March 21, 2025 Ward 3 Affordable Housing News Digest
Government Activity
District of Columbia
Council to Consider Bowser’s RENTAL Act
Mayor Bowser’s proposed Rebalancing Expectations for Neighbors, Tenants, and Landlords (RENTAL) Act of 2025 was introduced in the D.C. Council on March 3 as Bill 26-0164. On March 18, various pieces of it were referred to the Committee on Housing, the Committee on Human Services, and the Committee of the Whole. We hear that the Council may take an initial vote on the bill as early as its April 1 legislative meeting.
The text of the bill and Mayor Bowser’s transmittal letter can be found here. She says the bill is intended to “protect the District’s existing affordable housing and strengthen the local housing ecosystem so that the District can continue to create new affordable housing, and preserve existing affordable housing, for its residents.” For a summary of the elements in the bill, see our February 14 News Digest.
Developers Call for Regulatory Reform in D.C.
At a March 12 hearing before the D.C. Council's Committee on Business and Economic Development, a panel of developers called for major reforms to D.C. regulations surrounding the production of new multifamily housing, according to a report from Ben Peters of the Washington Business Journal [subscription req’d]. For background, Peters says
Leaders fear a drought of new housing will raise the cost of living for all segments of the market. D.C.’s shortage of new housing production is driven by a number of factors that snowballed during the pandemic, including higher interest rates and emergency measures the council implemented to protect tenants from eviction, which created unintended consequences. As a result, the rates of rent delinquency in D.C. skyrocketed.
Developer suggestions at the hearing included:
A temporary 50% tax abatement on all new multifamily development to help re-inject momentum into the development pipeline.
Allow developers to pursue amendments to the comprehensive plan for specific projects. The lack of such a mechanism outside limited periods when the plan is being amended, one witness argued, prevents the District's long-range land use plan from meeting the demands of an ever-evolving market.
Eliminate or limit D.C.’s first source requirement, which ensures District residents priority for new contracting jobs created by new development. A witness said there are not enough trades workers living in D.C. to meet those requirements.
Others cited laws that raise costs that then get passed down to tenants. For example, a 2022 rule requiring bird-friendly materials for certain projects will drive an increase in rent at the Reservoir District, the ongoing redevelopment of the McMillan Sand Filtration Plant.
Peters says that speakers overwhelmingly championed the RENTAL Act legislation offered by Mayor Bowser to reform the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) and address D.C.’s rent delinquency crisis. One said that after the proposal was introduced, he received calls from four investors who indicated it was a signal that D.C. is now taking multifamily housing development more “seriously.”
Mayor Announces More Tax Abatements for Residential Conversions
According to Washington Business Journal [subscription req’d], on March 20 Mayor Bowser announced more tax abatements for conversion of downtown office buildings to residential.
Rockville's Duball LLC plans to convert the 12-story Longfellow Building at 1201 Connecticut Ave. N.W. near Dupont Circle into 160 residential units over roughly 9,500 square feet of retail. It is slated to receive a 20-year tax abatement worth up to $21.5 million under the Housing in Downtown program.
Another conversion approved for the abatement, announced Thursday, is 1133 19th St. N.W., the former headquarters of MCI Communications Corp., which is expected to deliver 220 units with about 4,000 square feet of ground-floor retail.
In total, D.C. has now awarded Housing in Downtown tax abatements to five conversion projects.
Separately, Washington Business Journal [subscription req’d] reported last month that the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts had recommended approval of a proposal to convert a Brutalist office building near Judiciary Square into 500 residential units. The Georgetown Co. (the same New York-based developer that bought the Hotel Harrington) would downsize 450 Fifth St. N.W., removing portions of the existing building to “allow for shallower floor depths conducive to apartments with abundant light and air.”
Maryland
P.G. County Approves All-Affordable Apartment Building Near Purple Line Station
Dan Brendel at Washington Business Journal [subscription req’d] reports that on March 13, the Prince George’s County Planning Board unanimously approved a site plan for Dominium Development and Acquisition LLC ’s Flats at Glenridge Station, a 245-unit apartment building to be constructed on vacant land about a block from the planned Glenridge Station on the Purple Line in Landover Hills.
The building will be all-affordable, with rents capped for households earning between 50% and 60% of the area median income. Units will range in size from one- to three-bedrooms. The project will be financed with Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) and low-interest financing from the Maryland Department of Housing & Community Development and Prince George’s County.
The new building could break ground as early as the third quarter of 2025. Service on the light-rail Purple Line is expected to begin by the end of 2027.
Terry Sween, a vice president of Minnesota-based Dominium, told Brendel, “Flats at Glenridge Station represents a significant opportunity to address the growing need for transit-oriented affordable housing in Prince George’s County. . . . Dominium looks forward to future opportunities to continue supporting the state’s housing goals across all of Maryland.”
