The Monument Myth
You often hear that the height limit for buildings in Washington, DC has something to do with the Washington Monument or the dome of the Capitol Building. As this We Love DC post explains that’s wrong. The actual rule is that a building can be no more than 20 feet taller than the width of the street it’s on. Given that DC folks both seem very attached to the policy and also mistaken as to what the policy is, I’ve often wanted to propose that we actually adopt the rule that people think we have, limiting buildings to the height of the Washington Monument. This would approximately triple the permitted density in the central business district.
The We Love DC Folks say they like the short buildings where the are, citing aesthetic considerations. As I’ve said before, I’m sympathetic to this, but folks who want to cite this idea owe it to us to account honestly for the facts. If I were to tell folks in my neighborhood that it would be nice to see a park nearby, I’m sure they all agreed. But if I followed up that the cost of the park was going to be billions of dollars in new taxes, support would probably vanish. The cost of the severe restriction on building height in the central business district and near Metro stations throughout the city is hidden from view, but that makes the lost tax revenue, reduced job opportunities for low income Washingtonians, increased job sprawl and air pollution, etc. all no less real.
36 Responses to “The Monument Myth”
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May 31st, 2009 at 10:09 am
Mr. Yglesias should move back to Manhattan where I am sure that he will be more fulfilled.
May 31st, 2009 at 10:09 am
ha dc is such a gross hell hole and this is one of the reasons why – o no a building what is tall jebus!
May 31st, 2009 at 10:10 am
and yes moving from dc to new york is always a good idea
May 31st, 2009 at 10:33 am
Wouldn’t it be possible to both maintain a stricte height limit around the heart of the neighborhood home to the main federal government buildings and monuments AND allow for taller buildings everywhere else in the District? (and yes, from my too infrquent visits to DC, I’m no expert on the city’s geography, so perhaps this is a nonsensical idea).
May 31st, 2009 at 10:35 am
What would be the lost revenue from tourism of a less aesthetically beautiful city? I think MattY owes his readers an honest accounting of the facts.
May 31st, 2009 at 10:36 am
I’d like to see Matt at least acknowledge the problem that holding aside external considerations (like transportation), beyond a few stories taller buildings are increasingly less environmentally friendly on a per sq.ft. of usable space basis.
May 31st, 2009 at 10:37 am
Sure, Karl, just look at how tourists avoid NYC.
Less aesthetically beautiful city? Have you SEEN what passes for architecture in DC?
May 31st, 2009 at 10:39 am
DTM,
“Less environmentally friendly” than what? That same square footage being built as two-story office parks in suburban counties?
May 31st, 2009 at 10:39 am
Wouldn’t it be possible to both maintain a stricte height limit around the heart of the neighborhood home to the main federal government buildings and monuments AND allow for taller buildings everywhere else in the District?
That place is called Rosslyn and Crystal City–you can build tall buildings in the parts of Northern Virginia that used to be part of DC.
And that is part of why I don’t really see a need for Matt’s plan.
May 31st, 2009 at 10:47 am
FWIW, DC has building height limits because the people who lived on Q Street when The Cairo was built went bat-shit crazy about a new apartment building towering over their 2- and 3- story rowhouses. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Apartment_Building) I suspect much the same would happen today, only with people running to the local ANC meetings complaining about the preservation of sight lines (like in central London) and access to the sun. This (your fervent desire to Manhattanize the District) ain’t going nowhere, fast, Matty.
May 31st, 2009 at 10:47 am
Shorter: Matthew is in favor of publicizing hidden costs of public policy, when it’s an issue he idiosyncratically cares about, affecting a city he himself lives in, at least if those costs go in the direction opposed to his opinion on the issue. (See also: free parking)
May 31st, 2009 at 10:49 am
So we should try to get people to focus on how much richer we’d be if all the city centre parks around the world were turned into condos and retail?
May 31st, 2009 at 10:51 am
When the Gannett towers in Rosslyn went up, the vision of a low-rise city skyline with a stick and a dome above it was already seriously compromised.
