Doubling of D.C. Funds For Housing Proposed

Task Force Backs Adding Affordable Units

Alice M. Rivlin of the Brookings Institution, shown in 2003 at a forum with D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), says a recent report shows that the District is "losing affordable housing faster than it's getting created." (By Matthew Cavanaugh For The Washington Post)

The District's Comprehensive Housing Strategy Task Force called on city officials yesterday to pour nearly $6 billion into housing over the next 15 years, doubling the current budget.

With that sum, the city could encourage the creation of an additional 55,000 housing units, a third of them priced for low-income families, according to a task force report. The city also could preserve the affordability of 30,000 existing units that might otherwise be lost in a real estate frenzy that is driving mortgage and rent payments skyward.

"Despite the fact that the city has ramped up its spending considerably in the past few years, we are losing affordable housing faster than it's getting created," said task force Chairman Alice M. Rivlin, director of the Brookings Institution's Greater Washington Research Program. "There needs to be a doubling of expenditures. We're proposing a considerable stepping up of the pace of activity."

The task force was created by the D.C. Council in 2003 to study the city's long-term housing needs as the number of affordable units plummeted. A recent report by the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute found that the city lost 12,000 affordable houses and apartments in 2004 as the median rent jumped 9 percent -- from $734 to $799 -- and the median home value soared 32 percent -- from $252,930 to $334,702.

Appointed by the mayor and approved by the council, the task force includes a broad mix of developers, academics, government officials and housing advocates who spent months holding public hearings and poring over housing data. In September, the task force released a first draft of its recommendations but did not include a price tag.

To raise the needed funds -- an additional $200 million a year for the next 15 years -- the task force recommends dedicating a greater portion of the tax revenue generated by the real estate boom to housing programs. For example, city officials could reverse the council's recent decision to cut the deed recordation tax from 1.5 to 1.1 percent. That move alone would generate an extra $130 million a year for housing production, the report says.

Other recommendations include dedicating a greater portion of the deed recordation tax to housing programs as well as reserving 5 percent of real estate taxes from new residents for that purpose.

Rivlin said she briefed Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) yesterday on the task force findings and plans to do the same for council members and candidates in this year's race for mayor. Rivlin said she hopes the mayor will include many of the recommendations when he presents his 2007 budget to the council later this year.

Ellen McCarthy, director of the mayor's Office of Planning and a task force member, said Williams plans to include elements of the report in his budget. Asked whether he is willing to find the additional cash, McCarthy said, "I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility."