Hearst Playground story in Current

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I won't ascribe that to Professor Cheh. It's clear that she doesn't care much about my acute and parochial opinion.

FIFY

[Anonymous]

Nearly everyone seems to like pools in theory but no one wants to lose treasured features of their local parks to get one: fields, playground areas, tennis courts, green space. I don't see a lot of folks from AU Park, Palisades, Forest Hills or Chevy Chase clamoring to sacrifice substantial portions of their nearby park facilities for a ward 3 pool. Why should it be a surprise that frequent users of Hearst feel the same way?

[Anonymous]

Residents of AU Park wanted a pool. The baseball people killed the idea.

Palisades isn't centrally located.
There isn't a location that is owned by DPR to put a pool.
Chevy Chase could be an option, either at Lafayette or the Chevy Chase Community Center, but those renovations are far off and no one has proposed it for whatever reason.

People in the other neighborhoods you listed would love to have a public pool. Maybe someday, someone will propose putting one there. So far that hasn't happened. What has happened is that someone is proposing to put one at Hearst, and a lot of people love the idea.

[Anonymous]

^^^

There isn't a location in Forrest Hills controlled by DPR where a pool could go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Residents of AU Park wanted a pool. The baseball people killed the idea.

Palisades isn't centrally located.
There isn't a location that is owned by DPR to put a pool.
Chevy Chase could be an option, either at Lafayette or the Chevy Chase Community Center, but those renovations are far off and no one has proposed it for whatever reason.

People in the other neighborhoods you listed would love to have a public pool. Maybe someday, someone will propose putting one there. So far that hasn't happened. What has happened is that someone is proposing to put one at Hearst, and a lot of people love the idea.

And a lot of people don't, particularly the most frequent users of Hearst park -- whether the playground, the soccer field, the tennis courts or the green spaces. Save it, don't pave it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Residents of AU Park wanted a pool. The baseball people killed the idea.

Palisades isn't centrally located.
There isn't a location that is owned by DPR to put a pool.
Chevy Chase could be an option, either at Lafayette or the Chevy Chase Community Center, but those renovations are far off and no one has proposed it for whatever reason.

People in the other neighborhoods you listed would love to have a public pool. Maybe someday, someone will propose putting one there. So far that hasn't happened. What has happened is that someone is proposing to put one at Hearst, and a lot of people love the idea.

And a lot of people don't, particularly the most frequent users of Hearst park -- whether the playground, the soccer field, the tennis courts or the green spaces. Save it, don't pave it.

There really isn't evidence that a lot of people don't want a pool at Hearst except for the immediate neighbors. I know this is hard for people who live in Cleveland Park to understand but Hearst is public property - you may think it is your own local Gramercy Park but it is not.

And for what it is worth Hearst is a very central location for a pool in Ward 3 and accessible via a number of means - someone forwarded me a document that the anti-pool folks put together recently showing all of the places a pool should go instead in Ward 3 and it is a laughable document - only two of the locations are central to the Ward with good public transit options (Ft Reno and the trailhead to Battery Kemble) and almost none of their proposed locations are owned by the District to say nothing of DPR.

Let me repeat this for the immediate neighbors - you do no not own Hearst Park, it does not exist exclusively for your benefit and you do not have nor deserve any greater voice over what happens to it and this should be obvious as well but you are not entitled to your own facts either.

[Anonymous]

Entitled is the key word. There are hundreds of posts in this thread that demonstrate how entitled the anti-pool crowd is. What is so sad is how purely unaware they are of it.

It really is an exercise in group think - "Everyone I know is against the park"

That may be true, but there are more people that you don't know who do want the pool.

And yes, it is a public park, meaning the taxpayers support it, all of us, not just you.

[Anonymous]

Isn't Hearst Park a mile from the closest Metro stop? It'a a block or two from the Wisconsin bus line, which is notably unreliable. Thus it's hardly in a 'transit-oriented' location. Folks will drive, just as they do today to get to a public pool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Residents of AU Park wanted a pool. The baseball people killed the idea.

Palisades isn't centrally located.
There isn't a location that is owned by DPR to put a pool.
Chevy Chase could be an option, either at Lafayette or the Chevy Chase Community Center, but those renovations are far off and no one has proposed it for whatever reason.

People in the other neighborhoods you listed would love to have a public pool. Maybe someday, someone will propose putting one there. So far that hasn't happened. What has happened is that someone is proposing to put one at Hearst, and a lot of people love the idea.

And a lot of people don't, particularly the most frequent users of Hearst park -- whether the playground, the soccer field, the tennis courts or the green spaces. Save it, don't pave it.

There really isn't evidence that a lot of people don't want a pool at Hearst except for the immediate neighbors. I know this is hard for people who live in Cleveland Park to understand but Hearst is public property - you may think it is your own local Gramercy Park but it is not.

