The D.C. Office of Planning (OP) is seeking community input as it begins to amend the District’s Comprehensive Plan, a 20-year framework the office says will help the nation’s capital deal with the effects of gentrification. The office will hold seven citywide meetings.
Several D.C. residents are unhappy with the changes that are occurring in D.C., saying that Mayor Muriel Bowser is pushing agendas that are forcing low income Black residents to leave D.C. D.C. (Courtesy Photo)
The second meeting of seven, on Oct. 22, was held for residents who live east of the Anacostia, and sparked a debate on growth and development in the midst of gentrification. “All of us are working together as a heavy lift to really address the needs of the city,” said OP Director of Planning Gary Shaw. “We’re striving to make D.C. an inclusive city.”
The city’s Comprehensive Plan was written into legislation in 2006 and first amended in 2011. Due to rapid population growth, the plan is being updated to reflect the changing conditions and community priorities that 70,000 new residents have brought to the city.
According to the office, an inclusive city means “individuals and families are not confined to particular economic and geographic boundaries but are able to make important choices – choices about where they live, how and where they earn a living, how they get around the city, and where their children go to school,” adding that “every resident can makes these choices – regardless of whether they have lived here for generations or moved here last week, and regardless of their race, income, or age.”
Shaw said the mayor’s Home Purchase Assistance Program will assist Black residents with down payment costs as an immediate response to gentrifying neighborhoods, but noted that policies will have to be assessed for long-term strategies that make living in D.C. more affordable for Blacks.
Community members were dissatisfied with the shallow response from Shaw on how the plan for inclusion would keep longtime District residents from being pushed out of the city due to rising costs of living. Some were also skeptical that the plan would meet the measure it set for inclusion.
“We first have to acknowledge that the Comprehensive Plan that currently exists is for the displacement that is occurring,” said Aiyi’nah Ford, executive director of The Future Foundation, an organization that assists young professionals with their careers. “The way it is now it helps millennials without children.”
Ford, whose family has lived in D.C. for at least three generations, said the meeting was held merely for “pomp and circumstance” rather than to truly addressing the needs of its longtime residents, who historically are Black. “This is Muriel Bowser’s land and we’re just living in it,” she said.
The new Comprehensive Plan includes a “resilience” strategy, which OP is tentatively defining as “the capacity of individuals, neighborhoods, institutions, businesses, and systems to thrive in an inclusive manner amidst challenging conditions and to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events.” The strategy also addressed climate change by providing policies to prepare for natural and human-made disasters.
“Flooding is a major issue in the city, as well as extreme heat,” said Tanya Stern, OP deputy director of Planning, Engagement and Design. “It’s really a critical life
safety issue. In Wards 7 and 8, there is a higher level of vulnerability to climate due to age and health.”
The amended plan is being guided by fives themes: manage growth and change, creating successful neighborhoods, increasing access to education and employment, connecting the whole city, and building green and healthy communities.
The next citywide community meeting is scheduled for Nov. 14. OP is soliciting community input for possible changes to the Comprehensive Plan, developing evaluation criteria for the plan, and to share as feedback with partner agencies.
“Equity and equality is what DC needs to focus on,” said Mike Grier, a community member at the Oct. 22 meeting at Thurgood Marshall Public Charter School in Southeast. “D.C. is turning into a European foreign country.”