Hardcore band Turnstile played a benefit show on the National Mall for roughly 60,000 people, raising over $260,000 for humanitarian aid in Palestine, Sudan, and Lebanon. The author reflects on how ordinary it felt, set against the Mall's long punk and protest tradition and a tense local climate.
— via Greater Greater Washington, D. Reed (Maryland Policy Director)
A corporation expecting to owe $1 million in federal taxes can pay $900,000 for LIHTC credits that cut its bill by a full $1 million, and that discount is what turns future tax savings into upfront cash for affordable housing. The 1986 program lets developers raise equity from investors instead of piling on debt, which is what makes lower rents possible.
— via Greater Greater Washington, David Stembel
GGWash Commons is recruiting two to three new board members this year, and it wants people from Maryland and Virginia, since about half its work happens outside DC. The nonprofit runs on roughly $500,000 a year in mostly grant money and has no employees of its own, so its sister group GGWash does the day-to-day work under a management agreement.
— via Greater Greater Washington, Payton Chung (Board of Directors), Chelsea Allinger (Executive Director)
A new dense development beside a commuter rail stop in Vineyard, Utah, is taking off, but newly elected leaders want to make it more car-oriented and cut the public subsidies behind it. The new mayor claims no one wants density along the Wasatch Front, while former officials say tearing down something slow to build is easy.
— via Greater Greater Washington, Jeff Wood (Contributor)
DC's eviction courts went virtual during the pandemic and never fully switched back. The case dismissal rate that once resolved half of all filings has collapsed to 4%, clogging the system and leaving landlords unpaid for months on end.
— via Greater Greater Washington, Patrick McAnaney
A federal transit proposal would funnel more money to corridors with higher birth and marriage rates, a plan one senator calls dystopian. Also this week: a 12-year Minecraft city, why 73% of drivers feel stuck behind the wheel, and cities building safety nets outside the police department.
— via Greater Greater Washington, Jeff Wood (Contributor)
DC's RFK redevelopment plan builds 6,000 parking spaces before a single home, and quietly shrinks the promised housing count by up to 1,000 units. The Council's own analysis says housing drives 76% of the project's tax revenue.
— via Greater Greater Washington, Jayson Harpster (Board of Directors)
A DC high schooler's secondhand eBay air monitor turned out to be 15 years old and broken, with federal pollution data vanishing from government sites just as she needed it. She rebuilt the project anyway, calibrating her device against a university researcher's regulatory-grade monitor on a porch in Northeast.
— via Greater Greater Washington, Quinn Van Konynenburg
Friendship Heights hasn't added a new high-rise since 2009, and its priciest corners now run from $2,100 rentals to $10.5 million condos. Montgomery County's draft sector plan admits two decades of stalled housing and aims to finally change who can afford to live there.
— via Greater Greater Washington, Tino Calabia
