 Affordable Housing News Digest
Government Activity
District of Columbia
Councilmember Nadeau Introduces Single Stair Bill
On April 11, Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, joined by Councilmembers Robert White and Brooke Pinto, introduced B26-0227, the One Front Door Act of 2025. The bill would direct the Construction Codes Coordinating Board, in its next code revision cycle, to promulgate amendments to the building code that would allow for a single entrance/egress stairway for multifamily residential buildings up to six stories. The bill has been referred to the Committee of the Whole.
Quoting an article from Greater Greater Washington, the introduction statement explains that most building codes in the U.S. require two stairwells in multifamily buildings, a holdover from early fire codes, which focused on evacuating occupants. Since then, material and building science advances have improved our ability to isolate and suppress fires, and firefighting equipment has improved. The two stairwell egress requirement does not exist in many global cities, including Seattle, Honolulu, and New York, which have allowed for single-stair buildings of 6+ stories for many years.
The District’s current second-egress requirement means that more of a building’s square footage is taken up by non-residential space, which drives up construction costs and future rents. Further, the efficiency of “point-access” buildings with a single stairwell makes it easier to enhance the livability of individual units; it becomes much easier to build larger (3 - 4 bedroom) units and improve access to light and ventilation.
On April 10, the city council of Austin, Texas, voted 10-1 to approve a change to that city’s building code to allow apartments up to five stories tall to be built with only one staircase, according to KVUE. Last month, Payton Chung provided a historical perspective on single-stair buildings in D.C. in Greater Greater Washington.
In February, Pew Charitable Trusts issued a lengthy report, Small Single-Stairway Apartment Buildings Have Strong Safety Record. The report’s introduction says,
A first-ever analysis of fire death rates in modern four-to-six-story buildings with only one stairway shows that allowing these buildings to have only one staircase does not put residents at greater risk: Single-stairway buildings as tall as six stories are at least as safe as other types of housing. And allowing the construction of such buildings could provide much-needed housing, including homes for people with modest incomes.
In his blog City of Yes, Ryan Puzycki recently laid out “The Case for Single-Stair Buildings.” And at Slate last month, Henry Grabar wrote about various building code reforms that could make housing construction cheaper and easier, including allowing single-stair buildings.
Nadeau Offers Alternative TOPA Reform Bill
Washington Business Journal [subscription req’d] reports that on April 10, Councilmember Brianne Nadeau offered her own legislation to reform the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA), proposing more modest changes than contained in Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposed RENTAL Act. Nadeau’s “Common Sense TOPA Reform Amendment Act of 2025” is B26-0228, and has been referred to the Committee on Housing.
The proposal is much softer than Bowser’s omnibus Rental Act, which was introduced in February and has since garnered a great deal of support from the private sector. Bowser’s bill would exempt all market-rate building transactions from TOPA, focusing it only on properties with more than half of units priced as affordable for households earning at or below 80% of the area median income.
Nadeau’s bill would exempt all new residential construction from TOPA for the first three years after the issuance of a certificate of occupancy. The councilmember downplayed the concerns of multifamily developers who have struggled to land financing for their projects, calling that narrative a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” and said TOPA is often used as a “scapegoat” in conversations around housing production.
Henderson Reintroduces Proposed Tax Exemption for Housing at Metro Stations
On April 10, Councilmember Christina Henderson and five co-sponsors reintroduced a bill first proposed last session, B26-0225, Unlocking Housing at Metro Property Tax Exemption Amendment Act of 2025. The bill would waive property taxes for 20 years on qualifying developments at Metro stations in D.C. To qualify for the exemption, WMATA must enter into a joint development agreement that provides that at least half of a development must be housing, and 75% of the project overall must consist of new construction or substantially rehabilitated structures.
Henderson’s statement of introduction says the bill would accelerate much-needed mixed-use residential development at Metrorail stations.
Preliminary feasibility analyses found that projects at Congress Heights, Deanwood, and Brookland could yield net property tax revenues of $1M to $14M per site to the District over 30 years after accounting for upfront infrastructure costs, but development is impossible in the near-term without public assistance. . . . Absent private uses or development, WMATA property at Metrorail stations cannot currently generate tax revenues for the District and represent a missed opportunity to invest in the District and its residents.
The bill has been referred to Committee on Business and Economic Development with comments from the Committee on Housing.
Mendelson Introduces Eviction Reform Amendment Act
On February 26, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson introduced B26-0141, the Eviction Reform Amendment Act of 2025. This bill would:
Provide judges discretion to dismiss eviction cases in certain circumstances;
Require rent escrow payments in certain nonpayment cases;
Align notice timelines with neighboring jurisdictions; and
Allow expedited evictions of tenants for violent criminal activity on the premises.
