The Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia (OAG) filed a petition in December 2021 to amend Subtitle I of the Zoning Regulations to apply the Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) program to currently exempt Downtown (D) zones (Z.C. Case No. 21-23). On March 20, 2023, the D.C. Office of Planning (OP) submitted a report analyzing the proposed text amendment and its implications and concluded that it does not recommend that the Zoning Commission set down the proposal for a public hearing.
OP finds that OAG's proposal "would result in circumstances inconsistent with the Comprehensive Plan, with a potential to discourage new residential use and hampering the economic recovery of the downtown." OP raises particular concern about the lack of proposed incentives to compensate for new IZ requirements. OP also asserts that "residents of color who are the majority lower-income households in the District could be disproportionately impacted" and that stifling housing production could increase cost burdens and render housing in the D zones "less attainable."
The Zoning Commission has approved several changes to the Zoning Regulations in furtherance of the IZ program in recent years, including IZ Plus, Phase 1 and Phase 2 of "IZ XL," and amendments that facilitate conversions of non-residential buildings to residential use. According to D.C.'s Comeback Plan, as of January 2023, the Central Washington planning area has achieved 44.9 percent of its affordable housing production goal, as established in the 2019 Housing Equity Report, and is estimated to reach 94.6 percent of the goal by 2025.
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