The Streetcars Are Coming and Property Values Will Rise

• January 25th 2012

by Shilpi Paul

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Yesterday, Housing Complex got its hands on a 71-page report from the Office of Planning, which analyzes the effects of DC’s eventual streetcar system.

According to the study**, about 72,000 households in the city now located more than a quarter mile from a Metro station would be located that distance or less from a streetcar when the system is fully implemented. To put that in perspective, right now, 22,300 residents in the corridors analyzed by the study live within a quarter mile of a Metro station. We know that renters and buyers are willing to pay more to be close to a Metro; once the streetcars are in place, all sorts of housing stock becomes more desirable.

Most interesting to UrbanTurf were the numbers attached to real estate appreciation; the study posits that the system will add $5 to $7 billion to the value of existing property in the corridors analyzed by the study and spark $5 to $8 billion in new development within ten years of completion. Property values and rents will rise by 5 to 12 percent with “values likely to rise even higher in areas that have many prime redevelopment sites.” The report notes that the strongest demand for new and existing development would occur in the following areas: U Street/Logan Circle/Florida Avenue/NoMa/HowardUniversity/western Rhode Island Avenue, H Street/Benning Road, Buzzard Point, Capitol Riverfront, Downtown Anacostia, Takoma Park, and Georgetown.

From the study:

The increases in real estate values and development that the streetcar could spur over a ten-year period—looking only at land within a quarter-mile of new routes—would exceed the projected cost of creating the system [$1.5 billion] by 600% to 1,000%.

The District has already started brainstorming about ways to help lower income residents who find themselves in a neighborhood where property values have appreciated, including encouraging mixed-income development and creating affordable units in garages and basements.

**The area that this analysis covered includes all land within one-quarter mile of the proposed streetcar lines.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/the_streetcars_are_coming_property_values_will_rise/4986.