Virginia
Falls Church Nears Decision on ADUs
ARLnow reports that divisions remain among Falls Church City Council members as they approach a final decision next month on rules regulating accessory-dwelling units (ADUs). Issues where there are differences of opinion include the maximum size of accessory units and whether the property owner should be required to live on the site.
The Falls Church Planning Commission made its final recommendations on March 5. Final City Council consideration has been placed on the April 14 agenda.
Groundbreaking for Senior Affordable Housing Near Dulles Airport
Last week, True Ground Housing Partners (formerly Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing) broke ground on a new affordable development near Dulles Airport. Avonlea will create 130 new affordable homes for independent seniors aged 55 and up, earning between 30% and 60% of the area median income (AMI). A second phase of the project is planned to include approximately 137 units of affordable family housing, creating a diverse, multigenerational community.
The Avonlea Senior project will cost approximately $64 million, with construction costs of about $33 million. Virginia Housing awarded the project 9% and 4% Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC). Approximately $29 million in tax credit equity was purchased by financial partner, Truist. Project financing sources also include more than $6 million from Loudoun County’s Affordable Multi-Family Housing Loan program, $7.5 million from Amazon REACH funds, $1.4 million in Virginia Housing Trust Fund financing, and $4 million from Virginia’s Housing Innovations in Energy Efficiency (HIEE) program.
Federal
HUD, Interior Announce Plan To Build Homes On Federal Land
A Bisnow story says the Department of the Interior and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) are working together to identify underutilized federal land where homes can be built to address the nation’s 7-million-unit affordable housing shortage. In a joint op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on March 16, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and HUD Secretary Scott Turner said,
[O]ur agencies can take inventory of underused federal properties, transfer or lease them to states or localities to address housing needs, and support the infrastructure required to make development viable — all while ensuring affordability remains at the core of the mission.
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Historically, building on federal land is a nightmare of red tape — lengthy environmental reviews, complex transfer protocols and disjointed agency priorities. This partnership will cut through the bureaucracy. Interior will reduce the red tape behind land transfers or leases to public housing authorities, nonprofits and local governments. HUD will ensure these projects align with affordability goals and development needs.
A story in the Wall Street Journal says only about 7.3% of all federal land falls within metro areas that need more homes. Thus, the success of the Trump administration’s plan hinges on releasing federal land in the right places. The Journal says Trump’s proposal could make a real impact in states such as Nevada, Utah, California and Arizona, where federal land is more abundant.
Trump’s home-building ambitions could slam into many of the same thorny challenges that any housing initiative of magnitude has encountered in recent years. Nimbyism, red tape at the local-government level, labor shortages and higher materials costs have foiled many major efforts to build new housing, especially for lower- and middle-income families.
HUD Cancels Capacity-Building Contracts With Affordable Housing Developers
Bisnow reported that in late February, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) canceled roughly $60 million in Section 4 community development grant funding for two prominent affordable housing firms — New York-based Local Initiatives Support Corp. (LISC) and Maryland-based Enterprise Community Partners.
Section 4 funding, otherwise known as the Capacity Building for Affordable Housing and Community Development Program, supplies grants that support housing and community development for low-to-moderate-income households. LISC, Enterprise and Habitat for Humanity were the three organizations appointed to use federal funds to provide grants and technical assistance that preserve and build affordable housing across the country.
LISC said in a statement, “Last week’s cancellation of HUD’s capacity-building grants to nonprofit developers and other groups strikes a severe blow at the nation’s infrastructure for creating affordable homes and, if sustained, will damage local economies for years to come.”
Emergency Housing Voucher Program Running Out of Money
According to Cal Matters, federal housing authorities have announced that a $5 billion COVID-era emergency housing voucher is running out of cash — and no one has a plan to keep the roughly 60,000 renters relying on it from losing their housing after the last dollar is spent.
News of the imminent expiration of the Emergency Housing Voucher program came in a March 6 letter the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sent to local public housing authorities, the agencies that administer federal rental housing assistance programs. A final payment this spring may allow some agencies to keep their emergency programs running into 2026, but housing authorities were advised to move forward with “the expectation that no additional funding from HUD will be forthcoming.”
The emergency program was never meant to be permanent. Congress funded the emergency vouchers in 2021 with a lump sum of $5 billion. Once those funds were spent, the program was meant to come to an end. But the wind-down was supposed to be gradual.
DOGE Kills HUD’s Green and Resilient Retrofit Program; EPA Ends “Green Bank” Program
Bisnow, The New Republic, and AP News reported that the Trump administration’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) has halted a $1 billion Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program that helps preserve affordable housing, threatening projects that keep tens of thousands of units livable for low-income Americans.
The Green and Resilient Retrofit Program, passed by Congress in 2022, is intended for energy-efficiency improvements. It is distributed in grants and loans to owners of affordable housing in need of updating, including replacing or repairing heating and cooling systems, leaky roofs, aging insulation or windows, or undertaking floodproofing. The program was designed to keep housing units livable for low-income households. Projects that use the funds are required to keep their buildings affordable for up to 25 years.
The program has already awarded the money to projects that would upgrade at least 25,000 affordable units across the country, and details of how it will be wound down remain unclear. HUD’s lack of communication about the program’s future sent organizations in search of contingency plans, though roughly two-dozen projects will still get funding, one HUD employee told the AP.
Separately, on March 11, Environmental Protection Agency (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 to finance, renovate, and construct energy-efficient, affordable homes for low- and moderate-income families.
Canary Media reports that Zeldin claimed without evidence that the program is beset by “misconduct, conflicts of interest, and potential fraud.” The FBI is reportedly investigating, and Trump administration officials have used the threat of criminal investigation to compel Citibank to freeze an account that manages release of the funds. E&E News says Citibank accounts containing the balance of the grants have been frozen since February 18. Multiple lawsuits seeking release of the funds have been filed. Denise Cheung, the head of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C., resigned in mid-February, saying in her resignation letter that Trump administration officials, seeking to freeze the Citibank accounts, had pressured her to launch a criminal investigation without sufficient evidence.
Intended recipients of the funding include Enterprise Community Partners, LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corporation), Rewiring America, Habitat for Humanity, and United Way. One source (The New Republic) says DC Green Bank is among the organizations whose receipt of the funds is being investigated.
On March 18, Judge Tanya Chutkan of the federal district court in D.C. issued an order blocking the Trump administration from terminating $14 billion in grants awarded to three climate groups under the program, saying the government’s “vague and unsubstantiated assertions of fraud are insufficient.” At least for the time-being, the order prevents EPA from ending the grant program. The judge also blocked Citibank, which holds the money on behalf of EPA, from transferring it to the government or anyone else. Judge Chutkan declined the groups’ request to order Citibank to unfreeze the funds, instead opting to preserve the status quo for now.
The three plaintiff groups before the court — Climate United, the Coalition for Green Capital, and Power Forward Communities, said the freeze not only prevented them from financing new projects, but might force them to lay off staff. They said the allegations they were mishandling funds were utterly meritless. DC Green Bank is a member of the Coalition for Green Capital.
Fair Housing Groups Sue Over Funding Cuts
We reported in the March 9 News Digest that the Trump administration had begun terminating grants to organizations that enforce the Fair Housing Act. According to The New York Times, four fair housing organizations in Massachusetts, Idaho, Texas and Ohio filed suit in federal court in Massachusetts last week against the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) over the funding cuts. The lawsuit was brought on behalf of a proposed class of the groups.
According to the lawsuit, HUD and DOGE, operating at the direction of President Trump, made an “egregious overstep” when they canceled dozens of grants connected to the Fair Housing Initiatives Program. The groups say they had no warning that the funding would end abruptly. “The impact of these dollars is concrete and profound,” the complaint says.
FHFA Shakes Up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
The New York Times reported that on March 17, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) ousted numerous members of the boards of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant government-controlled mortgage finance firms that drive much of the U.S. housing market. The ousters of 14 board members at the two companies were announced in regulatory filings late Monday. Bisnow also has a story.
William Pulte recently took the helm of the FHFA after the Senate confirmed him. The agency is the primary regulator for Fannie and Freddie, which have been under federal government control since the 2008 financial crisis. The regulatory filings listed new board members named by Mr. Pulte, who will serve as board chairman of both firms. The regulatory filings offered no explanation for the board ousters.
Now the two mortgage finance firms, which together employ about 15,000 people, are bracing for job cuts, a later Times story adds.
Bisnow reports that one of the new directors appointed on March 17, Christopher Stanley, a cybersecurity engineer at two of Elon Musk’s companies, resigned on March 18. He didn't give a reason for his sudden departure.
And on March 20, The Washington Post reported that Pulte had fired Diana Reid, the CEO of Freddie Mac since September. It is unclear what immediate impact the dismissal will have, but a Bisnow newsletter reports that Mike Hutchins was named interim CEO on March 21. A separate Post story says the administration also dismissed the Fannie Mae board’s entire audit committee, which conducts internal assessments to ensure the company is acting properly.
Together, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee about half of existing home loans.
It remains to be seen how the firms would return to full private control, especially since they are heavily intertwined in the mortgage market. Any sudden disruption or technical error could spook investors and jeopardize global trust in mortgage-backed securities. And some fear that could send mortgage costs up.
News & Commentary
District of Columbia
More Details on Proposed Conversion of Avalon the Albemarle to Affordable Housing
As we previously reported, (February 27 News Digest), True Ground Housing Partners (True Ground) is looking to buy the “Avalon the Albemarle” apartment building at 4501 Connecticut Avenue in Van Ness to convert it to dedicated affordable housing. Now Marlene Berlin has an article in Forest Hills Connection providing more details on the proposal.
