ANC3D Discussion on Foxhall Elementary / Old Hardy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like a great place for a citywide school

Yes! Make a protected bike trail, with itty bike traffic lights along the whole thing, crossing all the way in a straight line from Woodridge NE to Palisades NW, and a Circulator too. Desegregation by transit.

That function would have been served by the Palisades Trolley Trail. The community had a spirited debate over the proposal. In the process, it was quite funny watching some of the most privileged people in the city develop a social conscience overnight in telling the city how “inequitable” it would be to spend tax dollars to develop infrastructure in their neighborhood. Of course that position just happened to coincide with their own personal interest in enjoying private access to public land. Sadly it seems that they had just enough favors due from city hall to get what they wanted.

[Anonymous]

There are slides here https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17d7ZYwYlkVre4sc4EiH3SWpU-FL5zvj_

Of most interest to me is the 50 percent out of boundary enrollment on slide 8.

I'm not prepared to map inboundary enrollments to capacities because of the tediousness of the work, but I expect, as usual, that out-of-boundary attendance is at the core of overcrowding at all but a few specific schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ah yes. Palisades. Well, if they hadn't considered their neighborhood as too good for luxury condos, they would now have a brand new walkable grocery store instead of an ugly office building. Also, "no bike lane on MacArthur! We need it for the cars!" and "keep the gravel on the trails! We don't want anyone using them! They get in the way of the view out of a few of our expensive houses!" "Yes, sure, cancel those bus lines! They bring poor people!"
Be better, rich people, be better.

The other funny example was what happened with the renovation of the Palisades Rec Center. The original proposal included a swimming pool and another nice amenities. True to form, members of the community fought that tooth and nail because attractive amenities might attract people outside the neighborhood (“parking” being the operative euphemism deployed to disguise more pernicious sentiments). And also true to form, the city caved to the wishes of the moneyed assholes, resulting in a truly ridiculous renovation that - I shit you not - has as it’s centerpiece half a basketball court.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are slides here https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17d7ZYwYlkVre4sc4EiH3SWpU-FL5zvj_

Of most interest to me is the 50 percent out of boundary enrollment on slide 8.

I'm not prepared to map inboundary enrollments to capacities because of the tediousness of the work, but I expect, as usual, that out-of-boundary attendance is at the core of overcrowding at all but a few specific schools.

Not for the ESs. These are all heavily IB and trending more in that direction. Hardy MS has historically been mainly OOB but that is changing fast. I imagine that Bowser’s calculus is that, without these two new schools, the rest of the city will be all but shut out of the Wilson feeder pattern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah yes. Palisades. Well, if they hadn't considered their neighborhood as too good for luxury condos, they would now have a brand new walkable grocery store instead of an ugly office building. Also, "no bike lane on MacArthur! We need it for the cars!" and "keep the gravel on the trails! We don't want anyone using them! They get in the way of the view out of a few of our expensive houses!" "Yes, sure, cancel those bus lines! They bring poor people!"
Be better, rich people, be better.

The other funny example was what happened with the renovation of the Palisades Rec Center. The original proposal included a swimming pool and another nice amenities. True to form, members of the community fought that tooth and nail because attractive amenities might attract people outside the neighborhood (“parking” being the operative euphemism deployed to disguise more pernicious sentiments). And also true to form, the city caved to the wishes of the moneyed assholes, resulting in a truly ridiculous renovation that - I shit you not - has as it’s centerpiece half a basketball court.

Oh wow, a swimming pool would have been so much better than the spray feature it got! That half-basketball court might have the most gorgeous view of all DPR rec centers. If that had been the view from the pool, it would have been featured in magazines, and millennials would have taken it over with swim teams and lane reservations.

[Anonymous]

Inherently, the problem with the site in Foxhall/Palisades is the lack of public transportation. The city really should have put a new open high school at the Ellington site and moved Ellington to U Street when it had the chance.

