Income Inequality Lurks Beneath D.C.'s 'Pop-Up' Housing Debate

A new proposal from the D.C. Office of Planning aims to do something about the housing problem in Washington, D.C. Not the lack-of housing problem, but the tacky housing problem. The proposed zoning update takes aim at a range of alleged offenders, tiny houses and relaxed parking minimums among them. But chief among the changes is a provision that would place additional limits on one of the most controversial housing expansion trends in this city of late: so-called "pop-ups," or vertical additions to the traditionally narrow D.C. rowhouse.

In the past, the Office of Planning has been transparent about the fact that residents and homeowners don't like zoning changes that would make for more residents and homeowners. As former planning director Harriet Tregoning told the Washington City Paper last year, a proposal to ease parking minimums downtown and near mass transit was "really wigging people out." So the department scaled those changes back.