Nonprofit True Ground is under contract to buy the 228-unit Albemarle from current owner AvalonBay Communities, a publicly traded real estate investment trust. True Ground plans to convert the 1950s building into affordable housing for households in the 60 to 80% median family income range. No existing residents over the income threshold will be displaced after the purchase; units will be converted only after tenants move out. Some existing residents would see their rents go down if their incomes are within the specified range.
True Ground would bring in property management company Avenue Five, “to provide excellent maintenance and responsive management.” In addition, a resident services coordinator who works for True Ground would “organize community events, listen to residents’ concerns and connect residents with services.”
David Cristeal, a former ANC 3F commissioner, is the Housing Manager for the City of Hyattsville, and previously served for many years as Housing Director for Arlington County. In that capacity, he worked often with True Ground (then known as Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing, or APAH). Cristeal told Forest Hills Connection that he was directly involved in 14 of True Ground’s rental property acquisitions and new developments, and that he found it to be an “accomplished, capable and conscientious” organization, and that True Ground “was the best development partner that I worked with during my tenure in Arlington.”
Separately, a post on a local listserv reported that American Housing is acquiring the Huntington Apartments on Connecticut Avenue in Chevy Chase to convert the building to affordable housing. A brief entry on the company’s website says the building’s 127 units will be “re-program[med]” into 119 modernized family-style layouts, including three and four-bedroom units. The paragraph doesn’t say anything about timing, affordability levels, or the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) process.
The Huntington project is being financed with $10.6 million in “soft financing” from the Amazon Housing Equity Fund (HEF). Early in 2024, American Housing and HEF announced that HEF would provide $27.3 million in below-market-rate loans to assist in funding the Upper Northwest D.C. Housing Preservation Project, an initiative by American Housing to rehabilitate and modernize three apartment communities in Dupont Circle, Columbia Heights, and Mount Pleasant — the Park Regent, Park Meridian, and Ravenel. Together, those projects converted 236 existing units of naturally occurring affordable housing to 254 units affordable to households with incomes at 60% and 80% of area median income for 99 years. That press release described American Housing as “a real estate development firm specializing in workforce, affordable and market-rate transit-oriented development in Northwest Washington, D.C.”
Friendship Heights Development Begins Pre-Leasing
Developer Tishman Speyer has announced that its redevelopment of the Mazza Gallerie mall on Wisconsin Avenue in Friendship Heights as a mixed-use residential development has begun pre-leasing. Urban Turf says that Total Wine & More and TJ Maxx will open at the end of this summer in the 7-story, 321-unit apartment project. The Residences at Mazza will include 40 dedicated affordable apartments.
Washington Business Journal [subscription req’d] also has a story, noting that “Neighborhood backers say the opening of the Residences at Mazza will inject new life into the once-thriving Friendship Heights commercial corridor, which has languished in recent years as businesses closed en masse or relocated to competing neighborhoods like Georgetown or CityCenterDC.”
Continuing its series of rundowns of development projects in various neighborhoods in the region, Urban Turf has brief summaries of seven projects in the works in Friendship Heights, including the Mazza project. Each of these has been covered previously here in the News Digest, but collectively they add up to about 1,360 residential units.
Jubilee Housing and DC Green Bank Break Ground on Ward 1 Project
On March 11, Jubilee Housing and DC Green Bank broke ground on a new energy-efficient affordable housing development that will deliver new homes and workforce training to Ward 1. Located at the site of the King Emanuel Baptist Church, the building will have 18 single-room occupancy (SRO) units for returning citizens, feature an all-electric community kitchen offering workforce training programs, and serve as a hub for Jubilee Housing’s Reentry Housing Initiative Program.
The building is expected to be completed in early 2026. DC Green Bank provided a $3 million loan to finance high-performance building upgrades. Residents will have the option to transition to housing at the Jubilee Ontario Place development, a 52-unit affordable housing building adjacent to the site, which is under construction, also with financing from DC Green Bank.
The project will be the first funded under the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development’s (DHCD) long-term Reentry Housing and Services Pilot Grant. In addition to the DHCD and DC Green bank funding, the project is financed through a combination of sources, including 9% Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), DC LIHTC from the DHCD, first mortgage financing from the Cornerstone Fund, LIHTC equity from Red Stone, and Jubilee Housing’s own equity.
Meadow Green Courts Fails to Sell at Auction
We previously reported (February 11 News Digest) about Meadow Green Courts, a complex of 51 buildings in Ward 7, with most of its 435 units reserved as affordable to low-income residents. The tenants racked up more than $6 million in unpaid rent, owner E&G Group ran out of money, and the property was scheduled for a foreclosure auction March 12.
Now Bisnow reports that the property failed to sell at auction. No one was willing to bid for the property at a price above its $26 million loan, so the trustee ended the auction without a sale. The path forward for the property is now unclear. The units at Meadow Green Courts have remained affordable due to income-restriction covenants on the property, but the foreclosure process is expected to remove those.
