Residents and activists who go to court to block or delay new development in D.C. could soon face new challenges after councilmembers on Tuesday approved amendments to the city’s blueprint for future growth.

Revisions to the Framework Element of the Comprehensive Plan, which guides the next 20 years of development in the District, passed the D.C. Council unanimously. It’s the latest step in a roughly three-year process to amend the lengthy document, which existed in relative obscurity until battles over gentrification elevated it to cocktail conversation inside the homes of policy wonks.

Current language in the Comprehensive Plan has been seized upon by activists, who have used its ambiguity to appeal dozens of zoning decisions on the basis that they don’t conform to the plan. Revisions to the framework deal a blow to that strategy, potentially removing a tool residents have come to rely on to fight development projects across the city.

Meanwhile the changes are being applauded by “smart growth” proponents and affordable housing advocates, who say they could help chip away at the region’s housing shortage.

Stopping The Stoppages

The Framework Element sets the tone, mission, and priorities of the overall Comprehensive Plan, which began an extensive amendment process in 2016 that yielded more than 3,000 suggested changes from organizations, stakeholders, and the public, according to D.C.’s Office of Planning.

Perhaps the most important amendment, from the perspective of developers and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration, was one that would stop the barrage of zoning appeals that has slowed residential construction in a region gripped by high home costs.

That legal strategy—which has hampered development at places like the McMillan Sand Filtration Site—has been dealt a blow in the amended language of the Framework Element, which attempts to banish ambiguity with new, specific guidelines for what’s known as Planned Unit Development. Decided by the D.C. Zoning Commission, PUDs allow developers additional, lucrative density in exchange for community benefits.

But they also provide an opportunity for parties to challenge the commission’s decision in the D.C. Court of Appeals.

The amended Framework Element is intended to reduce litigation by identifying a list of “high-priority public benefits” that the court should take into consideration when evaluating appeals to residential PUDs. They are:

• The production of new affordable housing units above and beyond existing legal requirements or a net increase in the number of affordable units that exist on-site,
• The preservation of housing units made affordable through subsidy, covenant, rent control, or replacement of such units at the same affordability level and similar household size,
• The minimizing of unnecessary off-site relocation through the construction of new units before the demolition of existing occupied units, and
• The right of existing residents of a redevelopment site to return to new on-site units at affordability levels similar to or greater than existing units.

The Bowser administration has set a goal of adding 36,000 new housing to the city by 2025.

“Creating and preserving more affordable housing throughout the District is the cornerstone to building an inclusive city where all of our neighbors have an opportunity to thrive,” Heather Raspberry, executive director of the Housing Association of Nonprofit Developers, said in a statement. “We appreciate [Chairman Phil Mendelson’s] and Council’s thoughtful review of the Plan which will serve the city and surrounding region well.”

But on the dais Tuesday, Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White said he’s concerned the planning framework is “still too-developer friendly.”

“It [could] limit opportunities for community input and give the Zoning Commission more unchecked power,” White said.

Activists who have used the appeals process to resist new development share those concerns, saying the amendments remove a key weapon against unwanted development that could drive displacement. A recent report from the University of Minnesota said the District “experienced the strongest gentrification and displacement of any city in the country” between 2000 and 2016.

“The reason why people are appealing is because nobody’s looking out for the residents,” Empower DC Executive Director Parisa Norouzi told WAMU last year outside an hours-long hearing on the Framework Element, which attracted the testimony of nearly 300 witnesses.

But White had praise for other amendments, specifically those that enshrine principles of racial equity into the planning document.

In one example, the framework’s “guiding principles” now include a passage that says, “We must recognize that managing growth and change includes addressing the historic, structural, and systemic racial inequities and disenfranchisement of many District residents.”

White voted for the bill as amended, along with the rest of the council. This was the second and final vote on the framework before it moves to the mayor.

The overall Comprehensive Plan is thousands of pages long, encompassing the framework and an additional 24 elements, which the Bowser administration is expected to release Oct. 15 along with specific housing production targets for each planning area of the city.

Tuesday, Council members praised each other for their work on the exhaustive plan.

“It’s been an exciting 19 months of collaboration,” said Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau. “Only about 1,200 more pages to go.”

This story originally appeared on WAMU.