'Pop-Up' Housing in D.C.
 

this article at citylab

http://cdn.citylab.com/media/img/cit...lead_large.jpg

http://www.citylab.com/housing/2014/...debate/373804/

bemoans the income inequality represented by this style of "pop-up housing" that is ostensibly happening a lot in washington, and of which i have never heard.

those issues quite aside, this image struck me as representing the beginnings of the sort of scale-increase that a lot of cities could use. unlike new condo towers or whatever, this house fits into an essentially 19th-century lot plan, so it's narrow.

as i have noted before, narrowness is key to urbanity — you want a lot of doors per block.

i imagine that a lot of manhattan and istanbul neighborhoods might have featured such similarly out-of-place seeming tower-houses 100 or 150 years ago, before those cities became the uniformly five storey-plus places they now are.

were condo-heavy areas such as toronto's waterfront subdivided into similarly narrow lots, and were such houses built, i think the result would be superior to the current situation.

https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5139/5...7231d41b_z.jpg

your thoughts?

Yeah, I really like the pop up trend in DC. The one in the photo is an outlier. It's hated with a passion in DC. The vast majority of them are just 1-story additions to 2-story row houses. I think that is a great way to repurpose old row houses to create relatively affordable additional housing while still maintaining the small scale old fabric of the city.

Critics basically hate them for 4 reasons:
1) they are ugly- fair point some of them are pretty unattractive, but seems there could be some design framework to regulate the quality without banning them.
2) they are out of scale with the existing neighborhoods- I'm not really sympathetic to this argument. The current height limit is 40 ft on residential side streets. They are just adding 1-story. Lots of DC row houses neighborhoods mix 2-3 story row houses quite easily. If 3 stories is too tall for you, you should probably consider the suburbs.
3) They lead to overcrowding- again these are modest changes in density. We're not talking about Manhattanization here with adding a few new units across various side streets. DC proper is less densely developed than peer cities like Philly, SF, Bos, Chi, heck even Cambridge MA. Those cities manage with parking and aren't jammed wall to wall with traffic/congestion.
4) They take housing from single family homes to convert to condos- this also seems like a cop out. Ultimately, restricting the supply of housing will lead to higher prices and price more families out of the city. Developers build what there is a market for. If there is demand for single family houses a row house can be expanded from 1-sfh to 2 comparable SFHs. Additionally, lots of DC's old row houses are only 2-br to begin with. Plus, then if maintaining SFHs is opponents’ top priority, why do many also oppose accessory dwelling units. These leave the main row houses untouched and add a 2nd smaller/less expensive unit in back or in the basement.

At the end of the day, if cities restrict housing supply, prices will rise and more population growth will have to be pushed to the suburbs. Yes, DC has some vacant lots left to develop. But, it isn't an either or choice. We need both. Ultimately, DC is a height constrained city of only 61 sq miles, much of which is off limits to residential development. For encouraging a urban/car free lifestyle, It's better to add growth in the already walkable core, then in the suburban, auto-centric outer neighborhoods.

I wrote a blog post last year about this very issue, making the same exact point:

One clarification though. The Citylab article at the start of this thread doesn't "bemoan the income inequality represented by pop-up housing." Quite the contrary. It bemoans the income inequality represented by NIMBY opposition to pop-up housing. The author wants more pop-ups.

thanks for the clarification, i confess i skimmed that content as my main interest was what i saw as an appealing development in urban scale.

Are those really made of wood?

I think so and this is not extraordinary or bizarre
You can find 10 floors buildings made of wood.

Do these places have a elevator?

Single family?

or maybe DC needs to accept its role as a world city and raise its height limits. you can still have tall buildings and preserve view cooridors...

or, if it did not have height restrictions, would this be happening? i think it's interesting.

The problem with these ugly pop-up homes is that they significantly erode support for infill development while only providing a marginal increase of housing.

These are also essentially vertical McMansions.

The pop-up above has, what, 3 new units. At a density of 1.5 people per unit, this is 4-5 new people for the neighborhood. As I said, this marginal increase in density is not worth the backlash these create.

Also, they don't have parking. Even in walkable neighborhoods with good transit, at least a couple people will have a car.

These pop-ups are also usually built with the cheapest materials.

I don't get where the "pop-up" name in reference to these comes from...they're not temporary housing I should hope. In any case, it's a great form of infill. The one featured in the first post is pretty ugly, and it presumably replaced a historic rowhome, but the scale is right and it provides a good model for future intensification.

This development in Vancouver has a similar idea (but on a commercial street), but is a little more attractive:

http://i.imgur.com/7YnyuFB.jpg


These are the sorts of buildings I'd like to see replace strips of well-scaled but small and architecturally insignificant buildings like these, rather than block-sized podiums with towers above.

http://i.imgur.com/wuIHB2T.jpg

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...pscd4eeca1.jpg
planning.dc.gov

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3...ps7c53cc8b.jpg
From here.

But yeah, "density".

^
Poorly-executed architecture is a side issue. That's a ugly building, no doubt about it, but could it have been executed well? If so (and obviously the answer is yes), then banning pop-ups altogether is not the correct solution.

Look! Here's an ugly 2-story rowhouse. Clearly all 2-story rowhouses should be banned! :sarcasmalert:

http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014...64b-s3-c85.jpg
Matt Rourke/AP

I believe that cities are about resources and we should allow new ideas to come to fruition and prosper. I hope DC allows for these, along with other cities across the country.

Houston has a pop up building, but it was an office building and built in 1928. There may be more.

http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/H...Jan08-004a.jpg

http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/B...l-Building.php

+1 Cirrus... and it's beautiful on the inside actually.

And yes, it's adding density. The house was a single 3 bd before. Now it is two 3 bedroom homes. Given the prominence of row house neighborhoods throughout the city if pop-ups are done more often it does mean a lot more residents. Not too mention tax revenue...

Then why wasn't something denser put in it's place?

The pop up housing is not enough to solve the real issue that plagues DC. DC is far too suburban and not dense enough. Whoever planned the city didn't think very far ahead. The suburbs reap the benefits of DC ridiculous high cost of land and high taxes, poor education, etc. Development is constrained. DC needs to rezone large swaiths of the city for mid-rise or even high rise development. The plan to keep all buildings low is outdated. yes, around the federal capital, this needs to be retained. Elsewhere, in order for DC to become a world-class city, more density is required, more attractions, more entertainment, and more $$$ and jobs. This needs more development. Places like Tysons, Reston etc are developed while DC remains locked into a low-rise, low population and density future. This is not a recipe for a DC on par with world class capitals like Madrid, Berlin or Dublin where streets bustle with energy. The fact that DC loses so much because of its lack of housing stock that is affordable and poor downtown development (too many dull federal buildings and lack of space for retail development) is awful and a wasted opportunity for the capital of the USA. DC needs to have a sea change in terms of how it's political system works and it's overall resistance to intense development needs to just go away.

^ For goodness sake you can't compare Madrid/Berlin/Dublin to DC. The aforementioned cities are liberal, while DC is emphatically conservative. You will never build something on par with those cities in the DC area, no matter how the land gets developed, and the reason for that is geography, which has to do with conservative Southern influences that begin to be felt around the DC perimeter and going South into VA. If you've ever seen how conservatively people dress in DC, or how uptight they are culturally, it should be clear that no amount of effort will transform DC into something it's not.