And for what it is worth Hearst is a very central location for a pool in Ward 3 and accessible via a number of means - someone forwarded me a document that the anti-pool folks put together recently showing all of the places a pool should go instead in Ward 3 and it is a laughable document - only two of the locations are central to the Ward with good public transit options (Ft Reno and the trailhead to Battery Kemble) and almost none of their proposed locations are owned by the District to say nothing of DPR.

Let me repeat this for the immediate neighbors - you do no not own Hearst Park, it does not exist exclusively for your benefit and you do not have nor deserve any greater voice over what happens to it and this should be obvious as well but you are not entitled to your own facts either.

You're asking the wrong question. The question isn't whether people want a pool, it's whether they would be willing to lose one of the existing features at Hearst in exchange for a pool. Because in all of the proposals, something gives.

[Anonymous]

There are a lot of soccer fields.

There is a lot of green space - Hazen Park and Rock Creek are right there, Glover Park is a block away (the part by the temple and behind Channel 9)

There are more tennis courts than are ever used on the nicest days of the year.

There is no outdoor pool.

So yes, if we need to lose the courts, or even a court, or a little so-called green space, then the answer is sure, for an amenity that doesn't exist for the public in the area, sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of soccer fields.

Relative to the number of kids who play soccer, there are very few soccer fields. In particular, there are very few large fields like Hearst. The kids who play soccer in DC are concentrated in NW, where there are very few fields, Hearst is one of a handful. If you have a kid who plays soccer, and you live in DC, you get to expand your knowledge of geography by driving all over creation for games.

In Ward 3, there are over 3,000 kids registered with US Youth Soccer. DPR fields where soccer is allowed in Ward 3: Hearst, Hardy, Palisades, Stoddert and Fort Reno. At all other DPR fields in Ward 3 soccer is prohibited, they are reserved for "diamond sports" (aka baseball). Stoddert and Fort Reno aren't real soccer fields, the fields are laid out for baseball, but soccer is allowed in the outfield. Hardy and Palisades are mini fields, no one older than elementary school can play there. Hearst is it.

[Anonymous]

Except that leagues also use Maret, Jellef, NCS, Sidwell, St Albans and the Ellington field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of soccer fields.

There is a lot of green space - Hazen Park and Rock Creek are right there, Glover Park is a block away (the part by the temple and behind Channel 9)

There are more tennis courts than are ever used on the nicest days of the year.

There is no outdoor pool.

So yes, if we need to lose the courts, or even a court, or a little so-called green space, then the answer is sure, for an amenity that doesn't exist for the public in the area, sure.

There are public pools within a 15 minute drive or bus ride, even in traffic. There are also various private pool options in the immediate Hearst area -- some are free to those who rent in certain complexes, others are relatively affordable (such as the Cleveland Park Club) or a bit more expensive for those who want a full sized pool (Beauvoir). There's a large indoor pool at Wilson a mile to the north. So, no another public pool in one of the most affluent areas of DC is not the highest public policy priority, especially when other recreational needs will have to be sacrificed for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of soccer fields.

There is a lot of green space - Hazen Park and Rock Creek are right there, Glover Park is a block away (the part by the temple and behind Channel 9)

There are more tennis courts than are ever used on the nicest days of the year.

There is no outdoor pool.

So yes, if we need to lose the courts, or even a court, or a little so-called green space, then the answer is sure, for an amenity that doesn't exist for the public in the area, sure.

There are public pools within a 15 minute drive or bus ride, even in traffic. There are also various private pool options in the immediate Hearst area -- some are free to those who rent in certain complexes, others are relatively affordable (such as the Cleveland Park Club) or a bit more expensive for those who want a full sized pool (Beauvoir). There's a large indoor pool at Wilson a mile to the north. So, no another public pool in one of the most affluent areas of DC is not the highest public policy priority, especially when other recreational needs will have to be sacrificed for it.

No one ever said this was the highest public policy priority except for the immediate neighbors who likely only pay attention to public policy when it suddenly impacts them - even in DC the executive branch can deal with more than 1 thing at a time but please enlighten us on which of your public policy priorities is being sacrificed for the pool.

This debate is about trade-offs and picking the best use of scarce DPR land. Personally I'd sacrifice the tennis courts to add the pool and preserve the soccer field - the neighborhood has plenty of tennis courts, they are lightly used and on a per square foot basis don't provide rec use for very many people. The wealthy neighbors of Hearst certainly have cars and based on the amount they are posting on this thread they also have the time to drive (or bike or walk) to the courts at Fort Reno or Turtle Park which have low utilization rates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Except that leagues also use Maret, Jellef, NCS, Sidwell, St Albans and the Ellington field.

Lots of pools near all of those locations too.