Policy Center Issues TOPA Report
The D.C. Policy Center issued a new report last week on operation of the District’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA): “TOPA’s Promise and Pitfalls: Balancing tenant rights, affordability, and housing investment in Washington, D.C.” The 40-page report concludes that:
TOPA has shifted from a tool designed to promote tenant ownership to a broader mechanism for negotiating repairs, building improvements, rent concessions, and cash settlements. While it has had successes, it also creates challenges that discourage housing investment in D.C.
Modernizing the law could help strike a better balance between preserving affordable housing and attracting new investment.
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A sharp decline in housing permits signals that production is set to plummet, further exacerbating the city’s housing shortage. To address these issues, elected officials must define clear objectives for TOPA, align the law with these goals, and ensure tenant associations and housing providers receive necessary support. A well-calibrated approach will help protect affordable housing while encouraging continued housing development and investment.
Architect Urges a Different Strategy for Federal Property Disposition
In Washington Business Journal [subscription req’d], architect Shalom Baranes writes that, “If the federal government is truly committed to saving taxpayer money as it disposes of its real estate holdings, it needs to shift its attention from spreadsheets to floor plans.” He says about half of the government’s office inventory in the D.C. area is ideally configured for residential conversion, while the other half is only ever be suitable for office use.
Baranes looked at the list of 443 buildings that the government is considering for disposal on the list that was briefly posted by GSA before being taken down. He says the list included many millions square feet of space in buildings that are not at all suitable for conversion to residential, and that the vast majority will either remain unsold or be sold at fire-sale prices to patient, deep-pocketed developers who would most likely turn such sites into parking lots as they wait years for the market to change.
Other federal office buildings do have floor plate configurations that lend themselves to apartment conversions, but GSA is not prioritizing disposing of these buildings over the nonsuitable buildings.
A strategy involving moving federal workers into the buildings not suitable for conversions and disposing of those buildings that easily lend themselves to residential conversions would result in a significantly better economic outcome for both the federal government and the city.
A separate WBJ story takes a close look at some of the landmark buildings among the 27 within the District of Columbia that were on GSA’s briefly-posted list.
D.C. Metro Area
Apartment Demand Far Outpaced Supply in 2024
An analysis by RealPage concluded that apartment demand in the U.S. hit near its highest level in more than three decades in 2024 and easily outpaced concurrent new supply, even though new supply reached a 50-year high. Roughly 588,900 apartment units came online in the U.S. in 2024, while nearly 666,700 units were absorbed, creating about 77,800 units of excess demand.
The D.C. market was at the top of the list. The D.C. metro area absorbed 21,928 units during the year, while concurrent supply totaled 14,187 units, resulting in excess demand of 7,741 units in 2024, the most seen nationwide. In the 4th quarter of the year, D.C. area apartment buildings had a 96.0% occupancy rate.
Virginia
Neighbors Continue to Push Back on Clarendon Church’s Housing Plans
A report in ARLnow says that a proposal to redevelop Clarendon Presbyterian Church into affordable housing for LGBTQ+ seniors, a childcare facility, and a new church is facing pushback from some Lyon Village neighbors. The six-story, 102-unit project, planned with True Ground Housing Partners, requires rezoning, which critics argue sets a risky precedent for single-family neighborhoods.
Opposition continues despite the church withdrawing its special general land use plan study application. The proposed project will ultimately require rezoning, meaning that the project will have to go through a public review process, but the county isn’t currently considering any land use or zoning applications for the property. Nonetheless, a vocal group of residents have called for the proposal to “be rejected without the need for further review.”
For example, former Planning Commissioner Elinor Schwartz, argued in an email that, “This proposal by the Church . . . would put at risk any single-family neighborhood throughout the County that has a failing church. . . . It would enable a large-scale project on any such church site that would heavily impact the neighboring community and strain its infrastructure.” County Board members have attempted to placate emailers by reminding them that the formal public review process won’t begin until the actual site-plan proposal is filed with the county government.
Fairfax County Board Cautious on Conversion of Industrial Land to Housing
A story in FFXnow reports that the Fairfax County Department of Planning and Development (DPD) staff have proposed amending the county’s comprehensive plan to allow more flexibility for industrial land to turn into residential development, while also retaining some designated industrial areas. However, the Board of Supervisors cautioned at a land use committee meeting on March 11 that a conversion effort shouldn’t be taken too far. “It’s essential that we protect these industrial areas,” Board Chairman Jeff McKay said.
Developer Plans Apartment Tower for Alexandria
According to Bisnow, Arlington-based Red Fox Development Co. is planning a new 767-unit residential and retail project near Alexandria’s Eisenhower Avenue Metro station. The developer’s vision for a 31-story, 350-foot tower would make it the tallest building in Alexandria. Washington Business Journal [subscription req’d] first reported the story.
Separately, Washington Business Journal [subscription req’d] reported that D.C.-based Red Fox also has a hand in two recent proposals to convert 2000s-era office buildings to apartments — one in Arlington, the other in Alexandria. Red Fox wants to repurpose a 13-story building at 4100 Fairfax Drive, near the Ballston-MU Metro station, with 269 residential units. It’s also “playing an unspecified role in a concept development site plan” to convert a six-story office near the King Street-Old Town Metro station into a ten-story multifamily residential building.
Nationwide
Abundance
A new book by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, Abundance, was published on March 18. Eric Levitz at Vox says Klein and Thompson speak for a broad faction of “abundance liberals,” which encompasses the Yes in My Backyard (YIMBY) movement, various pro-innovation think tanks, and scores of commentators. The authors argue that since the 1970s, American liberals have been more concerned with obstructing harmful economic development than promoting the beneficial kind. Democrats have prioritized process over outcomes and favored stasis over growth, most notably through their support for zoning restrictions, stringent environmental laws, and attaching costly conditions to public infrastructure spending. To revitalize American progressivism, they sketch an “abundance agenda”: a series of regulatory reforms and public investment programs aimed at facilitating higher rates of housing development, infrastructure construction, and technological progress.
Noah Smith writes at his Noahpinion blog that, “The basic thesis of this book is that liberalism — or progressivism, or the left, etc. — has forgotten how to build the things that people want. Every progressive talks about ‘affordable housing,’ and yet blue cities and blue states build so little housing that it becomes unaffordable.” With respect to housing abundance, Smith says,
The orthodox progressive alternative — putting ever more onerous requirements on developers to subsidize rental properties, while throwing more public money at the problem — has failed spectacularly. And the anti-gentrification movement, which believes that building new housing raises rents, is simply wrong about how the world works. Economics is what it is, and the only way to make housing more affordable is to build a lot more of it.
While Klein and Thompson acknowledge that the obstructionism of small-government conservatives is sometimes part of the problem, Smith says “they marshal powerful evidence that an even bigger obstacle is progressives getting in their own way.” Smith says the big insight at the core of Abundance is that progressivism should not be a ritual to be followed; it should be a tool to getting real stuff that makes life better for the middle class and the working class of America.
In The New York Times’ review, Samuel Moyn says the book “comprises more than a set of concrete steps to fix specific socioeconomic problems in America. It’s mainly a sharp cry against myopic Democrats who block new ideas and govern through checklists, leading to what the authors call ‘an endless catalog of rules and restraints.’” He quotes Klein and Thompson as saying, “If liberals do not want Americans to turn to the false promise of strongmen, they need to offer the fruits of effective government.”
Matthew Yglesias writes in his blog Slow Boring that, having read progressive critiques of Abundance and Marc Dunkelman’s “also-excellent new book Why Nothing Works,” he is “more enthusiastic about these books than ever. Their theses are not only correct, they’re more dangerous than I originally thought.”
Jerusalem Demsas interviewed the authors about the book for The Atlantic. A transcript and podcast link can be found here. The authors’ appearance on The Daily Show is available on YouTube.
In a related essay in The New York Times [gift link], Klein points out that liberal strongholds are seeing huge population losses. Why?
[T]he dominant reason is simply this: The cost of living is too high. It’s too expensive to buy a house. It’s too expensive to get child care. You have to live too far from where you work. And so they’re going to places where all of that is cheaper — Texas, Florida, Arizona.
In the American system, Klein says, to lose people is to lose power. “You cannot be the party of working families when the places you govern are places working families cannot afford to live.”
This is the policy failure haunting blue states. It has become too hard to build and too expensive to live in the places where Democrats govern. It is too hard to build homes. . . . The problem isn’t technical: We know how to build apartment complexes and solar panel arrays and train lines. The problem is the rules and the laws and political cultures that govern construction in many blue states.
Klein acknowledges that this is an awkward time to make this argument, with Elon Musk trying to raze the federal government under the moniker of efficiency. But Trump didn’t run on efficiency, or on bringing Texas housing policies to the nation:
The populist right is powered by scarcity. When there is not enough to go around, we look with suspicion on anyone who might take what we have. That suspicion is the fuel of Trump’s politics. . . . The answer to a politics of scarcity is a politics of abundance, a politics that asks what it is that people really need and then organizes government to make sure there is enough of it.
For decades, Klein argues, liberals have “excused their own selfishness, putting yard signs out saying no human being is illegal, kindness is everything, even as they fought affordable housing nearby and pushed the working class out of their cities.” He concludes that liberals “need to offer Americans a liberalism that builds.”
The Invention of the “High-Cost” State
In his eponymous blog, M. Nolan Gray writes that America wasn't always a place of "expensive" and "affordable" states; the divergence of “expensive” and “affordable” American states is a recent phenomenon. In 2000, the median home price in Hawaii was approximately three times the median home price in West Virginia; today, it is five times as expensive.
Why did the ratio of home prices to incomes increase dramatically in a subset of states?
