🗳️ Upcoming ANC Vote
🗳️ Upcoming ANC Vote
This page gives a brief overview of the items I am introducing or co-sponsoring at tonight's ANC 1A meeting — what each item does, why I brought it forward or contributed to it, and where you can read the full documents. These are working notes, not final positions. Community input, new information, and discussion during the public meeting may change my vote. Final resolutions, vote results, and the meeting recording will be added to the Public Record after the meeting.
Tonight's Featured Items
Opportunity Zone 2.0 for Columbia Heights
At a Glance
This resolution asks the District to designate Census Tract 28.02 (SMDs 1A05 and 1A06) in Columbia Heights as a Qualified Opportunity Zone during the upcoming federal designation cycle. It also sets out a framework that calls for any investment connected to that designation to be guided by clear community benefits, anti-displacement protections, public accountability, and support for the residents, businesses, vendors, and cultural institutions already rooted here.
Why I Brought It Forward
This resolution was developed in close collaboration with Commissioner Jeremy Sherman, Chair of ANC 1A's Small Business Committee. Jeremy brought invaluable expertise on neighborhood businesses, vendors, and commercial corridors, helping shape a proposal that connects economic development with the realities facing Columbia Heights' small businesses and entrepreneurs.
Columbia Heights has seen real investment, but the benefits have not been evenly shared. Conversations about rapid gentrification have often obscured the deeper need that still underpins our neighborhood. The development former Mayor Anthony Williams envisioned was meant to set Columbia Heights on a cycle of shared prosperity, but that cycle has never fully come around. What emerged instead is a form of gilded gentrification — visible growth, rising values, and a polished image of success layered over persistent poverty, widening disparities, and growing insecurity for many of the residents and small businesses that made the neighborhood what it is.
I already knew there was a gap between how Columbia Heights is perceived and what many residents, workers, vendors, and small-business owners experience. I began assembling neighborhood-level data to document the scale of that disconnect and to make sure our community is evaluated based on its actual conditions, not its reputation.
What the Resolution Does
- Requests that the Mayor and DMPED continue their support for Census Tract 28.02 designation.
- Includes my Columbia Heights economic conditions report and supporting data as evidence.
- Establishes a framing that makes clear support for designation is not an endorsement of speculative redevelopment or displacement-driven growth.
- Calls for corridor-wide reporting on small-business retention, affordable commercial space, resident employment, cultural preservation, and displacement risk.
- Requests an investment pipeline developed with residents, tenants, vendors, local businesses, cultural institutions, workforce organizations, CDFIs, and community-based business-support organizations.
- Supports affordable commercial space, arts and cultural preservation, incubator spaces, and sustainable pathways for vendors and other microentrepreneurs.
What I Am Trying to Accomplish
Opportunity Zone designation is not a complete economic-development strategy, and it should not replace affordable housing, tenant protections, small-business assistance, workforce investment, or public accountability. It is one possible tool. My goal is to make sure Columbia Heights is not excluded because it looks successful from the outside, and that any investment tied to the designation has a clear public purpose.
Documents and Related Work
- R26-33: Opportunity Zone 2.0 resolution (coming soon)
- Exhibit A: Columbia Heights — DC's Retail and Cultural Crossroads (coming soon)
- Columbia Heights by the Numbers →
- Opportunity Zone 2.0 community story (coming soon)
- Read more on the Opportunity Zone issue page →
Letter of Support for the LAYC Tubman Mural Project
At a Glance
I wrote this letter on behalf of ANC 1A in support of the Latin American Youth Center's application for a Public Art Building Communities grant. The funding would support a new mural connected to Tubman Elementary School and the surrounding Columbia Heights community — the original wall could not be saved during the school's new construction.
Why I Wrote It
This letter reflects a collaborative effort with Commissioners Billy Easley and Jeremy Sherman to support LAYC's vision for replacing the original Tubman mural. Together, we've been working with community partners to help ensure the new mural reflects today's Columbia Heights while honoring the history and cultural significance of the original project.
This project creates an opportunity for LAYC to reengage young people, residents, artists, and community partners in creating something that belongs to the neighborhood. At a time when cultural identity, public expression, and the safety and visibility of young people are increasingly being challenged, projects like this matter. They preserve neighborhood memory, give young people a visible place in the community, and recognize that culture is part of what holds Columbia Heights together.
What the Letter Supports
- LAYC's Public Art Building Communities grant application.
- Youth participation in the design and creation process.
- Public art that reflects the culture and history of Columbia Heights.
- Collaboration among LAYC, Tubman Elementary School, artists, families, and residents.
- Restoring an important cultural presence in the neighborhood.
What I Hope the Project Accomplishes
I hope the mural becomes a source of pride for Tubman students and families and the community as a whole, and a reminder of the cultural strength of Columbia Heights — something we need now more than ever. The value of this project is not limited to the finished artwork. It is also in the process of bringing people together to create it.
Community Survey
LAYC is asking residents, students, families, and neighbors to help shape the design of the new mural. Community input will directly inform the artist's work.
Prefer your phone? Scan the QR code below.
