Posts by Geoff Hatchard

WMATA has also started replacing signs at the station, formerly known as New York Avenue-Florida Avenue-Gallaudet University with its new name: NoMa-Gallaudet U. This is one of several station name changes the WMATA board recently approved.

Metro recently posted a sign on the existing racks, saying that it will be moving them farther from the wall on May 10, and installed 27 new racks. There used to be 8 racks at the N Street entrance to the station, and 5 racks at the M Street entrance. Now, there are 30 at the N Street entrance, and 10 at the M Street entrance.

4 new racks at the N Street entrance.

8 new racks just south of the N Street entrance.

The original 8 racks near the N St entrance, plus 10 new ones.

Finally, the 5 old and 5 new racks at the M Street entrance.

While these improvements are excellent, Metro should still consider installing racks inside the station for even more safety. Theft has declined, but I've noticed a recent uptick in missing front wheels.

It's fantastic to see Metro responding to the demand for more and better bicycle parking. There are probably more racks now than absolutely necessary to accommodate the people who bike there on an average day, but now that nearby residents have this bike parking, hopefully more will start cycling to the NoMa-Gallaudet U Station.

According to Lange, Pinky Swear is renting the space from Spooky Action Theater, which has a lease for the basement. A resident who lives nearby notes that Spooky Action hasn't been holding productions in the church for a while, which is why this issue is just arising now. Also, he said that the theater groups have been using the narrow alley, adjacent to homes, as the entrance rather than the front door of the church on 16th Street.

The policy question here is, are our zoning rules too restrictive?

On the one hand, zoning creates some predictability. Residents right near the church know to expect a lot of activity on Sunday mornings but not nighttime performances. Audiences coming out of theaters can sometimes be noisy, and could disturb people. That's especially true if they're using a back door adjacent to homes rather than a front door.

On the other hand, having more arts events contributes to a much richer city. Groups like Pinky Swear are small, have little money, and can't afford spaces in places like downtown. Established theaters have theater companies that already use those spaces most of the time. If our zoning keeps the arts corralled into a very narrow range of opportunities, that limits it tremendously, especially for young and emerging artists.

Any zoning changes take tremendous time and money. A developer of a large building can afford to do this, but a small theater company or church can't possibly do it just to put on a play.

There are significant parallels between this case and the recent regulatory disputes around secondhand stores and the car service Uber.

Uber was doing something new and innovative which the existing regulations didn't precisely predict. Their model might or might not have been legal under the regulations, depending how you interpret it. The Taxicab Commission decided that they were breaking the rules, and came down hard.

Used bookstores, vintage clothing shops, and more operated for years under a general retail license, but recently DC officials determined that they actually have to use a different license that mainly covered pawn shops. That license is much more expensive, and requires far more detailed reporting requirements, which made sense for pawn shops to avoid stolen merchandise but is less applicable to stores which buy used goods from distant wholesalers.

In all 3 cases, one can make a case that DC needs to enforce the rules as written. Should we really turn a blind eye to unlawful behavior? If so, how do we decide which unlawful behavior to ignore?

On the other hand, bending zoning rules has sometimes brought tremendously positive results. In many of the warehouse districts of older industrial cities, for instance, revitalization began when people moved into the vacant spaces and started living there. Often, though, they weren't zoned for residential. As New York's Soho became a popular loft space, for many years all of the residents were breaking the zoning rules.

In this case, the zoning code could be more permissive toward arts uses. Arts performance could be one of the "corner store" type uses that can locate in residential zones subject to various restrictions, as I previously suggested. The new code could also allow arts uses in residential zones under a "special exception" rather than a variance, which still requires a long and complex process before the Board of Zoning Adjustment, but lets the BZA grant permission more easily.

For cities to thrive, neighborhoods need to evolve as the desires of their residents changes over time. Zoning can rarely keep up. The best thing we can do is err on the side of more flexibility and fewer regulations.

Crime against SYEP youth: The pay days for students participating in the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) are well-known around the community, which has led to youth being targeted for robbery outside of Metro stations like Deanwood and Minnesota Avenue.

In response to this problem, the students said they would like to see an increased police presence. They also noted that police have a tendency to clump together and talk to each other rather than fully patrol the stations, so the students suggested that police spread out to cover a larger area.

