Posted on 07/03/2006 10:40:05 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
The height restriction is a prime example of one of that industry's most notorious products, the unfunded federal mandate. In 1899, Congress passed the Heights of Buildings Act in response to the 14-story Cairo apartment tower, which at the time was reviled as a monstrosity overshadowing its Dupont Circle neighborhood. (It is now admired as one of Washington's most beautiful residential buildings.) The original law limited buildings to the height of the Capitol, but was amended in 1910 to the width of the adjacent street plus 20 feet, so a building facing a 90-foot-wide street could be only 110 feet tall. The basic intent was the same: No skyscrapers.
This meshed perfectly with the Jeffersonian vision of Washington as an American version of 18th-century Paris, with "low and convenient" housing on "light and airy" streets. That made more sense before the invention of the elevator, but the height limit has certainly preserved the sightlines of Washington's monuments, while preventing the concrete-canyon effect found on New York streets lined with 50-story skyscrapers. Here developers can build only 10 or 12 stories, but there is no sign of any agitation for repeal, even among downtown builders. "Sure, we'd build taller if we could, and our competition would, too," says Matthew Klein, president of the Akridge development group. "But there are benefits for the city with the smaller scale."
The acquiescence of local developers is less surprising than it sounds, since they reap many of those benefits; for developers who already own buildings, the restriction on height is really a restriction on new competition. That's one reason downtown D.C.'s office rents are almost as exorbitant as downtown Manhattan's; the government has artificially limited the supply of space.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I don't see how that's a bad thing...
I liked it when I visited there...
And i absolutely adore skyscrapers.
Yes, but it is squeezing people out of D.C. with rising prices.
Although, being DC, it's a Federal issue, it's also a great example of Federalism. Different states, counties, cities, and towns should -- with the acquiesence of their voters -- have different rules for zoning, highway placement, schools, whatever. This increases the chance that an individual can find a place that suits him.
Anyway, IMHO, Washington D.C, (or at least the federal part of the city) looks more "European" than any American towns that I have been to.
And the people who run the town are becoming more European in there philosophy.
The author seems to think that if we were more like Manhattan, it would ease our traffic and housing cost problems.
Exactly. I've been on Capitol Hill for over 25 years. It used to be a dicey neighborhood. It's now gentrified and it's gotten expensive for the first time in its history. It's even turned into a bit of a destination along 8th street Barracks Row. The gentrification is now pushing off the Hill into the surrounding areas. North of H Street up to Gallaudet is flipping, Trinidad will flip, the whole Anacostia waterfront is being rebuilt, and gentrification has finally leaped the river with some major new development in Anacostia (parts of which were always pretty nice, despite the rap). And that's just my little corner of the city.
When Capitol Hill started getting expensive, I began to refer young acquaintances to Brookland (for the uninitiated, the area around and just east of Catholic University); now that's been discovered. Brentwood still has some bargains, but the far northeast Rhode Island Avenue business strip is picking up and that's a signal. The area along Montana Avenue from Rhode Island down to Bladensburg Road used to be downright scary; now the projects are gone and there are $400,000 (?) single-family detached homes. Incredible change.
Meanwhile, suburbanites are spending four hours a day in their cars. Yeah, there are suburbanites who refuse to come into the city because they think it's still 1968, and all the big shopping malls are out in the burbs anyhow and what else do they need? But the reverse is also true: folks on the Hill mutter and moan every time we get trapped into an event out in Fairfax because it means sludging through gridlock both ways.
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