Populist Real Estate: Crowdfunding and Planning in DC

District Architecture Center, photo courtesy AIA, DC chapter

With DC growing by nearly 1,100 residents per month, according to the Office of Planning (OP), some residents might feel swept up in change.  But one OP initiative aims to frame DC residents as more than just "passive recipients" of planning and urban development.  The city is not alone; several groups - even a young DC company - are headed in that direction.

A "Citizen Planner Forum" was held Thursday night at the District Architecture Center, which opened last year at 421 7th St. NW.  The event marked the culmination in a months-long joint initiative of the DC Office of Planning (OP) and the Washington, DC chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to get input on place-making from people other than experts.

Real Estate and Crowdfunding

Before: Fundrise 1351 H St. NE, image courtesy Fundrise

Another example of projects built on the concept of collaborating with neighbors on development: Fundrise.  The new project in DC is based on using crowd-funding to buy properties, and the message "build the city you want to live in." Through Fundrise, the entity 1351 H Street has already gotten $215,000 in local investments to renovate a property on H Street, according to its web site.  The architect for the renovation is Michael Francis at Queue, LLC.

Daniel Miller is a principal at WestMill Capital Partners real estate development company and co-founder of Fundrise.  He spoke to the group Thursday.  Miller said Fundrise, which Launched just six weeks ago, is based on the concept that any resident of DC or Virginia can buy a $100 stake in a property and help jump-start a small business.  Miller said investors could also get returns.

Fundrise follows on the heels of WestMill's web site Popularise, a crowd-sourcing web site that allows property owners to survey citizens about what they want a property to become.  WestMill has used it to crowdsource ideas for its own property, but other real estate groups have used Popularise too.

Residents Re-framing Development Discourse

Offering another example of the way residents DC are already re-framing the discourse, Anacostia resident Veronica Davis talked about her experience as a co-founder of "Black Women Bike DC". 
Davis noted that growth can trigger tensions surrounding race and fears of being "priced out". An unexpected symbol of that tension, panelists said: bike lanes.

After: 1351 H St. NE.  Rendering courtesy Fundrise

Davis explained that for some residents of DC, bike lanes seem like harbingers of change, even omens of higher rent.  "We founded Black Women Bike to say – we do bike," Davis told the group. "And we needed infrastructure. Part of that is being visible."
 
That kind of citizen action is what the OP wants to encourage.  The aim is to "work together and not just talk at each other," OP director Harriet Tregoning told DCMud. "Our neighborhoods are going to be better-functioning if people feel they have a stake in their neighborhoods."

Carolyn Sponza of AIA DC, also an architect at Gensler, said the main themes that emerged from four earlier focus groups were: a desire for more education about the way planning works, an idea for a planning network that would connect neighbors across wards,  the need for public spaces and "somewhere to sit", and a need for new modes of participation in planning. 

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DIY City Planning: OP and AIA DC Launch Citizen Focus Groups

Ever been to a planning meeting?  Fuzzy on development zoning and permitting, but still have ideas about D.C. development or what exactly makes a great neighborhood?  The D.C. Office of Planning (OP) - the municipal authority charged with shaping the District's urban landscape - still cares about what residents like you have to say.  That's the message the office is sending with a new series of focus groups.

The District Architecture Center, Image courtesy AIA

In collaboration with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) DC Advocacy Committee, the OP, under the direction of Planning Director Harriet Tregoning, has launched a series of focus groups to get a picture of resident thoughts on place-making and everything from transportation to use of public space. Two focus groups, of two hours each, have already met and two are coming up.

The focus groups signal a real effort in the planning department to look beyond planning meetings and foster citizen agency.

The deadline to join the groups was August 8th, and OP officials say there was an overwhelming interest to join: the office received hundreds of applications and selected participants who had been both more engaged and less engaged in official city planning processes.

"We have these very official – and some might say officious – ways of doing business and engaging people," Tregoning said. She noted that development and planning initiatives go through a complex approval process some residents might find distancing.  But, she said, many are already working informally - both outside city hall and with the city - to improve their neighborhoods. Tregoning points to a recent project under the city's Temporary Urbanism Initiative in which, with grant funding from ArtPlace, citizens painted a plaza with cafe tables and imagined structures to show what the plaza would be like if it were a place for people and not cars. 