I mean, the neighborhood is opposed to even having a bike/walking path on the old trolley line that would enable many neighborhood kids to bike or walk to school without any threat of a car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's hilarious. Didn't the FCCA also lose the neighborhood their only grocery store by putting unreasonable demands on the developer?

I believe that was more the PCA. That supermarket was in the Palisades rather than Foxhall. Also, the causation is not clear, I believe as there were other factors that suggest the redeveloped wouldn’t have gone ahead even if the community had been fully supportive. Ironically, the supermarket could probably have been saved had the PCA or another entity opted to do what the FCA did and pursue a historical places designation. In truth, the building was a hideous eyesore and had no business being designated as a historical place but I don’t think many in the community would have quibbled with it if it had meant keeping the supermarket.

Nope. The new Safeway would have been built, 100% sure about it, had the neighborhood gone along with the plan. What a stupid, shortsighted move. Now everyone has to drive to a grocery store in some other neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Inherently, the problem with the site in Foxhall/Palisades is the lack of public transportation. The city really should have put a new open high school at the Ellington site and moved Ellington to U Street when it had the chance.

I mean, the neighborhood is opposed to even having a bike/walking path on the old trolley line that would enable many neighborhood kids to bike or walk to school without any threat of a car.

A poster upthread says it isn't the neighborhood as a whole but a few rotten apples. Neighborhood associations can hurt their own grocery store access if they want, but they shouldn't get in the way of education and trails.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah yes. Palisades. Well, if they hadn't considered their neighborhood as too good for luxury condos, they would now have a brand new walkable grocery store instead of an ugly office building. Also, "no bike lane on MacArthur! We need it for the cars!" and "keep the gravel on the trails! We don't want anyone using them! They get in the way of the view out of a few of our expensive houses!" "Yes, sure, cancel those bus lines! They bring poor people!"
Be better, rich people, be better.

The other funny example was what happened with the renovation of the Palisades Rec Center. The original proposal included a swimming pool and another nice amenities. True to form, members of the community fought that tooth and nail because attractive amenities might attract people outside the neighborhood (“parking” being the operative euphemism deployed to disguise more pernicious sentiments). And also true to form, the city caved to the wishes of the moneyed assholes, resulting in a truly ridiculous renovation that - I shit you not - has as it’s centerpiece half a basketball court.

Oh wow, a swimming pool would have been so much better than the spray feature it got! That half-basketball court might have the most gorgeous view of all DPR rec centers. If that had been the view from the pool, it would have been featured in magazines, and millennials would have taken it over with swim teams and lane reservations.

The outsider bitterness of the have-lesses is palpable here.

[Anonymous]

The joke is that it isn’t even a neighborhood. It’s one trafficky road with some side streets, no walkability, no retail center, no charm.

I guess it’s appropriate that the defenders call themselves a “citizen’s association” and not a “neighborhood association.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ah yes. Palisades. Well, if they hadn't considered their neighborhood as too good for luxury condos, they would now have a brand new walkable grocery store instead of an ugly office building. Also, "no bike lane on MacArthur! We need it for the cars!" and "keep the gravel on the trails! We don't want anyone using them! They get in the way of the view out of a few of our expensive houses!" "Yes, sure, cancel those bus lines! They bring poor people!"
Be better, rich people, be better.

The other funny example was what happened with the renovation of the Palisades Rec Center. The original proposal included a swimming pool and another nice amenities. True to form, members of the community fought that tooth and nail because attractive amenities might attract people outside the neighborhood (“parking” being the operative euphemism deployed to disguise more pernicious sentiments). And also true to form, the city caved to the wishes of the moneyed assholes, resulting in a truly ridiculous renovation that - I shit you not - has as it’s centerpiece half a basketball court.

Oh wow, a swimming pool would have been so much better than the spray feature it got! That half-basketball court might have the most gorgeous view of all DPR rec centers. If that had been the view from the pool, it would have been featured in magazines, and millennials would have taken it over with swim teams and lane reservations.