The bill has been referred to the Committee on Housing.
WMATA Approves FY2026 Budget with No Near-Term Spending for Friendship Heights Bus Garage
On April 10, the WMATA board approved the transit agency’s FY 2026 operating and capital budgets. Assuming the board approved the FY2026-FY2031 Capital Improvement Program & 10-Year Plan as proposed (Project CIP0376 at page 110), there’s no money to build a replacement for the obsolete Western Bus Garage in Friendship Heights before FY 2033. The budget document lists the only “near term deliverable” for the project as “Metro will continue progressing the land purchase at 5255 Western Avenue NW.”
Housing advocates see a new bus garage at the old Lord & Taylor site, which has been acquired by WMATA for a new garage, as a prime opportunity to co-locate housing with a new transit facility. Completion of a new garage would also free up the old garage site along Wisconsin Avenue for mixed-use development. But it’s not going to happen anytime soon.
Ballot Initiative Launched for Housing at RFK Site, While D.C. Nears Deal with Commanders
The Washington Post [gift link] reported on April 16 that a group of D.C. activists have launched an effort to block the construction of an NFL stadium at the RFK stadium site by putting the stadium question in the hands of D.C. voters in next year’s local elections. Organizers of a campaign called “Homes Not Stadiums” are seeking a question on the ballot that would prohibit the construction of any professional sports stadium or arena on the 174-acre campus.
Organizer Kris Furnish said, “It’s important we prioritize affordable housing in this city before we even think about having the taxpayers pay for a stadium.” Adam Eidinger, the treasurer of the campaign, said, “We don’t need a stadium to be an anchor for a new community; there’s a demand for housing. It’s about priorities.”
The ballot initiative as drafted would amend D.C.’s zoning laws to designate the RFK site as a “special purpose zone,” which would allow the city to create regulations governing how the land can be used. Then, the initiative would explicitly forbid any part of that special purpose zone from being used for “any stadium or arena . . . that has as its primary purpose the hosting of professional athletic team events.”
The campaign needs to get signatures on its petition from 5% of D.C. voters, or about 23,000 people, including a certain threshold of voters in five of eight wards.
Late on April 16, NBC4 reported that D.C. is close to a deal worth more than $3 billion to bring the Washington Commanders back to the District and build a new stadium at the RFK Stadium site. The framework for the deal would see the NFL team paying the vast majority of the costs to build a new stadium, while D.C. would pay up to $850 million for infrastructure to support the entire development. No immediate word on how much of the site would be available for housing, but the Commanders would be the master developer for the entire campus, constructing both the stadium and mixed-use development on the rest of the site, including residential uses.
Maryland
Housing Bills Advance in Maryland General Assembly
Greater Greater Washington outlined the progress of pro-housing legislation in the Maryland General Assembly session.
Federal
Court Orders Release of Green Bank Funds
The Washington Post [gift link] reports on April 16 that a federal judge in D.C. has temporarily blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from terminating at least $14 billion in climate grants approved under President Joe Biden. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a preliminary injunction on April 15 that prohibits the EPA from “unlawfully suspending or terminating” the grant awards. She also ordered Citibank, which was tasked with disbursing the funds, to release the money to the grant recipients.
As we reported in the March 21 News Digest, on March 11, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the “termination” of $20 billion in grants under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a program created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and commonly known as the federal “green bank” program. Some of that money was to go to local organizations, including DC Green Bank, to finance, renovate, and construct energy-efficient, affordable homes for low- and moderate-income families.
Comprehensive Housing Bill Reintroduced in Congress
On March 11, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Raphael Warnock, and Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D-Miss.), reintroduced the comprehensive American Housing and Economic Mobility Act.
According to the sponsors, the bill would:
Leverage federal funding to build nearly 3 million new housing units;
Provide assistance to people hurt by federal housing policy failures, including through:
Down payment assistance to first-time, first-generation homebuyers;
VA-guaranteed home loan eligibility for descendants of certain veterans;
A grant program for communities with an appraisal gap;
Create incentives for local governments to eliminate unnecessary land use restrictions that drive up costs;
Limit the role of private equity in the housing market;
Hold financial institutions accountable for providing access to credit for all Americans;
Promote mobility by strengthening anti-discrimination laws and improving the housing voucher program; and
Increase the amount of accessible housing.
According to an independent analysis by Moody’s Analytics, the bill would build or rehabilitate nearly 3 million housing units over the next decade and bring down rents for lower-income and middle-class families by 10%. To offset the cost, the bill returns the estate tax thresholds to their levels at the end of the George W. Bush administration and institutes more progressive rates above those thresholds.
News & Commentary
District of Columbia
Quarter-Century Delay in Building Housing at Takoma Metro
In April 6 article in The Washington Post [gift link], Aaron Wiener says WMATA selected a developer to turn the parking lot next to the Takoma Metro station into housing in 2000. Ground has not yet been broken, although Bethesda-based EYA hopes to finally start construction next year.
Wiener says, “The reasons for the quarter-century delay reveal a lot about why it’s so hard to build housing in D.C. and other parts of the country where residents worry about additional density . . . .”
Over the decades, a number of opponents from the two liberal communities of mostly single-family homes [D.C.’s Takoma neighborhood and Takoma Park, Md.] have managed to derail the project time and again, sometimes enlisting elected officials in a drawn-out battle that has allowed a sea of asphalt to remain in the heart of an increasingly urbanized, walkable area.
Housing advocates say the lack of progress at the site highlights how a small number of vocal neighbors can make even the seemingly lowest-hanging fruit of housing development such a challenge across the region and the country.
“Takoma and Takoma Park are incredibly progressive places,” said Yoni Appelbaum, author of the new book Stuck, which blames the breakdown in American mobility on the lack of housing construction. “These are places that pride themselves on their inclusivity. But they seem to be using every exclusionary tool at their disposal.” He added, “If one community walls itself off, you can sustain that. The problem is that around every prospering metropolitan core in America, there are dozens of Takoma Parks, all of which have walled themselves off.”
Shaw PUD Scrapped in Favor of By-Right Development
Ben Peters of Washington Business Journal [subscription req’d] reports that Bethesda-based MidCity has obtained Zoning Commission permission to extinguish approval of its own planned-unit development (PUD) to build a 360-unit apartment complex at 1200 Fifth St. N.W. Although its exact plans for the site near the Mt. Vernon Square Metro station are unclear, MidCity said it will proceed with the future development of the property in accordance with matter-of-right development standards. The site is currently zoned to permit moderate and medium-density rowhouse and apartment development.
MidCity attributed its change of plan in part to litigation delays. After the Zoning Commission approved the PUD in 2020, the ministers of nearby First Rising Mt. Zion Baptist Church and Miles Memorial Christian Methodist Episcopal Church sued to block construction, arguing that it would displace too many low-income residents and threaten their churches' survival. The D.C. Court of Appeals affirmed the Zoning Commission’s approval of the PUD in November 2022.
Rezoning Sought for Third Phase of Northwest One
Urban Turf says MRP Realty has applied to the Zoning Commission for a map amendment to facilitate the third and final phase of Northwest One, a three-building development that will deliver over 600 largely affordable apartments to North Capitol between K and L Streets, N.W. The map amendment would change the zoning for the site, which is currently a surface parking lot, from MU-4 to MU-9A, which allows for high-density, mixed-use development near a central employment area.
The third phase is a 10-story residential building with approximately 180–233 mixed-income residential units, including replacement units for tenants of the Temple Courts building. When all three phases are complete, Northwest One will provide a total of approximately 640 mixed-income residential units, with a mix of market-rate units, units reserved for households earning a maximum of 60% of median family income (MFI), and units reserved for households earning a maximum 30% MFI.
Opponents Say Bowser’s RENTAL Act Will Stifle Tenant Rights
A March 26 article by Fiona Riley in Street Sense notes that Mayor Bowser has proposed the RENTAL Act to permanently reverse pandemic-era housing and eviction protections and add exceptions to the law (TOPA) that gives tenants the right of first refusal to purchase their homes, a move she says would sustain affordable housing amid mounting financial challenges. But Riley outlines the arguments of critics who say the move would force residents to absorb the city’s housing failures and weaken tenants’ rights at a time when both the cost of rent and homelessness are rising.
Residential Projects Underway in Southwest D.C.
Urban Turf has a rundown on six residential projects in the works in Southwest D.C. Of particular note is an approved redevelopment of Westminster Presbyterian Church at 400 Eye Street, S.W. that will eventually deliver 99 market-rate condos, 123 senior units, and ground-floor space for the church. The senior units will be for households earning up to 50 and 60% of Area Median Income until affordability covenants expire, at which point up to 20 units would remain affordable as required by Inclusionary Zoning.
Construction Begins at Dupont Office-to-Residential Conversion
Bisnow reports this week that construction has commenced on an office-to-residential conversion project at 1201 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., just south of Dupont Circle. Duball LLC recently secured a $54.5 million loan from Bethesda-based EagleBank for its 161-unit conversion of the historic Longfellow Building.
