Friendship Heights is among D.C.’s slowest growing neighborhoods – perhaps that’s how residents want it

A 2024 assessment from Friendship Heights Alliance revealed the northwest neighborhood is one of D.C.’s slowest growing communities.

Neighborhoods like City Center, The Wharf and Navy Yard have grown their populations by 90.4%, 125.8% and a whopping 398% over the past roughly decade. In about twice that amount of time, across the past two decades, Friendship Heights has grown its population by only 21.5%, according to the report.

Reviews from the city broken down by ward, indicated Ward 3, where Friendship Heights is, is also one of the slowest growing wards.

Natalie Avery is the President and Executive Director of Friendship Heights Alliance. Her organization is focused on improving the community, supporting area businesses and scaling up neighborhood walkability and diversity. But improvement relies on a thriving, growing populace.  

Avery sees a clear reason for the lag in growth. 

“Other neighborhoods have seen their populations grow because they’ve built a lot more housing,” she said.  

The neighborhood hasn’t seen significant new housing construction since the Chase Point Condos, she said. According to The Koitz Group at Compass, a real estate group, that property was built in 2007 – that’s 17 years ago.

Anyone who has traversed the city in recent years won’t be surprised by the differential in the data. The Navy Yard and Wharf areas have seen a recent influx of luxury apartments several stories high coupled with modern amenities and trendy, new restaurants popping up along the neighborhoods’ riverwalks. 

Meanwhile, outdated department stores and spottily utilized parks characterize the Friendship Heights area.

In a city, like most in the country, wanting for affordable housing, the Friendship Heights neighborhood, which includes a metro stop, high quality schools, parks and ample retail seems a good solution and an ideal place to locate needed units. 

What’s prevented that from happening isn’t just one thing, Avery said. 

“There’s sort of a multiplicity of factors. It has to do with the market. It has to do with the development cycle of these particular properties,” Avery said, referencing existing housing complexes slated for changes. 

“I do think that it has to do with having an ANC [Advisory Neighborhood Commission] and a community that is supportive of adding vibrancy and adding housing to the neighborhood, so it’s all sorts of things,” she said. 

Resident feedback on proposals to add housing to the region are often met with criticism and highly specific requests, according to documents from public hearings on these proposals. 

Meeting minutes show meeting attendees, who are oftentimes residents, exhibiting concerns over the prospect of upzoning – allowing for properties that house more people in the same amount of space – in certain parcels. They express concern over inadequate notification of immediate neighbors to the proposed changes. Some also take issue with the proximity of proposed new units to existing homes. 

Developers can see these issues coming, said Cheryl Cort, Policy Director at Coalition for Smarter Growth. That’s why they sometimes won’t even try to pitch development projects requiring a higher density designation than the area is zoned for in Friendship Heights and similar areas.

Residents against a project they view as overly ambitious “can just kill it with delays and lawsuits,” Cort said. “It’s just not worth it to take on the fight. It’s better to just convert it, you know, just to do whatever, use existing zoning.”

And that’s exactly what’s taking place now. The neighborhood has two upcoming redevelopment projects set to be completed next year. 

Lisner-Louise-Dickson-Hurt Home, an affordable senior facility, will add 93 affordable units. Meanwhile, the redevelopment of Mazza Gallarie will include 325 new rental homes, 40 of which will be affordable. 

They’re huge steps for a community that has been at a near standstill with residential development for almost two decades. But it’s modest growth, Cort said, and it’s not nearly enough or what Friendship Heights is capable of hosting. 

“Our big concern is how much we’re leaving on the table,” Cort said, adding that developers don’t want to do “anything that would leave them vulnerable to being dragged out for years fighting it out in court and so they’re basically rebuilding in what should be a really high value area where we should be able to maximize the housing.”

In a city well over 1,000 affordable units short of its 2019 goal to create 12,000 new affordable units by 2025, this neighborhood isn’t pulling its weight.

The plan subdivides the city into planning areas. The planning area Friendship Heights is in is farthest behind its affordable housing goal, having achieved only 11.6% of its affordable housing target. And it’s the planning area that was asked to house the smallest amount of units – 230. 

More apartments, and especially ones that are below market rate, could change the atmosphere of the neighborhood as well as property values. Cort argues that change is necessary and will benefit everyone.

“What’s happened to their [Friendship Heights’ homeowners’] property values over the last 10 years? They’ve probably gone up a whole lot,” Cort said, adding that residents “basically were able to buy into this community and profit from the public investments — things like Metro, nicer streets, better bus service — and so it’s time we have communities that are sharing the benefits of the public investments and giving people of different incomes opportunity to live in the community and not perpetuating economic and racial segregation.”