On Nov. 8, District voters can pick two candidates for the DC Council’s open at-large seats. GGWash endorses Elissa Silverman (I) and Kenyan McDuffie (I) because we see this election always a confusing one beholden to arcane Home Rule requirements, complicated this year by the entry of three sitting councilmembers as an unexpected opportunity to change who makes decisions about housing, and affordable housing, in the legislative branch.
It has been four years since many of Eckington’s residents and its Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners came together to craft a vision for how we want growth to happen in our neighborhood in the next 10 years. But despite countless hours spent over these four years to define and advocate for an affordable future for Eckington through amendments we wrote to the 2006 Comprehensive Plan, DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson is pushing to override our neighborhood’s wishes in one stroke of his pen.
Eckington is not a NIMBY community. When we began drafting amendments to the Comprehensive Plan in 2017, we saw the writing on the wall that development was coming to our neighborhood. But instead of fighting it, as is often the story, we embraced it, recognizing that one of the best ways to ensure that our family-friendly community can avoid skyrocketing housing costs is by building more housing in the city where no housing currently exists. And what better place to build more housing than
The D.C. Council has one more vote remaining on the Comprehensive Plan, and it has made a series of changes that could shape development in D.C. neighborhoods.