Not sure what effect more tall buildings would have, though the views from Arlington, etc, would definitely change. My guess is that if you lifted the height limits and waited twenty years, DC would look a lot like London today: historic sections interspersed with modern high-rises. To my mind, London is a chaotic jumble: it doesn’t have the high-rise grandeur of a Manhattan or Hong Kong (or even Chicago), but neither does it have the tight-knit urban feel that it once did. Frankly, whether a taller DC would be an improvement depends more than anything else on whether architectural styles improve in the next twenty years or not.
May 31st, 2009 at 10:54 am
“Less environmentally friendly” than what? That same square footage being built as two-story office parks in suburban counties?
Obviously you have introduced external considerations by moving the buildings out to an office park in the suburbs. Which is fine if that is really the situation, but Matt hasn’t made the case that DC’s height restrictions actually make it impossible to build enough square footage for office space within DC. And, in fact, that is a ridiculous idea if you know DC: it is not like everywhere is built up to the height limits with office buildings at full capacity.
So the real tradeoff is something like a somewhat larger central business district–but not actually that much larger in terms of linear distances, since area goes up with radius squared. Moreover, higher buildings are less efficient in terms of usable square footage per floor because you have to beef up structures, elevator stacks, HVAC, and so on. So, for example, to replace the usable square footage of a 40-story building with 10-story buildings, you will need something less than four times the footprint.
Anyway, I am happy to acknowledge there is some sort of tradeoff here, but it really isn’t obvious there should be no height restrictions, or that DC’s height restrictions are too low, if you are in fact considered about environmental issues. Which is a point I would like to see Matt acknowledge (and, ideally, carefully consider).
May 31st, 2009 at 10:55 am
As I mentioned in a comment the last time MR Yglesias brought this up. There may be structual issues in building tall buildings in DC.Washington DC was built on swampland.
.I may be wrong about this ,but MR Yglesias should look into that aspect before urging DC to have tall buildings.
And just for the record ,I think DC looks great with mid-sized height buildings.But then again I didn’t like the skyscrapers in Manhatten.To each their own.
May 31st, 2009 at 10:56 am
Concerned about, not considered about, of course.
May 31st, 2009 at 11:09 am
Matt, matt, matt…..
Be careful what you wish for.
1. If the limits go, the buildings wont be built in NW (west of rock creek) where the wealthy and the white congregate. there might be in the other sections on NW, but that might as well be NE in some perspective.
2.If the buildings in NE are going up, where? You might be able to try the red line stations in NE. Lots of land to use, but pardon me if I think it will take a hell of a lot of tax breaks for people to build in “those neighborhoods”
3. Ward 8 is still being represented by Marrion Barry. Nuff said.
May 31st, 2009 at 11:10 am
It is not clear that the height restriction is very often a binding constrait. Stick to pricing street parking at its marginal value product. And fix parking meters to accept Smart Trip/debit cards. Coins are so Twentieth Century
May 31st, 2009 at 11:11 am
How do you define a hard-core feminist?
A woman who wants to dig a pit 500 feet deep right next to the Washington Monument.
May 31st, 2009 at 11:14 am
DTM,
If you’re going to make a statement about something’s environmental impact, you need to look at it holistically.
I lived in DC for years. I also practiced as an urban planner for years. Land around the Anacostia Metro station is not a substitute for land in downtown DC, and the lack of buildout there tells us absolutely nothing about the demand for more office space downtown. Heck, the demand for office space in Rosslyn tells us nothing about the demand for office space in downtown DC. Proximity matters, and it matters even more in DC.
No, it’s not. Even the current fringe of the CBD is not the same thing as the core, and the demand for space isn’t as strong.
May 31st, 2009 at 11:15 am
Look, DTM, raising height limits doesn’t require people to build taller buildings. If there really isn’t unmet demand for office space in DC’s core downtown, than raising height limits will have no effect.
