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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Where GDS has to do some serious reappraisal is over the PUD plan.  However well-intentioned the motivation, it's become an albatross.  It's telling that Sidwell Friends School announced its own campus expansion near Tenleytown some 15 months after GDS launched its ambitious plans.  Yet despite its much later start, Sidwell got all of its approvals last March, with no one from the community testifying in opposition.  Meanwhile, GDS has faced much opposition and roadblocks from DC planning authorities.  Perhaps the differences in outcome have to do with [b]project size and scope[/b] and perhaps with the approach to community engagement.  GDS needs to concentrate on the campus plan.  The school has demonstrated they know how to educate children well, but the school leadership is operating out of its wheelhouse with taking on commercial development.[/quote]

Mostly this more than anything else. Sidwell needed zoning relief from the BZA to operate a school in the soon to be former Washingron Home space, whereas GDS is going through a PUD process for all of the parcels related to its consolidation.[/quote]

The GDS project is more complex than Sidwell's.  That said, the NW Current reported that Sidwell has spent years nurturing its relationship with the neighborhood and then with the Washington Home purchase, Sidwell worked hard and made meaningful concessions to address their concerns.  It seems that GDS took the view that it could largely stick to its plans, despite local opposition, because it expected the DC Office of Planning to support it.  But then OP didn't.  Perhaps by doing the campus expansion and the PUD, GDS bit off more than it (or any independent school) could chew.[/quote]

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