Big GDS news
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Anonymous
| $3100 to Bowser campaign is supposed to be enough to buy influence? Sorry but that is ridiculous. We toured GDS and they told us about the planned development and it sounds like a smart idea to sustain the school. |
Anonymous
+1. If the goal is to move towards a school that is not dependent on tuition that sounds like a good plan to me. |
Anonymous
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Of course it sounds like a good plan -- you're getting a sales pitch. If your DCs get in, look more closely.
It's hard to see how GDS's share of the revenue from 300 apartments -- that it will neither build nor own -- could significantly decrease 1200 tuition bills every year for decades. And that's ignoring the tens of millions in land acquisition and predevelopment costs GDS has already taken on (mostly in the form of debt) and the tens of millions in future construction costs associated with rebuilding the L/MS facilities (which won't be covered by the sale of the MacArthur campus). |
Anonymous
"Need to sell" is not a prerequisite for any sale in a capitalist system. Safeway didn't need to sell. They put several other stores up for sale, like the one in Palisades, didn't get a crazy offer like they got from GDS, and took them off the market. Safeway sold the Tenleytown store because GDS was willing to pay so much, and nobody else would come close.
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Anonymous
Is incoherent to try to be effective? Social justice has nothing to do with being out of business; that is, yes, hire the smartest guys in the room, do the best for the school and its community, and then make it accessible even for those who could not afford it if it was not for FA. So, are you bother that a progressive school is now going to expand in your neighborhood? O yeah, it is much better to have a Volvo dealership nearby.... WT..??!! |
Anonymous
| I think it'd be great if the school's expansion encompassed the Volvo site. But that's not what's being proposed. The school expansion will be limited to the Safeway land (increasing GDS's population at the Tenley campus by over 800 people) AND the school is asking that a developer of their choice be authorized to build a residential-retail building on the Volvo site (and some public land) that is over twice the size allowed by the existing zoning. The combination of the two projects will overwhelm that block and the second/commercial project is all about greed - not about progressive education. It's kind of disgusting to watch a school founded on such laudable principles morph into a really shameless propagandist for a GDS-affiliated developer. |
Anonymous
| In your pinion, it overwhelms the block. Others, like me, think that Wisconsin Avenue can and should handle the density. Add a greater affordable housing component in the floor that has already been removed if you want to school to meet its social justice objectives. |
Anonymous
| Is there any affordable housing component in the current plan? What percentage of the residential units will be affordable housing? |
Anonymous
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What is wrong of doing a real estate agreement / deal? How does this contradict the progressive values of the school? If the deal is an ethical/legal deal, and if it would allow to increase its capital and endowment to fulfill its progressive mission (that, by the way its focus on education and making a top tier school like GDS affordable to a broad range of families) that deal is totally consistent with its mission and values. I fully support the deal, and yes, I am committed to social justice. The development will create jobs and add value to the local economy, while allowing more of the less affluent families attend GDS. Real estate is not evil, nor doing business.
It really pisses me off this superior entitle attitude of determining what is progressive or not based on a superficial analysis that equates business with ruthless evil capitalism. Take a look to the most progressive countries in the world, like some of the Nordic countries, with its low rates of inequality and high rates of well-being and inclusion. They do business. It is like inclusion mainstreaming. It is not like you are only pursuing social justice if you are a social worker. Social justice is everywhere. It is so intrinsic to the society that they do not have these absolutely updated pre-conceptions. Yes. Let’s make more good and ethical deals so we can benefit more families, so we can better accomplish our mission. And they do not need to have an affordable housing component to be progressive. The mission of the school is education and what it is important is that everything that it does has in mind the purpose of maximizing its mission of making outstanding private education affordable for less affluent families. FWIW: 20% of GDS families receive some type of financial aid. Average aid per family is over 20,000$. Yes, that is [f] progressive. |
Anonymous
And yet, those who criticize the school about being against its mission are probably the ones that fear the most have a portion ear-marked for affordable housing units... [and I am not refering to PP] |
Anonymous
Don't forget that the only place where they can locate a sports field for little kids is on the roof, 3 stories up. With the topography of Tenleytown, that's going to be a wind tunnel. It's a shame that GDS needs to cram every aspect of their school programmatic needs on the Safeway site so that they can monetize the Volvo site to the hilt. |
Anonymous
Gimme a break. All GDS is "proposing" by way of affordable units is the bare minimum of what the statute requires. Despite all of the pious incantations of the school's "social justice" mission, requests to expand the affordable housing component (beyond the statutory minimum) as one of the PUD amenity elements have gone no where. |
Anonymous
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If you all want more affordable housing, then demand that another floor or two be added to pay for it. You can only squeeze the balloon so much.
Yet, for all of the people bitching about the social justice, or lack there of, let's see if you embrace a homeless shelter or treatment clinic in the neighborhood. The so-called progressive liberals in upper NW are all fine and mighty except when it comes to their neighborhood. Practice what you preach or shut the fuck up. |
Anonymous
| There's a homeless services center directly across the street -- no one's bitching about that. And no one is saying that developers are evil. They're just saying that the fact that the current landowner is a "progressive" private school doesn't mean that it should be allowed to bust the zoning envelope to favor a developer-crony who will then (maybe) provide the school with a revenue stream in the form of a land lease. |
Anonymous
There's an element of the PUD application that requires that the applicant provide distinct community benefits and amenities to offset the additional height and density that GDS is ALREADY seeking in excess of what the zoning code provides for the parcel as a matter of right. Adding some affordable housing that is incremental to the bare statutory requirement would be one such benefit (without, of course, yet an ADDITIONAL increase in height beyond what GDS is already seeking in excess of zoning; otherwise it becomes just an upward ratchet for the developer). So far as a compensating "amenity" the school has offered "GDS Spanish Steps" for the community to gaze at the view of GDS beyond.  It's also worth noting that what GDS touts as the amenity package is at most a set of aesthetic tweaks that enable the school and its developer partners to enhance the project's marketability. In that sense, the "benefit" is really for the development project itself rather than for the community.
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