May 31st, 2009 at 11:20 am
If we’re going to realize the awesome future DC of Minority Report where the National Mall becomes merely a sort of historic preserve, well we better get a move on… Concept art here: http://www.jamesclyne.com/image.php?gallery_id=282&art_id=3309
May 31st, 2009 at 11:30 am
Something I never see mentioned in these discussions is that the urban design of DC including the height restrictions area legacy of the era before the invention of air conditioning when DC was truly a sleepy part-time capital. Without air conditioning, DC would still be a sleepy regional center that mostly shuts down in the summer.
Personally I don’t have a problem with having at lease one major American city that looks more like Paris than New York.
I also have to wonder if a lot of DC’s ills have more to do with its unique status. DC is chock-full of government buildings, non-profits and embassies that don’t pay taxes. One could just as easily argue that all those embassies are using up prime real estate that could be put to more profitable use by the citizens of DC.
May 31st, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Eventually, Matt might respond to those people in every fucking thread on this topic who point to the general height of buildings in Paris within the périphérique and note that you can create density in other ways than skyscrapers. The la-la-la-can’t-hear-you act is wearing thin.
As DTM notes, building up creates space demands in terms of elevator shafts and mechanism, air-con and external strengthening. This isn’t going to get any cheaper to maintain in the coming years.
May 31st, 2009 at 12:55 pm
If you’re going to make a statement about something’s environmental impact, you need to look at it holistically.
Sure. Which is all I am asking of Matt: he has a tendency to ignore some of the very important environmental considerations when it comes to the issue of building heights. Conversely, I’m not saying we should ignore external issues like transportation costs, but rather just suggesting we need to balance all these considerations against each other.
Look, DTM, raising height limits doesn’t require people to build taller buildings. If there really isn’t unmet demand for office space in DC’s core downtown, than raising height limits will have no effect.
Please understand that I am not denying that there are often financial advantages to developers in building fewer-and-higher buildings–if nothing else, they have to acquire less land for such developments, so if land is pricey enough in a given area, that consideration can easily outweigh the greater structure costs associated with building high.
And there may also be some advantages to tenants to the denser CBD they would get with higher buildings. Again, though, I am somewhat skeptical about that being a huge factor. As I previously noted, because area goes up with the square of radius, and because usable square footage does not go up linearly with height, the average distance between two points in the CBD will only go up with something less than the square root of the height reduction.
But in any event, one would think Matt would be the first to recognize that environmental issues in particular often take the form of an externality. So, the height of buildings which would maximize developer profits per usable square foot may not equal the height of buildings which would minimize environmental impact–indeed, it almost surely is not equal. And I think it is easily imaginable that if land prices in a given area are high enough, the tendency would be for developers to build above the environmentally-optimal height, perhaps way above.
Or not. Again, all I am asking is that Matt at least consider these issues carefully.
May 31st, 2009 at 2:59 pm
The actual rule is that a building can be no more than 20 feet taller than the width of the street it’s on.
This makes perfect sense. The scale and height of a building should correlate with the scale of its surroundings, in this case, the street and frontage. This creates street architecture that are harmonious with their surroundings and not create the sort of weird clutter unique to New York, where enormously tall buildings front on fairly narrow boulevards. In London and in Paris, it’s somewhat shorter buildings fronting upon enormously wide boulevards.
This makes wonderful aesthetic and architectural sense. It is a policy every city ought to adopt.
May 31st, 2009 at 3:41 pm
“Eventually, Matt might respond to those people in every fucking thread on this topic who point to the general height of buildings in Paris within the périphérique and note that you can create density in other ways than skyscrapers. The la-la-la-can’t-hear-you act is wearing thin.”
French economic advisers have been pushing hard for opening up the central part of Paris to taller buildings (in fact, I believe the city has recently created development zones without height restrictions).
May 31st, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Until DC does away with the height restriction, it will remain a small boring town that happens to have a lot of people in it. But it won’t be a city. DC was the biggest small town I’ve ever lived in — and moving back to views of the SF skyline was a welcome breath of fresh (urban) air. Even the dreaded Portland has a more urban feel.
May 31st, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Regarding comment #28 by Jeremy
I have heard many people say that Baltimore is a big small town as well.I would agree with them.that’s why i like it.
