Today at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) officials from the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia adopted three regional targets on housing, agreeing to collaboratively address the area’s production and affordability challenges.

This collective action, outlined in a resolution approved by the COG Board of Directors, is the culmination of a year-long effort by local planning and housing director staff and COG to determine 1) how much housing is needed to address the area’s current shortage and whether the region could produce more, 2) the ideal location for new housing to optimize and balance its proximity to jobs, and 3) the appropriate cost of new housing to ensure it is priced for those who need it.

The rationale for each target is available in COG’s new report, The Future of Housing in Greater Washington: A Regional Initiative to Create Housing Opportunities, Improve Transportation, and Support Economic Growth.

In addition to setting regional targets, the resolution called on officials to work within their communities to adopt local-level targets on production, accessibility, and affordability. It also emphasized the need to work closely with the non-profit, private, and philanthropic sectors.

“Today’s vote signals the beginning of a new chapter in our housing crisis where we are partnering across the region with governments, nonprofits, and the private sector to meet our housing needs,” said Robert C. White, Jr., COG Board of Directors Chair and District of Columbia Councilmember. "Now that we have worked together to set our housing goals, we can continue working together to ramp up housing production in ways that ensure all our communities benefit."

"The region has a record of success when it comes to addressing big challenges like these together,” said Derrick Davis, COG Board of Directors Vice Chair and Prince George’s County Council Member. “Whether we’re working together on Metro funding, achieving air or water quality progress, or setting housing goals, the outcome is always better when we’re aligned."

When achieved, the targets are expected to address the region’s housing need from an economic competitiveness and transportation infrastructure standpoint by improving affordability and bringing housing and jobs closer together. For example, the Transportation Planning Board at COG estimates that meeting the targets could result in a nearly 20 percent reduction in traffic congestion, if coupled with infrastructure investment, supportive land-use policies, among other factors.

"Local governments are already getting to work on these challenges—from revamping their comprehensive plans, to adopting housing strategies, to implementing policies that collectively contribute to the regional targets we set today,” said Chuck Bean, COG Executive Director. “It will take a range of tools like those to meet our targets over the next decade, but with the partnership of the business, non-profit, and philanthropic sectors, we’ll create a region where everyone can live and thrive."

Enterprise Community Partners and the 2030 Group spoke in support of the regional housing targets and expressed a desire by the civic and developer sectors to work alongside government to achieve them.

“As a leading national resource provider to support housing development, Enterprise applauds COG and the many elected officials who have adopted these critically important new regional housing production goals,” said David Bowers Enterprise Vice President and Mid-Atlantic Market Leader. “In our roles as two Co-Conveners of the Housing Leaders Group of Greater Washington, we continue to work with many regional partners to pursue $1 billion in combined new private and public capital that will help COG jurisdictions meet the current and future needs of low- and moderate-income residents.”

“The 2030 Group and the business community commend COG’s taking this first important step to set regional housing targets,” said Bob Buchanan, 2030 Group President. “How we move from acknowledgement that we have a problem to meaningful action to resolve it will help define us as a region.” 

Background on COG's Housing Initiative

According to COG’s Cooperative Forecasts, current employment growth outpaces housing growth in the region. This situation, or housing shortfall, affects the area’s affordability, and potentially undercuts its appeal to new companies and talent. It also results in workers living further from their jobs and straining the transportation system.

A year ago, COG released an analysis that helped the region better understand its unmet housing needs. Between 2020 and 2030, the region needs to produce at least 75,000 additional households beyond the 245,000 households already anticipated, totaling 320,000 net new households. If the time frame is stretched from 2020 to 2045, more than 100,000 additional households will be needed beyond the new households anticipated.

The COG Board of Directors called on the region’s planning and housing directors to help determine whether there was capacity in local plans to accommodate additional housing, and if so, where new housing should be located and how it should be priced to make the biggest impact.

Officials on the COG Board of Directors used these analyses to develop and build consensus around the three regional housing goals adopted today.

MORE: 
The Future of Housing in Greater Washington: A Regional Initiative to Create Housing Opportunities, Improve Transportation, and Support Economic Growth
COG's Regional Housing Initiative
Resolution Adopting Targets to Address the Region's Housing Needs
Washington Post: Region’s elected officials urge their governments to commit to affordable-housing targets
Washington Business Journal: D.C.-area leaders to set broad housing construction targets to address affordability crisis