Documents
- ANC 1A letter of support (coming soon)
- LAYC Public Art Building Communities application or project summary (coming soon)
- Public Art Building Communities grant information (add link)
Ending Exclusionary Zoning in the District of Columbia
At a Glance
I support this resolution, but I do not think it should be read as though ANC 1A is implementing a new zoning code. ANC 1A has no Residential, or R, zones. None of Mid-City does. Columbia Heights already accommodates most of the housing types contemplated in the resolution, including rowhouses, flats, small apartment buildings, larger multifamily buildings, mixed-use development, and active commercial corridors.
In many ways, neighborhoods like ours have already carried a significant share of the District's housing growth. My concern is that Ward 1 has too often become the pressure valve for housing demand without receiving the level of infrastructure, public services, sanitation, and neighborhood support that higher-density, high-need areas require.
How I View the Resolution
This resolution is the result of substantial work led by Commissioner Dieter Lehman-Morales, Chair of ANC 1A's Housing Committee, together with an exceptionally thoughtful committee. I especially want to recognize Dennis Sendros, a Columbia Heights resident and lead organizer for the group, whose research, organizing, and drafting helped build a strong foundation for this effort. My role focused on strengthening the resolution's treatment of affordability, anti-displacement, equitable housing distribution, and the connection to the upcoming Comprehensive Plan process.
This resolution is largely about establishing a policy framework for the 2050 Comprehensive Plan process. It says that housing growth should be distributed more equitably across the District, including in high-cost neighborhoods that have historically been insulated from it, and that zoning reform must be paired with meaningful affordability and anti-displacement measures.
Why I Co-Sponsored It
The District needs more housing, particularly family-sized and more affordable housing. But increasing supply alone is not enough. The larger question is whether housing growth will continue to be concentrated in neighborhoods like Columbia Heights, or whether every part of the city will share responsibility for meeting the District's housing needs.
The approach I want carried into the Comprehensive Plan includes:
- More housing choices across all eight wards.
- Greater access to high-opportunity neighborhoods.
- Family-sized and multigenerational housing.
- Stronger affordability requirements.
- Preservation of existing affordable housing.
- Tenant protections and anti-displacement measures.
- More pathways to homeownership and community wealth.
My Contributions and Why I Made Them
Clarifying the Columbia Heights Context
What I added: Making it clear that Columbia Heights and the broader ANC 1A area are not low-density neighborhoods waiting to be urbanized. They are already dense, transit-rich, mixed-use communities with a wide range of housing types.
Why it matters: The resolution should not imply that every neighborhood is starting from the same place. Ward 1 has already absorbed substantial growth. That history should be acknowledged as the District considers where future housing production should occur and what additional services and infrastructure should accompany it.
Making Housing Growth a Citywide Responsibility
What I added: Zoning reform should apply equitably across all eight wards and should not continue the pattern of concentrating additional development in Ward 1 while high-opportunity, exclusionary-zoned neighborhoods remain largely protected.
Why it matters: The housing shortage is citywide. The responsibility for addressing it should be citywide as well. Columbia Heights should not continue to serve as the pressure valve for housing demand while other neighborhoods remain insulated from growth.
Pairing Zoning Reform With Affordability
What I added: Language to improve affordable housing, including community land trusts, limited-equity cooperatives, resident-owned cooperatives, and other financial tools that support long-term affordability.
Why it matters: Zoning reform can increase housing supply, but it can also create new pressure on land values, rents, and existing residents if it is not paired with protections. I wanted the resolution to address speculation, displacement, and affordability rather than assume that producing more units will solve every part of the housing crisis.
Expanding Access to Homeownership
What I added: Pointing to the role that shared-equity models and other financial tools can play in expanding access to homeownership.
Why it matters: Homeownership remains one of the most important ways families build and pass on wealth, yet access remains deeply unequal. Community land trusts, limited-equity cooperatives, and permanently affordable ownership models can create pathways for residents who have historically been shut out.
Connecting the Resolution to the Comprehensive Plan
Why it matters: This resolution is not a zoning rewrite. It is a statement of direction. It establishes principles ANC 1A should carry into the Comprehensive Plan discussion: broader housing access, a more equitable distribution of growth, stronger affordability tools, and protections for residents and neighborhoods already carrying much of the city's density.
The Larger Point
My additions are intended to address the concerns most often raised about zoning reform, including speculation, displacement, affordability, and increased pressure on neighborhoods like Columbia Heights.
For this resolution, the important point is simple: more housing is necessary, but the District should not pursue zoning reform without also addressing who benefits, who bears the burden, and what public supports are needed to make growth work.
Connection to Opportunity Zone 2.0
I also see this resolution connecting to my Opportunity Zone work and advocacy. Both ask the District to look beyond surface-level assumptions about Columbia Heights. Our neighborhood is dense, transit-rich, and visibly developed, but that does not mean residents and small businesses are fully benefiting from growth. An Opportunity Zone will provide gap-financing pathways for mixed-income and adaptive-reuse developments — and those funds don't come without creating incentives for investors, which is one way to do that.
Housing policy, economic development, workforce opportunities, commercial stability, infrastructure, and anti-displacement protections need to be considered together.
Documents and Related Work
- Exclusionary zoning resolution with my comments in red (coming soon)
- Final resolution (coming soon)
- DC Office of Planning Single-Family Zoning Report (add link)
- Related: Housing & Neighborhood Growth in Current Initiatives →