Reply to New Cleveland Park library is a missed opportunity

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[quote=Anonymous][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]

Nope, the first proposal was not a blank wall. the first proposal was fought because of a partially visible parking garage. Please get your facts right. The 300 foot wall was proposed in response to the attacks on the PUD, so Giant proposed a matter of right development. That was then threatened with a landmark filing, which failed.

The initial proposal had openings from the corner all the way to Cactus Cantina, one for the Giant Bakery, one for the Giant Florist and so on. You can see the copies of this at the ANC office or ask the head of the ANC at the time, she still has them.[/quote]

No, wrong again.  The original 1999 plan had a single entrance close to the parking structure.  Any other doors were Potemkin ones.  The agreed-upon design with Mayor Williams' office and the office of planning did have separate entrances on Wisconsin, but Giant signed and then walked away from it.  Throughout, Giant largely insisted on having just one door to the store, citing security reasons (in Cathedral Heights, no less).  Even today, there's just one entrance, which feels like a tunnel.  The whole project looks like quick, modest ROI bet that a developer would put up in a marginal part of town, not as a built-to-last addition to one of the city's most established real estate markets.[/quote]

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