Renderings of the proposed building. Image credits: PGN ARCHITECTS
By Zachary Borrenpohl, Ward 4 resident
After three years of financial limbo caused by DC’s affordable housing funding crisis, Dance Loft on 14’s exciting mixed-use development in Ward 4 finally has a path forward. But it needs ANC 4E’s support to get there, and the commissioners who will decide its fate weren’t in office when the project was originally approved. It all comes down to a vote this Tuesday, March 24, in which much of the surrounding community – that overwhelmingly supports the project – is likely unaware.
ANC4E commissioners should do the right thing for this community, Ward 4, and DC, and help carry this unique affordable housing and arts project over the finish line.
The Dance Loft redevelopment at 4618 14th Street NW (which includes 100+ affordable housing, a new performing arts center, retail space, and net-zero energy design) is seeking a modification from the DC Zoning Commission for its approved Planned Unit Development (or PUD – a zoning action intended to allow a project that is better than could be built by-right). The modification would adjust the interior unit mix and number to qualify for financing that has only recently become available again. No changes to the building’s exterior, height, massing, parking, or community commitments are proposed. This is an interior reconfiguration driven by financial necessity.
If ANC 4E declines to support the modification, this project, which already cleared over 18 public meetings, won overwhelming ANC and Zoning Commission approval in 2023, and won letters of support from Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George and the DC Office of the Attorney General, could die. And with it, Ward 4 would lose its only performing arts center, and up to 133 units of affordable housing.
How we got here
To understand why this modification is necessary, you have to understand what happened to affordable housing finance in DC between 2023 and 2025.
When the Zoning Commission issued its final order for Dance Loft in January 2023, the project was on track to break ground in 2024 using tax-exempt bonds, Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), and DC grant subsidies. Then all three funding sources dried up simultaneously.
DC’s Department of Housing and Community Development hit its funding ceiling after backing projects that never moved forward. Affordable housing projects across the city stalled or collapsed. Dance Loft’s lenders extended their bridge loan, and the team waited for years for the city’s housing finance programs to return.
Now, affordable housing financing would need a different unit mix than what the original PUD specified. Hence, the modification: flexibility to build up to 133 smaller units, while also keeping a number of 3- and 4-bedroom apartments. The new plan would make the homes affordable at 50%, 60%, or 80% of the median family income. The original project ranged from deeply subsidized 30% median family income units to market rate. In other words, the plan would offer all-affordable, workforce housing for teachers, ballet dancers, day care workers, entry-level government staffers, NGO workers, and more.
What the modification actually changes, and what it doesn’t
The proposed modification is narrow. The major issues negotiated – and settled – during the PUD process are unchanged. The modification changes nothing on building footprint, height, density, exterior design, parking (40 garage spaces), alley configuration, RPP exclusion, traffic impacts, or retail space. Every community commitment negotiated during the original PUD process remains in place. These concerns that were resolved during the 15-month community engagement process in 2021–2022 are not part of the modification. This is an interior reconfiguration to make the project financeable. Full stop.
Some nearby residents are trying to halt the project – again – and this time they may be winning
A handful of vocal residents who opposed the original project are using this modification as another opportunity to relitigate their earlier objections and impede forward progress.
Most of the project opponents live adjacent to the Dance Loft and raise objections to living near a construction zone and are concerned about competition for street parking despite the fact that the building has a parking garage, and new residents cannot receive a street parking permit.
All concerns raised by neighbors were already studied, addressed, and settled when the Zoning Commission voted to approve the project. Rearguing them now isn’t a good-faith engagement with this limited, internal modification; it’s an attempt to block a development project that already went through one of the most thorough public processes in recent Ward 4 memory. ANC commissioners should not give them more weight than the vast number of project supporters inside the ANC boundary and around the city.
ANC has a chance to do the right thing for the community and the city
The Dance Loft project sits at a rare intersection of policy goals DC claims to care about: affordable housing production, arts and cultural investment, climate-forward construction, and equitable development in historically underinvested corridors.
It also matters because affordable housing is one of the most concrete tools DC has to address the legacy of racially discriminatory housing policies (redlining, exclusionary zoning, eminent domain abuse) that segregated this city and displaced Black and working-class communities for decades. ANC has a chance to champion a unique housing and arts project that would serve the community.
The current ANC 4E commissioners took office after the Dance Loft PUD was approved, but the community that supports the development still lives here and still exists. The question before ANC 4E is not whether to approve a new development. It’s whether to support a narrow modification to a project that was already approved through an exhaustive public process, and that needs interior flexibility to access financing that exists right now, for the first time in three years.
If the ANC doesn’t act now, the financing window could close, and the community will lose vital housing along with a cherished arts organization.
ANC has a chance to champion this highly needed affordable housing, and Ward 4’s only performing arts center serving 12,000 people a year, and whose customers sustain local businesses, might need to leave the neighborhood.
What you can do
If you live in ANC 4E or anywhere in Ward 4, and you believe this project should move forward, you need to make your voice heard – now. The commissioners are weighing community sentiment, and right now the loudest voices are the ones saying no.
Email the ANC 4E commissioners expressing support for the Dance Loft on 14 PUD modification (Z.C. Case No. 21-18A).
Email the 4E commissioners at these email addresses:
anc4eoutreach@anc.dc.gov:
DC’s affordable housing pipeline has been battered. Projects that survived deserve to be built, not killed by procedural indecision over interior floor plans. Dance Loft has done everything right: years of community engagement, agency support, deep affordability, and world-class design. The financing is finally here. Don’t let this moment pass. Weigh in now to the ANC and urge them to do the right thing.