Anonymous wrote:The good news is that the new Cleveland Park library is open and is quite nice. The bad new is that this was a missed opportunity to add dense housing, including affordable housing, to this desirable, transit-accessible location. DC-owned sites present an opportunity for taller and denser multi-family housing and mixed use development. This not only creates vibrancy and inclusive zoning housing, but the revenue to DC can fund more social spending priorities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be careful about assuming that "we" don't want D.C. to slide into SF territory of wildly expensive housing. "We" don't actually all agree that the city needs more affordable rentals. As long as there are some addresses for moderate-income people to live in the Greater, Greater metro area -- and there absolutely are -- then we're good. Those residences need not be in the District.

-- 25-year D.C. resident here (never Cleveland park though)

If we don't have enough affordable housing for teachers and first responders IN THE DISTRICT, then we are failing. That should be a priority and a benefit to those employees.

This is a tautological argument.

It is not an inherent "failure" for a moderate income worker to have limitations on residential options. All participants on this thread face cost limits on their choice in housing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be careful about assuming that "we" don't want D.C. to slide into SF territory of wildly expensive housing. "We" don't actually all agree that the city needs more affordable rentals. As long as there are some addresses for moderate-income people to live in the Greater, Greater metro area -- and there absolutely are -- then we're good. Those residences need not be in the District.

-- 25-year D.C. resident here (never Cleveland park though)

If we don't have enough affordable housing for teachers and first responders IN THE DISTRICT, then we are failing. That should be a priority and a benefit to those employees.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be careful about assuming that "we" don't want D.C. to slide into SF territory of wildly expensive housing. "We" don't actually all agree that the city needs more affordable rentals. As long as there are some addresses for moderate-income people to live in the Greater, Greater metro area -- and there absolutely are -- then we're good. Those residences need not be in the District.

-- 25-year D.C. resident here (never Cleveland park though)

If we don't have enough affordable housing for teachers and first responders IN THE DISTRICT, then we are failing. That should be a priority and a benefit to those employees.

This is a red herring. Most of DC’s government workforce lives in PG, and it’s neen that way for years. And employees with families are not going to choose to live in junior one bedroom flats built in Upper NW.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be careful about assuming that "we" don't want D.C. to slide into SF territory of wildly expensive housing. "We" don't actually all agree that the city needs more affordable rentals. As long as there are some addresses for moderate-income people to live in the Greater, Greater metro area -- and there absolutely are -- then we're good. Those residences need not be in the District.

-- 25-year D.C. resident here (never Cleveland park though)

If we don't have enough affordable housing for teachers and first responders IN THE DISTRICT, then we are failing. That should be a priority and a benefit to those employees.

Anonymous wrote:Be careful about assuming that "we" don't want D.C. to slide into SF territory of wildly expensive housing. "We" don't actually all agree that the city needs more affordable rentals. As long as there are some addresses for moderate-income people to live in the Greater, Greater metro area -- and there absolutely are -- then we're good. Those residences need not be in the District.

-- 25-year D.C. resident here (never Cleveland park though)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To refocus the discussion, they did a great job on the Cleveland Park library. I can't imagine that adding 8 or 10 floors of flats on top would have improved it. In fact, the site is pretty small, and it's difficult to see where they could have dug an entrance to a parking garage given all of the Metro infrastructure right under the site. As a PP pointed out, there are a lot of multi-family buildings in Cleveland Park, not just on Connecticut Avenue, but east of Connecticut as well. Some of them are not exactly top of the market, which means that they offer more affordable rents than new construction. The situation is not so dire that DC has to be monetizing every property that it has for development. And suppose they put 75 or 80 units on top of the library, that would be at most 7 or 8 "inclusionary zoning" units in an upscale building, a drop in the bucket for privatizing a public asset. And as was noted previously, IZ is certainly not the same thing as affordable.

Well we need both market rate and affordable units. And not building new units creates more pressure to gut older buildings for higher rent units, which in fact just happened to a building a few blocks from the library.

Why does a building a block from a Metro station need parking?

And what does having units on top of the library have to do with the quality of the library - I missed the skylights when I visited - are there some?

And DC in fact is quite an expensive city to live in with Cleveland Park being a particularly expensive neighborhood - the situation is not yet dire but we don't want it to get there and DC to become like San Francisco and the best way to do that is to continue adding new housing units.

Ask the retailers in Cleveland Park. Ask the residents and visitors who can't find street parking anywhere close to the CP strip. Only myopic urbanists and naive ideological planners believe that no one drives. A few developers, hoping to push their costs of providing off street parking onto the public, say it also. But they don't believe it, as they turn evasive and crimson when asked to covenant that their new development will not get RPP parking eligibility.

Anonymous wrote:Be careful about assuming that "we" don't want D.C. to slide into SF territory of wildly expensive housing. "We" don't actually all agree that the city needs more affordable rentals. As long as there are some addresses for moderate-income people to live in the Greater, Greater metro area -- and there absolutely are -- then we're good. Those residences need not be in the District.

