D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on Thursday unveiled her plans to build almost 2,000 units of affordable housing in neighborhoods west of Rock Creek Park, the city’s wealthiest and whitest area — and the one with the smallest current stock of housing that’s affordable to low- and moderate-income residents.

Bowser’s new “roadmap” for what’s known as “Rock Creek West” — largely Ward 3 — is part of her broader goal released in 2019 to build 36,000 units of housing by 2025, with at least one-third being defined as affordable, as a means to tamp down on rising housing prices in the city. (Housing is considered “affordable” when someone who makes up 80% of the average median income, or $72,250 for a single person or $103,200 for a family of four, paying no more than 30% of their income on housing.)

Speaking outside the Chevy Chase Library and Rec Center, D.C. officials said they were making solid progress on the goal: 20,251 housing units have been built so far, with 3,578 defined as affordable. But Rock Creek West has contributed the fewest overall units to date in the city — 298 — and no affordable units at all. Large portions of Ward 3 are zoned for single-family homes, and residents have often thrown up roadblocks to new developments. There has been a recent softening in some quarters on that, though, in part due to new conversations about how racially restrictive covenants shaped what Ward 3 looks like today.

“The reason why we need a roadmap is because we have to have some intentionality,” said Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development John Falcicchio. “We have to have investment and we have to have imagination in how we get there. Because on the affordable goal, we still have a little ways to go.”

The new roadmap contemplates building and preserving affordable housing in Ward 3 by using existing financial incentives like the Housing Production Trust Fund, but also two new ones announced on Thursday. The first would offer incentives and assistance to churches and other faith-based institutions that use property they own to build affordable housing. (Arlington Presbyterian Church in Arlington County completed such a project in 2019, the same year the Emory United Methodist Church on Georgia Avenue NW finished its own new residential building — which got financial assistance from D.C.)

Bowser also unveiled a second new program that would offer incentives to property owners who place 15-year affordability covenants on vacant units. That pilot program — known as Cash 2 Covenant — is the same as a bill introduced earlier this year by Councilmember Robert White (D-At Large), who is challenging Bowser in the 2022 mayoral race, and was funded by the D.C. Council in the 2022 budget that took effect Oct. 1.

The new roadmap also proposes using expanded inclusionary zoning to work affordable units into new developments in corridors like Connecticut and Wisconsin avenues; planning for projects on large sites like WMATA’s Western Bus Garage, the Lord & Taylor building in Friendship Heights, and the old Marriott Wardman Park in Woodley Park; and building housing atop the existing Tenley-Friendship Library and on the site of the Chevy Chase Library and Rec Center when it is rebuilt.

“We want a new library, a new community center, and we want housing on the property,” said Bowser of the property.

“We can take advantage of this public space to add housing with a large component of workforce and deeply affordable housing so that we can do our part in addressing the District’s housing crisis,” said Randy Speck, chairman of the 3/4G Advisory Neighborhood Commission.

Bowser’s push to build more housing in D.C. has been hailed by her supporters as a critical step to make the city more affordable. Earlier this week, city officials announced plans to push more owners of office buildings in downtown D.C. to convert them to residential uses.

Still, critics have dismissed her for not doing enough to build more housing for residents at the lowest end of the scale. (The city has for years struggled to meet legal requirements for spending from the Housing Production Trust Fund on housing for people at 30% and 50% of the area median income.) Some of those critics were on hand on Thursday, pushing Bowser to do more to build affordable housing on the site of the Marriott Wardman Park. Activists and some lawmakers had pushed for her to buy the site earlier this year; it was sold to a developer for $152 million.

In an interview with DCist/WAMU ahead of Thursday’s announcements, D.C. officials said Bowser’s new roadmap seeks to identify a way of making her goals for more housing in Ward 3 a reality. “One is a number saying I have a goal of losing 30 pounds,” said Andrew Trueblood, the outgoing director of the D.C. Office of Planning, of the administration’s broader goals.. “And then this is how I plan to lose weight.”

Previously: 

‘We Have To Think Bigger About It’: Bowser Says D.C. Must Ramp Up Housing Construction