Reply to New Ward 3 Homeless Families Shelter Site

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Message from ANC 3C rep. Angela Bradbery to McLean Gardens Listserv:

The city late Monday informed the ANC that in response to community concerns about parking, it plans to build a bigger parking garage. Instead of two stories, it will be three. The additional layer of parking will provide an additional 60-80 spaces. This will be enough both for the shelter and for police, and should alleviate the current situation that forces the police to park their personal vehicles on the grass in front of the station and on neighborhood streets. The garage will be visible from the street; the height of the three-deck garage will be 34 feet, an estimated 10 to 15 feet above the height of the wall along Newark Street, according to the architect.

But the city needs a place for police to park while this deck is being constructed because there is not enough space onsite.

So the city plans to turn the tennis courts into surface parking lots during the 18 months of construction. At the end of the project, it will build new tennis courts.

For vehicles to reach the tennis courts while they are being used as parking lots, the city will need a road. So it is going to extend (and, I presume, widen) the small pathway that runs next to the playground and provides an entrance to the garden area and dog park from Newark Street. The new road will be extended to the tennis courts so police can drive in from Newark Street, park their vehicles and walk to the station.

The city cannot say how many garden plots will be paved over. But it says that this, too, will be temporary, and it will rebuild the garden plots when it is done. Knowing the nature of gardening (in the interest of full disclosure, I have a community garden plot), I have asked the city to provide details of how it would rebuild garden plots.

Below are additional questions that I and other ANC commissioners asked.

1
Why can’t the city lease spaces from Cathedral Commons? The city tried but spaces were not available. 
2
What will this new plan cost? The original two-level garage was slated to cost $5.5 million. The additional level will cost another $4 million, for a total of $9.5 million for the three-level structure.
3
How will stormwater runoff from the temporary road into nearby garden plots be managed? The city cannot yet provide an answer.  
4
What is the cost of rebuilding the tennis courts? That is to be determined.

Needless to say, these eleventh-hour changes to the plan raise a lot of new concerns for a new set of stakeholders. Given that, and the fact that there are so many questions the city cannot answer, I urged the city to delay its Board of Zoning Adjustment hearing for a month so that we can solicit input from gardeners, families who use the playground and dog park, and people who use the tennis courts.

The city refused. It is still set to go before the Board of Zoning Adjustment on March 1, but it no longer will seek a special exception for parking. (The city still seeks variances for building height, loading dock requirements, placing a second structure on a lot meant for one structure and using the property for a shelter). The city plans to file its amended BZA application on Wednesday.

The ANC still must make a recommendation on this project at its Feb. 21 meeting. Please email us at all@anc3c.org with your feedback.

Angela

Angela Bradbery
ANC3C06 Commissioner
(202) 669-6517[/quote]

So now, on top of everything else, DC needs to spend $9.5 million just for a parking garage at the site?!  What a SNAFU.[/quote]

The whole program smells corruption and nepotism.[/quote]

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