Over the past 50 years, blue states made it much harder to build housing. In states like Vermont, the “quiet revolution” ushered in a wave of new choke points to building. In states like California, environmental review requirements threw sand into the gears of construction. In states like New York, local downzonings reduced the zoned capacity of the Big Apple from 55 million to around 12 million residents.
Gray says blue states’ persistent failure on this issue has increasingly put Democrats at a permanent disadvantage. “At present trends, solid Democratic states are set to lose nine electoral college votes in 2030; solid Republican states are set to gain 10. The party that builds the future will own the future.”
Open Philanthropy Launches $120 Million Fund To Support YIMBY Reforms
Bloomberg CityLab reported that San Francisco grantmaking foundation Open Philanthropy is launching a new three-year, $120 million fund to support policies and reforms associated with “the so-called abundance movement.” This new Abundance and Growth Fund will drive advocacy, research and policies to reduce burdensome regulatory barriers to infrastructure and housing construction, among other subjects. Bloomberg says “abundance” has quickly emerged as a byword for a set of policies meant to drive down costs and increase productivity in U.S. cities.
Low-Income Housing Shortage Expected to Worsen
Last week the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) released its annual The Gap Report. A story in Bisnow says the group is warning that the already severe shortage of units for low-income renters could worsen. Of the almost 11 million renters across the country that are considered extremely low-income, there is a shortage of 7.1 million available affordable rental homes for them.
NLIHC is concerned about the potential effects of President Donald Trump's cuts to housing assistance programs. NLIHC Research Manager Dan Emmanuel said, "This is probably the most consequential, serious threat to affordable housing since Richard Nixon's moratorium on federal affordable housing programs in the 70s."
For every 100 households classified as extremely low-income in the U.S., there are only 35 units affordable and available to them, according to NLIHC's new report. In D.C., that number is 32. There are no states or major metropolitan areas in the U.S. without a shortage of housing for extremely low-income renters.
For the segment of renters making up to 50% of area median income (AMI), NLIHC found there are 53 units affordable and available per 100 households. Those making up to 80% AMI have 88 units available per 100 households. "The private market on its own, without subsidy, just doesn't produce enough units," Emmanuel said. "In a very tight market, when housing gets older and might otherwise become affordable to the lowest income households, there's this economic incentive for owners to rehab housing and charge higher rents for it."
Landlord Rent Concessions Leveling Off
Zillow says in its February 2025 Rental Market Report that, nationwide, the demand from new renters is strong enough to maintain upward pressure on rents, which are up 3.5% compared to last year. For the first time since last June, rent growth for single-family homes is now lagging behind that of apartments in multifamily buildings. “While impressive new apartment construction has alleviated some rent pressures, the slowdown in construction may lead to more competition as demand from renters continues to surge.”
While most metro areas are experiencing mild rent growth, landlords are still providing short-term relief through incentives, with over 41% of Zillow rental listings featured concessions in February. After seven months of rising rent concessions, this trend has now stabilized, and may have peaked in January. “As competition in the rental market heats up and more people relocate, landlords are likely to reduce these incentives.”
Trump Tariffs Already Raising Construction Costs
According to AP News, the Trump administration’s tariffs on imported goods from Canada, Mexico and China — some already in place, others set to take effect in a few weeks — are already driving up the cost of building materials used in new residential construction and home remodeling projects.
The National Association of Home Builders projects that the tariffs will raise the costs that go into building a single-family home in the U.S. by $7,500 to $10,000. Such costs are typically passed along to the homebuyer in the form of higher prices.
Prices for building materials, including lumber, have been rising, even though the White House has delayed its tariffs rollout on some products. Lumber futures jumped to $658.71 per thousand board feet on March 4, reaching their highest level in more than two years. The increase is already inflating costs for construction projects.
A later story in Washington Business Journal [subscription req’d] says that anticipation of price hikes because of newly imposed tariffs has already resulted in cost increases for materials commonly used in construction. Notable increases in February in certain materials popular in construction include iron and steel, which rose 3.9%; softwood lumber, which rose 2.8%; and steel mill products, which rose 2.7%. The chief economist at Associated Builders and Contractors said the increases in materials like iron and steel were a result of "tariffs providing domestic producers with increased pricing power."
WBJ also says the homebuilding sector may be preparing to pull back on housing production in the wake of tariffs, at a time when the housing market remains millions of homes short of supply. New residential construction permits fell by 6.8% year over year in February.
Bisnow has a story about how on-again, off-again tariffs and the uncertainty that has come with potential trade wars greatly complicate planning, budgeting and contracting for major construction projects.
NAR Releases Snapshot of Race and Home Buying
The National Association of Realtors has released its 2025 Snapshot of Race and Home Buying in America. There’s lots of data to dig into in the nearly 60-page report, but the most notable headline is that the Black homeownership rate in the U.S. experienced the greatest year-over-year increase in 2023 among racial groups, yet it still falls nearly 28 percentage points below the White homeownership rate, and also well below the Asian and Hispanic homeownership rates.