-- 25-year D.C. resident here (never Cleveland park though)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To refocus the discussion, they did a great job on the Cleveland Park library. I can't imagine that adding 8 or 10 floors of flats on top would have improved it. In fact, the site is pretty small, and it's difficult to see where they could have dug an entrance to a parking garage given all of the Metro infrastructure right under the site. As a PP pointed out, there are a lot of multi-family buildings in Cleveland Park, not just on Connecticut Avenue, but east of Connecticut as well. Some of them are not exactly top of the market, which means that they offer more affordable rents than new construction. The situation is not so dire that DC has to be monetizing every property that it has for development. And suppose they put 75 or 80 units on top of the library, that would be at most 7 or 8 "inclusionary zoning" units in an upscale building, a drop in the bucket for privatizing a public asset. And as was noted previously, IZ is certainly not the same thing as affordable.

Well we need both market rate and affordable units. And not building new units creates more pressure to gut older buildings for higher rent units, which in fact just happened to a building a few blocks from the library.

Why does a building a block from a Metro station need parking?

And what does having units on top of the library have to do with the quality of the library - I missed the skylights when I visited - are there some?

And DC in fact is quite an expensive city to live in with Cleveland Park being a particularly expensive neighborhood - the situation is not yet dire but we don't want it to get there and DC to become like San Francisco and the best way to do that is to continue adding new housing units.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To refocus the discussion, they did a great job on the Cleveland Park library. I can't imagine that adding 8 or 10 floors of flats on top would have improved it. In fact, the site is pretty small, and it's difficult to see where they could have dug an entrance to a parking garage given all of the Metro infrastructure right under the site. As a PP pointed out, there are a lot of multi-family buildings in Cleveland Park, not just on Connecticut Avenue, but east of Connecticut as well. Some of them are not exactly top of the market, which means that they offer more affordable rents than new construction. The situation is not so dire that DC has to be monetizing every property that it has for development. And suppose they put 75 or 80 units on top of the library, that would be at most 7 or 8 "inclusionary zoning" units in an upscale building, a drop in the bucket for privatizing a public asset. And as was noted previously, IZ is certainly not the same thing as affordable.

Well we need both market rate and affordable units. And not building new units creates more pressure to gut older buildings for higher rent units, which in fact just happened to a building a few blocks from the library.

Why does a building a block from a Metro station need parking?

And what does having units on top of the library have to do with the quality of the library - I missed the skylights when I visited - are there some?

And DC in fact is quite an expensive city to live in with Cleveland Park being a particularly expensive neighborhood - the situation is not yet dire but we don't want it to get there and DC to become like San Francisco and the best way to do that is to continue adding new housing units.

Anonymous wrote:To refocus the discussion, they did a great job on the Cleveland Park library. I can't imagine that adding 8 or 10 floors of flats on top would have improved it. In fact, the site is pretty small, and it's difficult to see where they could have dug an entrance to a parking garage given all of the Metro infrastructure right under the site. As a PP pointed out, there are a lot of multi-family buildings in Cleveland Park, not just on Connecticut Avenue, but east of Connecticut as well. Some of them are not exactly top of the market, which means that they offer more affordable rents than new construction. The situation is not so dire that DC has to be monetizing every property that it has for development. And suppose they put 75 or 80 units on top of the library, that would be at most 7 or 8 "inclusionary zoning" units in an upscale building, a drop in the bucket for privatizing a public asset. And as was noted previously, IZ is certainly not the same thing as affordable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You are as bad as KellyAnne Conway. The openings were absolutely real. There were absolutely real openings. Please look at the 1999 Elevation entitled "Macomb - Woodley Shops, Wisconsin Avenue Elevation."

The Chair of the ANC at the time has the drawings in her possession if you want to see them, or they should be at the ANC office.

The reason it doesn't possess the affordable housing and architectural detail you pine for now is because of the delays you and your neighbors inflicted on the property owner for 15 years.

Ironically, the original proposal that you fought was only for the south side parcel and had NO housing included.

So now you complain that there wasn't enough affordable housing.

HINT: had you said at the time, that you would support the PUD with the parking garage if you included 3 stories of affordable housing on top, the project would have been completed by 2001.

It seems that Greater Greater Washington, the mouthpiece of Big Development, has taken over this website. This is exactly what a developer would propose, put the affordable units on top of the parking garage. It's no secret that the affordable units in many projects are relegated to the margins, next to the loading dock and so forth.

Actually this is the first time I've heard this alleged - do you have a citation or any evidence that this has happened? Assuming the affordable units are IZ units they are hardly give aways so not sure why they would necessarily be sub-par units. I toured a recently completed building in my hood and the tour included visiting two of the IZ units and they appeared identical to the other units we saw and none of the units in this building were adjacent to the loading dock.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You are as bad as KellyAnne Conway. The openings were absolutely real. There were absolutely real openings. Please look at the 1999 Elevation entitled "Macomb - Woodley Shops, Wisconsin Avenue Elevation."

The Chair of the ANC at the time has the drawings in her possession if you want to see them, or they should be at the ANC office.

The reason it doesn't possess the affordable housing and architectural detail you pine for now is because of the delays you and your neighbors inflicted on the property owner for 15 years.

Ironically, the original proposal that you fought was only for the south side parcel and had NO housing included.

So now you complain that there wasn't enough affordable housing.

HINT: had you said at the time, that you would support the PUD with the parking garage if you included 3 stories of affordable housing on top, the project would have been completed by 2001.

It seems that Greater Greater Washington, the mouthpiece of Big Development, has taken over this website. This is exactly what a developer would propose, put the affordable units on top of the parking garage. It's no secret that the affordable units in many projects are relegated to the margins, next to the loading dock and so forth.