Photo by Cickatoes

Last week’s news that congressional and city officials were even broaching the idea of loosening D.C.’s limits on building heights sent young urbanists into an excited tizzy and old traditionalists into doomsday mode.

The latter group seemed particularly galled by the idea, bemoaning Manhattan-style building canyons blocking out the sunlight (“The height limit gives the city a much more open, inviting and as other commenters have noted, sunny feeling,” wrote Ann Loikow on the Cleveland Park listserv yesterday) and developers cunningly backing the proposal as a means to make more money. In an editorial, the InTowner brought up the dreaded R-word as a means to frighten would-be supporters of loosening up the longstanding height restrictions:

Isn’t it horrible enough that the vista west from the Capitol along the Mall has been despoiled by the hideousness of Rosslyn across the river? And, by the way, can anyone claim that those building are architecturally more distinguished than what we have here in the District? We think not.

This is our nation’s capital and considered one of the most beautiful cities in the world; let’s not destroy that for the sake of the almighty dollar!

D.C. Watch editorialist Gary Imhoff took the objections a step further, claiming that advocates of the idea must simply hate D.C.:

Some of those who advocate trashing the height limitation are simply ideological smart-growth advocates who don’t like DC as it is. They are envious of Manhattan’s skyscrapers, and think that the best cities are the biggest cities, with the most congestion and crowding. These advocates don’t like most of America’s cities, which have modest, lower-scale buildings and neighborhoods that are friendly to car-owning families. Most American cities, like Washington, are mostly composed of neighborhoods of single-family homes, and those neighborhoods repulse smart-growth city planners almost as much as suburbs.

Leave it to the city’s most consistent curmudgeon to make the “Love it or leave it” argument in relation to potentially adding two or three floors to the existing 130-foot limit in certain parts of town, huh?

It’s not even clear that the idea will go any further than it has in the past, but some critics already seem intent on derailing the conversation altogether by making over-the-top claims of 120-story buildings rising from the ashes of a once low-altitude city. (Or, as Imhoff does, calling proponents haters.) As the Post’s Mike DeBonis noted last week, the possible sites for taller buildings are quite a ways from the city’s federal core. Moreover, any loosening of the height act would likely look to strike a balance—buildings might be able to add a few stories, but certainly not double in size.

We’re not wed to the idea of taller buildings, but it’s certainly an idea worth discussing—even more so now that a congressional Republican has said he’d be OK with it. Just remember to wear your “I Love D.C.” shirt when you show up for the conversation.