The pool was proposed 25+ years ago, I don't really know the history.

But the rec center expansion was recent, and frankly, DPR screwed the pooch on it. The city made a big show of neighborhood involvement, monthly meetings for a year and a half. The meetings were run by DGS, DPR never sent anyone. At every meeting people asked, what about parking, what about traffic? and the answer was always, "don't worry about it." At the meetings we talked about a gym and the sentiment was expressed that we wanted a gym, but not a full-size one, because that would just get taken over by league play, and the soccer field and baseball field are already dominated by league play afternoons and weekends, and not only would a full-size gym exacerbate the traffic and parking, it would exacerbate it at the exact times it was already the worst. This was all agreed to and hammered out, the PCA endorsed the principles that the working group arrived at.

Then came the day for the unveiling of the plans: a full-size gym, no additional parking, nothing to mitigate traffic. The reaction at the meeting where the plans were unveiled was quick and sharp: that looks nothing like what we've been talking about for the past 18 months. OK, OK, we'll go back to the drawing board. But then DPR screwed it up again. The working group had asked for a half-size gym. What got built was a half-court gym -- one with only one basket. And the architecture, has a gorgeous wall of glass at the other end of the gym, with no place to mount a second one.

Once they realized that they'd really screwed it up, DPR went on a PR campaign, blaming the "NIMBY" and "racist" neighbors. I'm sorry, it's all on DPR.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Inherently, the problem with the site in Foxhall/Palisades is the lack of public transportation. The city really should have put a new open high school at the Ellington site and moved Ellington to U Street when it had the chance.

I mean, the neighborhood is opposed to even having a bike/walking path on the old trolley line that would enable many neighborhood kids to bike or walk to school without any threat of a car.

A poster upthread says it isn't the neighborhood as a whole but a few rotten apples. Neighborhood associations can hurt their own grocery store access if they want, but they shouldn't get in the way of education and trails.

Fortunately public schools are a by-right land use under the zoning code and there's much less concerned citizens can do to block them than private uses requiring a zoning variance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The outsider bitterness of the have-lesses is palpable here.

When the extremely wealthy repeatedly pervert democratic processes by using back channels and inducements to appropriate public resources for their own use, the rest of us indeed have a right to be bitter. There’s a term now for what has been going on in the Palisades: “empty swimming pool politics”. It’s a disgusting phenomenon that should be furiously opposed by anyone who has any interest in making this city a better place to live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The outsider bitterness of the have-lesses is palpable here.

When the extremely wealthy repeatedly pervert democratic processes by using back channels and inducements to appropriate public resources for their own use, the rest of us indeed have a right to be bitter. There’s a term now for what has been going on in the Palisades: “empty swimming pool politics”. It’s a disgusting phenomenon that should be furiously opposed by anyone who has any interest in making this city a better place to live.

What?


Anyway I am curious about the "inducements" that the highest-income Palisades dwellers employed to prohibit public access to resources that are physically located in Palisades.

Are you saying that the situation is analogous to coastal dwellers in Connecticut and Malibu who get the town to pass laws allowing only town residents to park on beach-adjacent streets so non-town dwellers effectively cannot get to the beach? Or like the waterfront residents in the Hamptons who erect jetties that block beach walking along the shore?

Or maybe you're alleging that Palisades residents accomplished a Gramercy Park situation, where only adjacent residents get a $$$ key to gain access to locked park?

Can you elaborate on the public resources that are off limits to any city dweller?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The pool was proposed 25+ years ago, I don't really know the history.

It seems that you are right. Here is a snippet I found:

“In the mid 1990s the city initiated a plan to turn the Palisades Park into a “Mega Center” that would include a swimming pool. The idea, when presented to the community, met with overwhelming opposition. The thought then, as it is today, was that the community was reluctant to turn the neighborhood park into a major destination that would draw a regional base of users.” (http://www.palisadesdc.org/newsletters/2004/parkplan.pdf)

That’s drained-pool politics at its core.