The project is one of five so far to be awarded a 20-year office-to-residential conversion tax abatement from the District. The property is planned to include 16 affordable units for residents making 60% of the area median income, as is required with the tax abatement.
Duball’s president attributed the financial feasibility of the project in large part to the fact that the firm acquired the property at a low cost in a 2023 foreclosure auction.
D.C. Metro Area
Uncertainty Looms Over D.C. Area Housing Market
An April 12 article by Barbara Ruben in The Washington Post [gift link] took a wide-ranging look at 2025 expectations for the D.C. area housing market, noting that it’s hard to extrapolate too much from 2024 to 2025 to make predictions much farther in the year. Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist with Bright MLS, put it this way: “Last year was a whole different universe. The factors affecting the D.C. region right now are very dynamic.”
Despite uncertainty, Ruben said, “some of the same factors will still be at play this year as in 2024. Chief among them is the shortage of housing both in the Washington area and around the country.”
Nationwide
Tax Code Changes Could Boost Homeownership
In an April 15 opinion piece in The Washington Post [gift link], Ben Baer writes that the federal tax code has a bias against for-sale development of single-family homes. He says profits from a builder’s sale of single-family homes and condominiums are taxed at nearly twice the rate as those from the sale of rental homes. Worse, he says, this challenge only applies to small developers and builders who rely on outside investors to build projects. This pushes capital flows toward rental housing, and away from projects that could create new paths to homeownership.
Bear argues that a simple amendment to the tax code could level the playing field by reclassifying profits from newly constructed, for-sale housing developments as long-term capital gains. “By making the tax treatment of for-sale housing more favorable, Congress could unleash a wave of private-sector investment in starter homes, ‘missing middle’ housing and other forms of attainable ownership — without new subsidies or mandates.”
The Urban Institute’s Housing Matters also had an article earlier this month, “How Can the Tax Code Make Housing More Affordable?” The authors listed several opportunities to address housing affordability in the upcoming federal tax legislation: expand the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program to meet housing needs; provide incentives to build and rehabilitate affordable homes for sale; improve targeting of Opportunity Zones; reform homeownership incentives in the existing tax code; and provide opportunities for renters to benefit.
America’s Housing Market Is Failing Older Adults
An Urban Institute report last month by researchers Linna Zhu and Amalie Zinn says senior households — many of whom are on fixed incomes — are facing a combined crisis of housing affordability, accessibility, and availability. As America’s population ages, our current housing market is ill-prepared for this demographic shift.
Trump Funding Cuts Undermining Fair Housing Enforcement
A report by Roshan Abraham in Shelterforce last month said that since 1968, when the passage of the Fair Housing Act banned discrimination in renting, mortgage lending and home sales, the bulk of the enforcement of the Act has been outsourced to private organizations, mostly nonprofits. Private organizations processed 75% of fair housing complaints in 2023. Those agencies are now facing an existential threat after many of them received a letter from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) at the end of February, notifying them that at the direction of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), their fair housing grants were being canceled.
On March 26, a judge issued a temporary restraining order reinstating all of the canceled grants. But the threat of cancellation remains, and Abraham catalogs the effects that termination of the grants would have.
Tariff Whiplash and HUD Cuts Will Cripple Affordable Housing Development
A March 19 essay by Robert Davis in Next City argues that whiplash from Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs, combined with Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funding cuts, will cripple affordable housing development.
First Quarter Apartment Demand Hits Record High
RealPage says the first quarter of 2025 saw the strongest demand for market-rate apartments in any first quarter in the company’s 32-year data set. The analysts said the multifamily housing sector’s once-in-a-generation supply wave has crested nationwide, including in roughly 70% of the nation’s largest markets. Waning apartment supply coupled with continued strong demand is predicted to result in rent growth moving toward more historical normal levels by the end of the year.
Housing Market May Be Getting More Buyer-Friendly
An April 7 article from AP News sees signs of hope that the “spring homebuying season is shaping up to be more favorable for home shoppers than it’s been in recent years — as long as they can afford to buy.” In particular, the number of homes on the market is up sharply from a year ago (although the inventory of homes for sale nationally is still low by historical standards).
An interactive piece in The Washington Post [gift link] on April 14 says “Home prices are cooling off in many parts of the country — even falling in some regions — as more homes are listed for sale, slightly easing the long-standing inventory crunch.” The article enables readers to search by zip code to see where average houses have risen or fallen in the last year, and by how much.
Short Takes From Around the Country
A new study by the UCLA Lewis Center For Regional Policy Studies and RAND finds that permitting for new multifamily housing has fallen sharply since Measure ULA in went into effect in Los Angeles in April 2023. Measure ULA was a ballot initiative that increased real estate transfer taxes on sales of high-value properties in L.A., with revenues dedicated to subsidized housing development and preservation, rent assistance, and similar efforts.
Last month Bloomberg CityLab wrote that, by freeing apartment developers to build up to four stories across the city, Cambridge, Massachusetts, leapfrogged other localities considering zoning reform and set a new benchmark for the housing movement.
Another Bloomberg CityLab article looked at the effects of New York City’s “City of Yes” zoning reforms, and specifically at where housing is expected to be added under the plan. “The changes to the city’s landscape will mostly be subtle — on purpose,” Bloomberg says.
Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein at The New Republic writes about a new book, Lost at Sea: Poverty and Paradise at the Edge of America, by Joe Kloc, about what The New Republic calls, “The Last Days of the Boat-Dwellers of Sausalito: How a California town destroyed an affordable enclave along its coast.” In retelling the story of how Sausalito, California has moved over the years to put an end to the ramshackle flotilla of houseboats anchored in its harbor, Kaiser-Schatzlein says,
The housing crisis has a narrative problem, which is that it never ends. Camps are cleared only to reappear elsewhere; a story of people housed is followed by a report that overall homelessness grows; tenants organize against a greedy landlord, and their fight drags on for years unresolved. Unhoused people have to go somewhere, and they will likely end up in a tent city under a highway, on federal land, doubled up with family, living in vans, or perhaps incarcerated. The anchorage was one of many obscure respites for those fleeing the unaffordability of American life.
Calendar
April 17 — Legal Aid DC will host a Community Listening Session on D.C. Council Housing Bills, 5:00-7:00 p.m., at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, 901 G St. N.W., Conference Room 401-F. There will be an info session and Q&A on important bills being considered by the D.C. Council related to ERAP, affordable housing, eviction, rent control, and utilities.
April 21 — The NYU Furman Center will present a panel discussion on the scale of the opportunity to build affordable housing on land owned by Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs) in New York State and around the country, 8:45-10:00 a.m. More details and Zoom registration link here.
April 21 — Next regular meeting of ANC 3C (Cleveland Park and Woodley Park), virtual, 7:00-9:00 p.m. Meeting notice with agenda and Zoom pre-registration link here.
April 22 — Bisnow’s “DMV Affordable Housing Summit,” 9:00-12:00, Washington Marriott Capitol Hill, 175 L Street N.E. Session topics include: (1) The Future of Affordable Housing in the DMV: PPPs, Policy Shifts and Current Administration Changes; (2) Capitalizing on Opportunity: Navigating Public and Private Financing for Affordable Housing; and (3) Affordable Housing in High-Demand Neighborhoods: Balancing Affordability with Development Pressure. Tickets $132. More information here.
April 22 — Friendship Place will present a virtual information session about The Aston, the new bridge housing facility and program in West End D.C. for people experiencing homelessness, 12:00 noon. Zoom registration here.
April 22 — Next regular meeting of ANC 3F (Van Ness), 7:00-9:00 p.m., online.
April 23 — The Committee of 100 on the Federal City will present a Conversation on Why Many in DC Find Housing Unaffordable, 6:30-8:00 p.m. at First Congregational United Church of Christ, 945 G Street, N.W. Speakers are Professor Patrick Condon of the University of British Columbia, Patrick McAnaney, Director of Development at Somerset Development Company, and Yonah Freemark, Principal Research Associate at the Urban Institute’s Housing and Communities Division. Registration and additional details here.
April 23 — Online discussion, Zoning for Positive Change, 6:30-8:00. The Coalition for Smarter Growth and Ward3Vision will host a discussion with Code Studio, one of the national leaders on using innovative form-based approaches to zoning to guide change. More details and RSVP here.
May 8 — Next regular meeting of ANC 3E (Friendship Heights & Tenleytown), 7:30 p.m., online.
May 12 — Next regular meeting of ANC 3/4G (Chevy Chase), 6:30-8:30, virtually via Zoom.
May 13 — Next regular meeting of ANC 3A (Middle Wisconsin Avenue), 7:00 p.m., at the McLean Gardens Ballroom and virtually via Zoom.
May 28 — Deadline to submit comments to the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (DMPED) on the eight proposals to redevelop the Chevy Chase Library and Community Center site and add affordable housing.
To let us know of something we should add, please email christopher.vaden78@gmail.com.