Comp Plan Mad Libs

[Updated 12/2/20 for 12/3/20 deadline at 5pm]

D.C.’s Comprehensive Plan has been in progress for years. You may have heard about it or read about why it’s important, but you also have a chance to make your voice heard. As an individual you can submit a comment to the DC Council through tomorrow (!), December 3rd, 2020.

I write about housing, and even I was intimidated about what to write. Since time is running out to submit comments, I made a “Comp Plan MadLibs” that will help you generate your comment. Please free to change any of the language and adapt it for your own needs. Everything below is merely a recommendation.

For more background, I’ll refer you to Greater Greater Washington, which has posted extensively on the plan’s housing, land use, and historic preservation elements. But the truth is, you don’t need a deep well of knowledge to write about housing — if you live here, you understand what works and what doesn’t and you should feel free to explain it in your own words.

[TO: cow@dccouncil.us]

[CC: your councilmember, (the number from your ANC is your ward and you can find your ward’s councilmember, and their email, here)]

[CC: all the current at-large councilmembers: abonds@dccouncil.us, rwhite@dccouncil.us, dgrosso@dccouncil.us, esilverman@dccouncil.us]

[CC: pmendelson@dccouncil.us, Council Chairman Phil Mendelson]

[CC: abaca@ggwash.org, who inspired this form]

[BCC: joshkramercomics@gmail.com, me, only if you want!]

[SUBJECT: B23–736 Testimony]

Dear Chairman and Councilmembers,

I wanted to write to you about the Comp Plan, as a [your ward] resident, before the record closes on Dec. 3.

I live in [neighborhood] and [here’s where you can explain what you think of the housing situation in your neighborhood.]

[Use any of these that you feel are appropriate to you and your neighborhood. Feel free to personalize them with your own details or tailor them to your community:]

• The rent is too high.
• There is not enough affordable housing.
• Longtime neighbors are being displaced.
• I’m afraid I will soon not be able to afford to live where I live now.
• Wealthier, less dense parts of the city must share in the responsibility of creating more housing, especially affordable housing.
• Fair housing is a right, not a privilege.
• I want the city to be affordable to most of its residents.
• I want to own a home someday.
• I want to have kids someday.
• I don’t want to leave the city just because I can’t afford to have children here.
• I want my neighborhood to remain diverse.
• We need more housing to help combat homelessness.
• My neighborhood could fit more apartment buildings if they were allowed.
• My neighborhood needs to do its fair share and build more affordable housing.
• We should acknowledge the destructive history of restrictive covenants and housing discrimination in D.C.

[This is just to get you thinking, and you really can say anything. Any comment helps and shows your elected representatives — here’s another engaged resident who cares about housing.]

I want to support the proposed changes to the Comprehensive Plan and suggest that D.C. Council:

[Here are some options for additions recommended by GGWash if you’d like to get specific:]

• Pass Office of Planning’s amendments, with which I fully agree, intact as soon as possible.
• Support other amendments as long as they increase, not suppress, the construction of more housing citywide and especially in affluent neighborhoods; as long as amendments that further “upflum” are either maintained or expanded; and as long as they do not uphold the “protect” and “conserve” language prevalent in the 2006 land use element.
• Add language to the bill text that creates better Comp Plan procedures and encourages OP to begin to rewrite the 2006 plan by 2022

[You can end with a personal, optimistic note if you’d like.]

Thanks very much,

[You]