Overall, as of 2023, there are approximately 11.8 million more homeowners than in 2013. Specifically, the homeownership rate in 2023 reached 65.2%, up from 63.5% in 2013.
In a related vein, the Urban Institute published an article last month by researchers John Walsh and Jung Hyun Choi concluding that Black households still hold a disproportionately low share of housing wealth nationally relative to their share of households.
In 2022, Black households held 5.9% of total housing wealth, despite making up 11.9% of households, a 6% “gap.”
Data on the ratio of the share of total home values owned by Black homeowners to the share of total households headed by Black individuals showed that the District of Columbia has one of the larger housing wealth gaps, at 17%.
Shelby County, Tennessee, had the largest gap, at 24%. Prince George’s County had the smallest, at -2%, where Black households owned 66.9% of the county’s total home value but made up 64.8% of households.
Investor Home-Flipping Declines
ATTOM released its year-end 2024 U.S. Home Flipping Report, showing that 297,885 single-family homes and condos in the United States were flipped in 2024. That was down 7.7% from 322,782 in 2023, and down 32.4% from a recent peak of nearly 441,000 in 2022. The number of homes flipped by investors declined, as did flips as a portion of all home sales, from 8.1% in 2023 to 7.6% last year.
Homes flipped in 2024 were sold for a median price nationwide of $315,000, generating a gross flipping profit of $72,000 above the median original purchase price paid by investors of $243,000. In the D.C. metro area, the gross flipping profit on median-priced transactions in 2024 was $170,000.
The report defines a single-family home or condo “flip” as any arms-length transaction that occurred in the quarter where a previous arms-length transaction on the same property had occurred within the last 12 months.
Typical Homeowner Stays in Place for 11.8 Years
An analysis by Redfin says the typical U.S. homeowner stays in their house for 11.8 years. But homeowners in California, where Proposition 13 can lock owners into low property-tax rates, are staying put much longer, with a median tenure in the Los Angeles area of 19.4 years.
Nationwide, homeowner tenure has nearly doubled since 2005, but is down a bit since peaking in 2020 at 13.4 years. The D.C. region’s median tenure was 13.3 years in 2024, up from 11.6 years in 2014.
Other States
Rhode Island Town Uses Eminent Domain to Stop Affordable Housing Development
In his blog Rent Free, Christian Britschgi tells the story of how the Rhode Island town of Johnston, a suburb of Providence, used a secret eminent domain process to seize a developer family’s land to prevent their construction of an unsubsidized, 254-unit affordable housing project. Without providing any advance notice to the owners and without following the processes laid down in state law, the town claims to have already seized the developers' 31-acre plot for use as a “municipal campus,” and is threatening to cite the former owners for trespassing if they don’t vacate promptly. Last week the developers sued to stop the seizure in federal court, alleging that the "municipal campus" Johnston was seizing the land for was merely a pretext to stop new affordable housing.
Calendar
March 22 — The Office of Planning will host Define Our Vision - Intro Session #1, which will include a brief presentation on the DC 2050 Comprehensive Plan revision process and an opportunity for the public to engage on the subject with the District’s leaders and urban planners. 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, 901 G Street, N.W. More information and RSVP here.
March 24 — Next regular meeting of ANC 3/4G (Chevy Chase), 6:30-8:30, virtually via Zoom. The agenda includes “Community Update on DMPED March 29, 2025 Disposition Hearing/Community Meeting and ANC Engagement Process.” Register for Zoom attendance here.
March 25 — The Office of Planning will host Define Our Vision - Intro Session #2, which will include a brief presentation on the DC 2050 Comprehensive Plan revision process and an opportunity for the public to engage on the subject with the District’s leaders and urban planners. 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., Barry Farm Recreation Center, 1230 Sumner Road, S.E. More information and RSVP here.
March 27 — The Office of Planning will host Define Our Vision - Intro Session #3 (virtual), which will include a brief presentation on the DC 2050 Comprehensive Plan revision process and an opportunity for the public to engage on the subject with the District’s leaders and urban planners. 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., online. More information and RSVP here.
March 29 — The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (DMPED) will hold a disposition hearing to present the development team proposals for redeveloping the Chevy Chase library and community center site, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., in-person at the Chevy Chase Community Center and online. Register for online attendance here. The record will be open for comments on the proposals for 60 days after the meeting.
April 15 — Next regular meeting of ANC 3F (Van Ness), 7:00-9:00 p.m., online.
April 15 — Next regular meeting of ANC 3A (Middle Wisconsin Avenue), 7:00 p.m., at the McLean Gardens Ballroom and virtually via Zoom.
April 21 — Next regular meeting of ANC 3C (Cleveland Park and Woodley Park), virtual, 7:00-9:00 p.m.
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.
To let us know of something we should add, please email christopher.vaden78@gmail.com.
Thanks for all this, including the reviews of Abundance. I am sympathetic to that analysis. I think I'm number 80 or something on the library wait list, and that's in Baltimore County!