Reply to New Cleveland Park library is a missed opportunity

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "New Cleveland Park library is a missed opportunity "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

The thing is to enforce — and strengthen — the law to require developments to include more affordable units.  Do you know how many ‘affordable’ units Cathedral Commons built, despite getting PUD treatment permitting more height and density than zoning allowed?  The bare statutory minimum.  PUDs are supposed to require community benefits like more affordable housing to offset being able to exceed zoning.  Yet this didn’t happen.  Moreover, a number of the Cathedral Commons ‘affordable’ units are rented to AU students.  The whole system is corrupt.[/quote]

Maybe if you had asked for more affordable housing as an amenity at the outset rather than fighting the development for 15 years, the legal fees and opportunity costs could have gone to that instead of the zoning attorneys.

It is total crap that you complain about this now after having fought the development for so many years.[/quote]

You have no idea what you're talking about.

No one fought the development for 15 years.

In 1999, Giant proposed to build a new supermarket with a 300 foot blank wall (think GDS Safeway) along Wisconsin Ave., with an above ground parking garage.  That did result in community opposition, which didn't want a deadened streetscape of Wisconsin the length of a football field.  (The plan was known as the Great Wall of Giant.) Giant then withdrew its application.

In fact, three or four years during Mayor Williams' term, Giant, the ANC, local organizations and the Office of Planning all signed off on an agreement, announced by the mayor's office, for Giant to build a better store.  Giant then was acquired by Ahol, which walked away from the agreement for unexplained reasons.

In 2005 the local ANC hired an architect to engage again with Ahold/Giant to encourage them to build a new store.  Giant then proposed to renovate the north and south blocks with a plan that got strong support from local stakeholders (ANC and community groups).

Perhaps bolstered by community support for its plan, Giant then changed its proposal yet again and by 2008 doubled the size of the project, which then required relief from zoning laws.  That much larger project was opposed by many in the community as violating zoning protections and as not adequately addressing impacts.  By the way, during the zoning hearings, Giant's representative thanked those in 1999 who had opposed the blank Great Wall of Giant proposal along Wisconsin.

Giant engaged a firm called Streetworks that specializes in 'engagement' with local political officials.  Their proposal then sailed through the Zoning Commission with barely a design tweak.  Folks look at Park Van Ness as an example of what Cathedral Commons could have been had Giant not designed it in the cheapest, least imaginative way possible.  Despite being a PUD, there were no community amenities required as is typical in large PUDs (more affordable housing, community space, playground renovation dollars, etc.).  Streetworks did its job well.[/quote]

You are splitting hairs - the same proposal was not fought continuously for 15 years but multiple iterations of the proposal were fought off and on for 15 years.

If opponents, and more importantly the ANC which is lead by someone who thinks she is living in 1986, had constructively engaged with the developer you might have gotten a better designed project and more affordable housing.

What was built was much smaller than what has long existed on neighboring parcels and if you want better design and more affordable units you need to unlock some of the value of the site to pay for it which opponents were unwilling to do though now they come and bitch about something of their own making.

BTW nothing about what they proposed "violated zoning protections" whatever that means.

BTW the funniest/most ignorant component of your post is the comparison to Park Van Ness which was a matter of right project and FWIW a much larger project.  But since it was bigger they had more money to spend on design and by law it came with more affordable (IZ) units.

But keep fighting the good fight - it is getting you crappier projects that come at the expense of a more vibrant neighborhood and tax revenues that benefit the District!

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics