From the GDS web site:

"With the help of many talented and experienced consultants, GDS is bringing the entire site—the school and the retail/residential buildings—through the PUD process to create a unique urban campus and a vibrant retail/residential project."

Would this be the uber-talented Team of Aces or the experienced fixers and crony consultants?

Thi$ i$ $tarting to look really $tupid.

The Ace$ after all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There have been other PUDs, and each is project and site specific. Suggesting that because the other guy got it so I should too is simplistic.

I also bet you wrote that letter.

This is EXACTLY the argument that Cathedral Commons used to get more height and density. They cited a taller building at Vaughan Place that had been constructed as a compromise element of a PUD, in exchange for keeping McLean Gardens from being leveled for redevelopment 30 years ago. They successfully argued that this was precedent for their proposal and the zoning board bought it. It happens a lot. GDS has not explained why they can't build buildings within the plan's provisions and the zoning code. The only reason that they want an exception is greedy $$.

If you watched Zoning Commission hearings for projects along Wisconsin Avenue, you probably noticed that it is SOP for the developer to include slides with photographs of PUDs - even PUDs whose orders explicitly state that the development does not serve as a precedent - and characterize those PUDs as representing the appropriate scale for new projects.

The developers also use the same one or two zoning lawyers who use these PUDs as precedent for the next ones they represent and recycle the same arguments. For example, GDS' lawyer is the same one who represented the developers of Cathedral Commons.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There have been other PUDs, and each is project and site specific. Suggesting that because the other guy got it so I should too is simplistic.

I also bet you wrote that letter.

This is EXACTLY the argument that Cathedral Commons used to get more height and density. They cited a taller building at Vaughan Place that had been constructed as a compromise element of a PUD, in exchange for keeping McLean Gardens from being leveled for redevelopment 30 years ago. They successfully argued that this was precedent for their proposal and the zoning board bought it. It happens a lot. GDS has not explained why they can't build buildings within the plan's provisions and the zoning code. The only reason that they want an exception is greedy $$.

If you watched Zoning Commission hearings for projects along Wisconsin Avenue, you probably noticed that it is SOP for the developer to include slides with photographs of PUDs - even PUDs whose orders explicitly state that the development does not serve as a precedent - and characterize those PUDs as representing the appropriate scale for new projects.

Yes, GD$ is short for Greedy Developer $chool.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love the double speak.

Yeah, first they're transformative and then their impact is minimal.

Yes, transformatively minimal (but not minimally transformative).

Anonymous wrote:I love the double speak.

Yeah, first they're transformative and then their impact is minimal.

Anonymous wrote:There have been other PUDs, and each is project and site specific. Suggesting that because the other guy got it so I should too is simplistic.

I also bet you wrote that letter.

This is EXACTLY the argument that Cathedral Commons used to get more height and density. They cited a taller building at Vaughan Place that had been constructed as a compromise element of a PUD, in exchange for keeping McLean Gardens from being leveled for redevelopment 30 years ago. They successfully argued that this was precedent for their proposal and the zoning board bought it. It happens a lot. GDS has not explained why they can't build buildings within the plan's provisions and the zoning code. The only reason that they want an exception is greedy $$.

And to suggest that filing a PUD is circumventing as if illicit is plain silly. The PUD process is a legal, established mechanism for zoning relief, whether it is for parking, like Tenley View, or density or whatever else. You can frame it in a way that makes it sound offensive, but it is part of the routine life in DC.

There have been other PUDs, and each is project and site specific. Suggesting that because the other guy got it so I should too is simplistic.

I also bet you wrote that letter.

There is a very compelling letter in this weeks Northwest Current about the GDS plans. It argues that GDS should comply with, rather than circumvent, the provisions of the DC Comprehensive Plan which were tailored for the Tenleytown/"Rock Creek West" area. It also points out that if the GDS plan is approved as a PUD exception to the Comp Plan, it will then become the base line and precedent for every subsequent developer-applicant to seek more height and density than what the Comp Plan allows. In other words, in addition to the localized impact on traffic, parking, use, etc, if built as proposed, the GDS project will be the camel's nose under the tent -- with far reaching implications for future development in the neighborhood.

I love the double speak.

No, you can overwhelm a particular block without contributing anything to the local retail environment (which works on a different scale). The project is a clear loss rather than gain for the neighborhood. So GDS hasn't offered any justification for the massive upzoning it plans to request.

Anonymous wrote:That's such BS. Look at the retail demographics for Tenley View. There's already a population of over 30K within 1/2 a mile. Adding 270-290 apartments and 700 (more) school kids at the GDS site isn't going to transform the retail environment -- it's just going to eliminate a neighborhood grocery store and create a clusterf*ck of traffic in the immediate vicinity a couple of times a day.

So you basically admit that what GDS plans is just a drop in the bucket in terms of its impact.