Reply to Hearst Playground story in Current

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Just because there aren't permits doesn't mean the park isn't being used. Or do you men just the field?[/quote]

Permits apply just to the field, yes. But the broader point is that no analysis was done -- as evidenced by the FOIA response. What we're having now is the kind of discussion that DPR should have had, but didn't.

On the other hand, the DPR master facilities plan seems to have been the result of a reasonable amount of thought. If you look at the DPR master facilities plan -- http://dpr.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/dpr/publication/attachments/DCPRMP_VisionDocument_web_0.pdf -- on page 35 is a map of existing and needed aquatic facilitites. Areas of the city that are not within 1 mile of an outdoor pool -- the stated standard -- are in slate blue. Areas that have no need are in gray. What color is the area around Hearst? Gray.  The only part of the city that is blue is a stripe running roughly parallel to the northwest border of the city about a mile wide. The plan proposes three new pools, two to the west of Rock Creek and one to the east, which would serve that entire swipe. One of the pools would be in Spring Valley and the other would be at Military and Nebraska.

Now the obvious flaw is that the locations shown for new pools don't happen to be actual DPR locations. I wouldn't be surprised if that was done to keep controversy from derailing the plans. And if you look at the map (you probably need to enlarge it) DPR owns very little land in the target area, it's shown in dark green. Lots of NPS land (light green) but that's probably off limits. For the southern location the obvious target is Friendship Park. There is another DPR property named Spring Valley Park that is nearby, I'm not familiar with it but I know that area isn't very walkable so I doubt it would be a good location for a neighborhood pool.

For the northern location the obvious choice is Lafayette. Of course, that's in Ward 4 -- which just goes to show the ridiculousness of the whole "Ward 3 needs an outdoor pool" line of thinking. The Lafayette location would actually serve thousands of Ward 3 residents who don't currently have access to an outdoor pool -- unlike Hearst -- but it's on the wrong side of an imaginary line.

Do those sites actually work? It would take some study  -- which still needs to be done. [/quote]

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