If You Build It, Use It
This is really stupid:
The self-referential Holladay at Edgemoor will deliver 48 condominiums to the intersection of Montgomery Lane and West Lane – dead center between Bethesda’s two main retail areas and just a block from the Bethesda Metro.
Located on a flatiron-shaped, half-acre parcel next to the Chase at Bethesda, the six-story building project will occupy three lots that currently host three office space-converted colonial homes. Comprised mainly of conventional flats, Holladay will also build 4 two-story townhouses on the building’s east side, fronting along Montgomery Lane. Of the units contained in the 71,343 square foot development, 6 units have been earmarked for affordable housing. The residences will all sit atop a 77-space underground parking garage – a measure designed, no doubt, to relieve overcrowding in one of Montgomery County’s most parking-challenged areas. Holladay has taken on Bethesda-based architects, SK&I, to design the project.
The project comes in with especially low density for a Metro site, with 30% open space, and an approved maximum density of 2.5 FAR, the multiplier of buildable space relative to lot size.
Heavy rail lines like the Metro Red Line on which Bethesda Station is located are hugely expensive to build. Hugely expensive and, I think, worth building. But realistically — they’re expensive. That means that of all the space in a good-sized metro area, most of it won’t be right by a station. And that means that when a station is built, we need to use the land that’s right by the station efficiently. Which is to say densely. Which is to say not 2.5 FAR and a big parking garage. There are lots of places far from transit where low density and big garages may be appropriate. But having built the station, we should be cramming tons of stuff onto this parcel.
Things like the six unit affordable housing set-aside in this project may make people feel nice. But ultimately things like a 2.5 FAR limit are drastically curtailing the supply of housing — especially transit-accessible housing. And you can’t address the affordable housing issue through a series of six unit set-asides. You need a systemic effort to allow housing supply to rise when and where housing demand rises. That means allowing density in the most desirable areas, not low-density developments plus set-asides.
26 Responses to “If You Build It, Use It”
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December 17th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Yes, but this is Bethesda we are talking about, so are you really surprised?
December 17th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
To some extent, parking and transit are complementary. The maximum allowable FAR being 2.5 is a much bigger problem than the garage IMO.
In VA, one (state Republican, oddly) proposal was to make NoVA transit money contingent on allowing high-density development within 1 mile of Metro stations.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Maybe I read too quickly, but it’s not clear to me whether the low density of the development is because of local zoning restrictions, or because the developer deemed its plans the best way to maximize profits (ie., a reflection of market forces). If it’s the latter, then the type of density a lot of us want is going to require regulations or taxes (a low density tax?) that force the issue, and increase density. But yeah, I agree, it’s dumb.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
…and an approved maximum density of 2.5 FAR, the multiplier of buildable space relative to lot size.
Um, yeah, I read too quickly.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
The DC metro is not the NY subway. The Bethesda metro is on only one line – the red line – which serves only one purpose: to get commuters into and out of downtown DC. The Red Line cannot serve as the main transportation hub of Bethesda.
Now, if the Purple Line were built, you would have a cross-county rail link that would make the Bethesda metro station a hub of sorts and it would become realistic to treat this property as if a substantial number of people would arrive by metro.
But at the moment the Purple Line is pie-in-the-sky, and the planners have to assume that virtually everyone working in or visiting that building will arrive by car or bus.
December 17th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Oh, I’m sure the people who can afford these places will take the subway all the time!
December 17th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I don’t think y’all know what you’re talking about… Downtown Bethesda is sort of a “destination” neighborhood so lots people do take the Metro and transit to go there and visit all the restaurants and stuff in the neighborhood — and people pay lots of money so they can live by the Metro.
Basically that whole stretch of Woodmont Avenue in downtown Bethesda was poorly thought out, though, as its lack of interesting street-level things creates a pedestrian dead zone between the very pedestrian-oriented, restaurant-filled Woodmont Triangle area and the very pedestrian-oriented, shop-and-restaurant-filled Bethesda Row area.
I used to live and work in the neighborhood and a pretty large percentage of my coworkers who didn’t live in the neighborhood took the Metro there.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Here’s an overhead look at the neighborhood, for those of you who think we’re talking single-story suburbia here:
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=qgxnth8k7xfg&style=b&lvl=1&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=31363115&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1
December 17th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
My sentiments exactly
December 17th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Paul and Nate don’t know what they’re talking about. This is the Downtown Bethesda neighborhood, not the vast sea of suburban sprawl referred to sweepingly as “Bethesda”.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Um, the garage is underground, so it doesn’t take up any space at all. That’s the best possible way to build parking for a development like this. And yes, even people who live by a metro station still own cars. The point of the metro is so they don’t need to drive them as much, but DC ain’t Manhattan — there are still plenty of destinations for which you’ll need a car, even if you take the metro to work every day.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Unless and until the real estate market really turns around no one is actually going to build the thing.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Something tells me Matt has played a lot of SimCity.
December 17th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Others have pointed out the delusional nature of the comment by Bloix at 12:57, but the facts deserve repetition. The area around the Bethesda Metro stop is as densely developed as anywhere else in the DC area. My son works in the building on top of the station, and commutes there (from Arlington) every day by bus and subway.
December 17th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Well maybe that’s low density in DC but in most cities it would be sky high. One half acre with 48 units or 96 units an acre is over 60,000 units a square mile (recognizing that streets and such would take about 25% so say 45,000 per square mile)…..or about 100,000 people per square mile….No city in the US has densities anywhere near that level. (Manhattan has about 44,000 people per square mile….
December 17th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Well maybe that’s low density in DC but in most cities it would be sky high.
No it wouldn’t be considered “sky high” in most cities. And that’s because we’re not talking about the density of an entire municipality, but rather the density of a single development. Putting 150 people in an acre of land doesn’t constitute “sky high” density by US city standards unless you fill up the entire city with such developments. But that’s not what we’re talking about. What we are talking about is an extremely scarce resource (buildable land near a metro station) whose density ought to be maximized. This most definitely ain’t an example of that.
No city in the US has densities anywhere near that level.
Er, yes, plenty of US cities do indeed contain developments with densities “near that level.”
December 18th, 2008 at 9:48 am
So how does this even happen?
I mean assuming the market words (ha ha), shouldn’t a Rational Real Estate Developer want to maximize his profit per square foot?
Is the developer thinking the premium they can charge for access to all that “active and passive recreation space” will make up for all the units they’re giving up or what? I mean shouldn’t the market naturally be pushing higher density here?
December 18th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Er, that should be “works” of course. D’oh.
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