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Abstract

A booming regional and local economy and constraints on housing production have combined to create unprecedented housing price inflation in the District of Columbia and present added challenges for the city's goal of preserving an "Inclusive City." This report offers a brief summary of the facts that define the new housing market environment in the city and summarizes the main themes of the Comprehensive Housing Strategy Task Force. In it we identify policy instruments other U.S. cities have utilized to respond to the housing market pressures and whether there are any lessons of relevance for the next stages of strategy implementation in the District.

Introduction

The past decade has been a period of unprecedented change in the District of Columbia's housing market; in fact, in America’s urban housing markets generally. In planning to address the change, the District has responded more coherently than it probably ever has before.

Starting in 2001, the Fannie Mae Foundation has made a major investment in establishing a sound, recurrently updated database on trends in housing and related forces in the city and its region, accompanied by a series of detailed annual reports that interpret the trends. In 2003, the District’s Mayor and Council established a Comprehensive Housing Strategy Task Force composed of a broad array of civic leaders and housing advocates as well as city officials. The Task Force took full advantage of the new data resources in its deliberations and completed a report with a wide-sweeping set of recommendations in early 2006.

The District government completed its new draft comprehensive plan for the future development of the city later in the year, containing a housing element that was very much consistent with the recommendations of the Task Force. In the summer of 2006, it also provided a sizeable boost in funding for housing in its new budget, in keeping with the Task Force report. Furthermore, Task Force recommendations were explicitly endorsed by all major candidates in the subsequent Mayoral campaign; most importantly by Adrian Fenty who, in November, was elected to become the District’s new Mayor.

The work of the Task Force was intense. While there is considerable confidence in the results, the Fannie Mae Foundation decided in early 2006 to sponsor a quick outside check to find out what other U.S. cities have been doing to respond to the new market environment and whether there are any lessons of relevance for the next stages of strategy implementation in the District. This paper is the result. The work entailed scanning of readily available documentation (web sites and hard-copy reports) and interviewing selected housing policy experts, knowledgeable about recent activity in other cities.

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The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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