I think that it all comes down to a matter of taste.You did not like the small town feel,so you moved back to San Fransisco. Others do like it ,and they stayed.
I am not judging anybodys taste.But why does every city have to have skycrapers just because MR Yglesias likes them.I like 2 story rowhouses.But i don’t believe that Manhatten should tear down their skyscrapers and replace them with rowhouses.
And as far as efficiency .You could say that it would be more efficient if everybody lived in dorms or hostels .And instead of resteraunts we had government cafeterias.
Life should be about pleasure.Not efficiency.Eficiency has it’s place.But it’s not everything.
MR Jeremy ,I hope you are enjoying living in SF as much as i am enjoying living in my rowhouse in Baltimore.I have heard that it is a beautiful city.
Best wishes to you sir
May 31st, 2009 at 5:04 pm
I have only been a tourist in NYC and in D.C. In NYC, much was made of the suitability of the bedrock for building very stable tall buildings. In D.C., as a previous commenter noted, much was made of the fact that the city was built on swampland.
Does Matt know any pertinent geology? Are tall buildings with foundations in swampland truly feasible?
May 31st, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Otto at 12 makes a good point. Does Matt favor developing all that useless area devoted to Rock Creek Park? How about putting office buildings on that worthless empty National Mall? Worrying about esthetic considerations leads to such inefficiencies! We can’t afford to be sentimental.
June 1st, 2009 at 2:54 am
Otto & hundredaire:
What do you think Chicago is built on? The city’s reputedly named for an onion that grew in the miles of swampland around the junction of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. The tallest buildings in Chicago are built on the swampiest parts, much of it reclaimed land. There’s bedrock about 100′ down.
The western section of DC is metamorphic rock, which would make a fine foundation. Rock Creek Park and all that.
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/AboutUs/History/beneathitall.cfm
The rest of DC should be fine, too — from what I can tell, it’s the same geology as Crystal City which has plenty of highrises.
June 1st, 2009 at 3:06 am
Increasing the development density in downtown DC will not be a good idea unless and until WMATA and regional politicians get serious about increasing the capacity of the Metrorail system. You could try building trolleys but they would only be competing for limited street capacity with all the other new traffic that the increased development would generate – not just private cars but also delivery trucks, taxis, and emergency vehicles. If you raised the height limit without increasing the capacity of the transportation network you might end up with little more than a few taller buildings surrounded by surface parking lots, like in many other American cities.
June 1st, 2009 at 4:00 am
Perhaps some evidence might temper Matt’s enthusiasm for this idea. There doesn’t seem to be much of a relationship between building heights and actual CBD density, at least as measured by jobs per square mile. “Job densities” in the top 10 US CBDs by employment are:
New York: 222,100 jobs/square mile
Chicago: 161,200
Washington: 166,300
San Francisco-San Jose: 130,600
Boston: 208,900
Philadelphia: 128,700
Seattle: 104,800
Houston: 100,300
Los Angeles: 115,000
Atlanta: 59,800
Source: Demographia
Based on these numbers, it seems highly unlikely that raising the DC height limit would add all that much to the CBD’s employment density, which is already quite high. Most likely other factors, including transportation and the number of businesses willing and able to pay downtown rents, would continue to place an effective limit on the CBD’s density.
June 1st, 2009 at 10:37 am
Matt should just let go of this. A change in height limits will clearly result in buildings that fill the zoning envelope. The first few buildings will reap the benefits of the great views of the remaining low skyline…but then the rest will be built and occlude the views.
Matt has never responded to the notion that cities ought not look exactly the same — his fondness for Manhattan apparently making him fail to appreciate the unique advantages of DC. Sunlight, people, sunlight. Trees in the downtown. Government and monument architecture defining the image of a place.
I also bet that if he asked his neighbors about selling an existing park for high rise development, they’d say no. It’s pathetic to have a smart NY guy move to DC and then wonder why it doesn’t look more like NY. Sheeshh
June 7th, 2009 at 9:56 am
No, this would be a disaster!
If this was implemented, al Q’aeda would have only to destroy the Washington Monument and the government would be forced to demolish everything above the height of the rubble.