DC’s Attorney General Advocating for More Affordable Housing
By Keith Loria December 7, 2021 3:51 pm
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The Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia is taking on a new role in advocating for affordable housing.
Karl A. Racine, who became the District of Columbia’s first-ever elected attorney general in 2015, announced he was overhauling the office’s land -se division to concentrate more on housing affordability in zoning, land use and related development processes.
Racine wants the Zoning Commission to make inclusionary housing units more affordable, expand the zones in which developers must provide inclusionary housing units, and incentivize the creation of affordable housing. The reason for the change, he said, was due to rising rents over the last several years, which are pushing out long-term and low-income residents.
“The District has grown dramatically over the last several years with significant benefits, but too often this growth has hurt and pushed out long-term and low-income residents,” Racine said in a prepared statement. “I’ve leaned into our public-interest mission, and have worked to stand up for those who have been left behind by this growth — workers in the construction industry whose wages have been stolen or tenants who have been pushed out by squalid conditions and deliberate neglect to make way for newer, richer residents.”
The OAG has limited authority over zoning decisions, though its land-use section does advise on land use, preservation and zoning.
In the past, the OAG was also responsible for providing confidential legal counsel to the Zoning Commission or Board of Zoning Adjustment, but in October, those responsibilities were transferred to the D.C. Office of Zoning, which is not under the OAG’s purview.
Nevertheless, Racine noted his office would use its authority to advocate for the advancement of racial equity, environmental justice and housing affordability for long-term District residents.
As part of his new focus, Racine’s office sent letters to all Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners in the District looking to collaborate and level the playing field between developers and residents in these critical decisions. The AG’s office’s land use section is also looking for input from community organizations and advocacy groups.
Another big goal of the AG office is to remove the current affordable housing exemption from the requirements of the inclusionary zoning program for the downtown area, as Racine said he is looking to require all upcoming projects downtown to provide affordable units to create “a more inclusive and diverse development in the District’s central core.”
A request for further comment from the AG’s office was not immediately returned.
The need for affordable housing is an issue that’s also very important to Mayor Muriel Bowser.
Earlier this year, the D.C. Council unanimously passed her $17.5 billion fiscal year 2022 budget, which enacted the mayor’s original housing wish list, including a substantial $400 million commitment to the Housing Production Trust Fund to build and preserve affordable housing. It also included $42 million for project-sponsor vouchers to help low-income residents.
Keith Loria can be reached at Kloria@commercialobserver.com.