"People have a lot of energy around this but there is not necessarily a place for it to go, and how can we harness it for the betterment of the city and for the neighborhood?" Tregoning asked.

The idea for the forums emerged from joint meetings between OP officials and the new D.C. advocacy committee of the AIA.  Carolyn Sponza is the enthusiastic head of the committee and has been a key force behind spearheading the effort.  She said the two groups realized there was a real "synergy" between AIA D.C.'s advocacy committee's goal to engage broad community issues larger than architecture, and the OP's "Citizen Planner Initiative." 

An architect at Gensler and AIA volunteer, Sponza said that residents have raised a diverse range of issues so far.  She said two main themes have been urban mobility and connectivity. "There were a lot of things about making connections, like the 'I can't get there from here syndrome,'" Sponza told DCMud.  She said people were also interested in growing connections, both between neighborhoods and between citizen organizations and non-profit planning and architecture services.

Tregoning said the forums are meant to explore ways to reach people and engage people more informally and more frequently on different kinds of issues. "There is just a ton of interest in what makes good neighborhoods and good places and a lot of people in the city have this deep curiosity in good cities," Tregoning added. "We were interested in ways to try to satisfy that curiosity and at the same time try a better constituency for better planned neighborhoods and better citizen engagement."

Tregoning pointed to many possible outcomes that could emerge from the focus groups:

• A "Development 101" module about how development happens in the city and how residents can have influence in the process.
• Further engagement of citizens around traffic and development and aspects of "the built environment that lead to more trips by car or fewer trips by car."
• Efforts in particular neighborhoods to clean up trash, get more retail, or build facilities from public trash cans to parking.
• DIY projects
• New ways people can participate in planning.  Most avenues for citizen input in planning are geared toward in-person meetings.  Possible new avenues might use technology to include people to engage remotely.
• Walking tours in areas that citizens nominate geared toward fostering dialogue surrounding the question: "what makes a great place?" 

One of the explicit objectives, Tregoning said, "is to have citizens not be the passive recipients of the city's planning but figuring out ways that they can be more involved – not just as commenters in the planning project – but in thinking about what they can do to make their neighborhoods better."

The AIA DC advocacy committee will present an overview of the meetings on October 4th at the new District Architecture Center at 421 7th Street NW, in DC's Penn Quarter neighborhood, from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.  The street-level space, also home to the Washington Architecture Foundation, was designed by Washington firm Hickok Cole Architects.  The center hosts events and exhibits aimed at engaging the public and professionals in architecture.

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DC Zoning Code Greens Up For the Holidays

As the Zoning code stands currently, grand roofs and landscaped public terraces are a great way for developers to woo the members of the Zoning Commission into granting their project approval, but they aren't specifically required amenities. In a lengthy and layered attempt to retool important aspects of the Zoning code, the Office of Planning has proposed a new requirement dubbed Green Area Ratio (GAR). Travis Parker, Development Review Specialist with the Office of Planning, says that this specific subsection of their review is one of more significant proposals: "it's a new requirement trying to improve air quality, the heat island effect, and storm water management in the city." Currently developers have limits to the amount of space their building(s) can occupy on any give lot, but it's technically up to them how they decide to use that leftover space. The new GAR stipulations would be flexible. "Developers will have options," says Parker, "whether it is green roofs or planting trees, but it requires developers to have an impact on the greening of the city."

Like LEED Certification, developers would earn a certain amount of points by including sustainable green features in their design: plantings, vegetated walls and roofs, and permeable surfaces. Through their planning decisions, developers would have to aggregate a certain amount of points depending on the scale of the development project. Bonus points can be earned for use of native plants, urban farming, and harvested storm water irrigation systems. Specifics on the point system, and the calculation of GAR can be found here.

The new rules would apply to all new new buildings requiring a Certificate of Occupancy, as well as buildings requiring a C of O and undergoing significant additions, alterations, or repairs. A more in-depth discussion with the Zoning Board on the merits of OP's GAR proposal will take place February 28th. The Zoning Commission will continue to hold preliminary hearings on the various other subsections of OP's Zoning Review through next summer, with a comprehensive final action hearing not likely to take place until the winter of 2011. Any new rules wouldn't be enforced until early 2012, "at the soonest" says Parker. Still, with development action poised to pick up as the market stabilizes, the time is ripe to lock in greener regulations as the city looks to grow more dense.

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