Subsidized fares: SYEP paychecks will be cut by $2 per hour this summer. Therefore, the students recommended having WMATA or the District subsidize transit fares for SYEP participants. At the very least, the presenters asked for subsidized fares during the first two weeks of the program while participants wait for their first paycheck.

Councilmembers Tommy Wells (ward 6) and Muriel Bowser (ward 4, the Council's representative on the WMATA Board) asked DDOT and WMATA about the cost of a subsidy and what its fiscal impact would be, noting that youth who go to summer school already get a similar transit subsidy.

Youth advisory council: After last year's summit, WMATA was interested in establishing a youth advisory council to discuss activity on buses. Unfortunately, there had not been follow-up from the local councilmember, Yvette Alexander, to move this forward. At this year's summit, WMATA reaffirmed their interest in a youth advisory council.

Aging in place: One resident noted that the very young and the very old have unique needs when it comes to transportation, and asked how WMATA can help residents age in place, and how it can better accommodate strollers on buses.

Deaf riders: Other participants said that Ward 7 has an increasing population of the hearing impaired and deaf, and that transit employees should be trained to both recognize deaf customers and help them use the system.

Pedestrian safety: Organizer Neha Bhatt discussed pedestrian safety concerns at Benning Road's intersections with Minnesota Avenue and East Capitol Street. She had organized a recent walking tour with Ward 3 councilmember Mary Cheh, chair of the committee overseeing transportation, to look at problem intersections.

Capital Bikeshare: WABA executive director Shane Farthing raised the idea of subsidizing bike sharing for residents east of the river, and suggested changing Capital Bikeshare rules to allow younger members. Currently, one must be at least 16 years old to use Capital Bikeshare.

There was also an open house where community members could find information from DDOT, WMATA, Capital Bikeshare, and WABA, as well as discuss ideas with representatives from these groups.

The summit's two-hour timeframe turned out to be somewhat too short, so presentations and discussion were rushed at the end. The organizers are hoping to reformat for next year to avoid this issue.

Overall, residents came away with a widespread belief that working to pick the low-hanging fruit is a smart way to move forward and begin to bring positive change to Ward 7.

At the end of a public hearing on November 29, 2011, at the end of that hearing, Councilmember Jack Evans, co-chair of the council's subcommittee on redistricting, stated that he and his co-chairs, Michael Brown and Phil Mendelson, "will now sit down, take stock of where we are, and then move forward in anticipation of finishing this all up in a timely fashion by the end of the year."

Michael Brown added that the record would remain open until December 9, 2011, to allow for further comments from the public. They would mark up a bill (PDF) codifying the boundaries during the week of December 12, take a first vote on December 20, and the second and final vote "sometime in January."

Brown noted that ward boundaries had to be set by the end of the year, but the ANC and SMD boundaries did not have to be finalized until "the first part of the year."

But January has come and gone with no action. Months have passed, and these boundaries continue to change.

Ward 5 boundaries keep shifting

For Ward 5, we proposed a rational map in lieu of the flawed map from the office of former councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. Shortly after the November hearing, our map was, for the most part, adopted.

In early February, the Office of Planning posted updated maps on a Google page which lists version numbers for each posted document. Strangely, instead of listing a new version number for the maps of wards 3, 5, and 6, the page still labels each one v.1, even though the time stamp is February 9 for these 3 wards, and December 16 for the others.

The earlier versions of these maps are no longer available to the public, though a copy of the Ward 5 map from December 16 is still available via this Greater Greater Washington post.

Image by the author from DC Office of Planning base layer.

The maps above shows the changes to Ward 5 boundaries in red. 3 blocks in the Carver-Langston and Trinidad neighborhoods, as well as one in Brentwood, have been shifted into different SMDs. One of these shifts appears to have been made to ensure that a local political family remains in one SMD.

Kathy Henderson, currently a candidate for the Ward 5 council seat and a former ANC commissioner, lives on the south side of L Street NE, while her daughter, India Henderson, lives across the street and is the current commissioner. The SMD boundary proposed on December 16 would have put them in separate SMDs, but the line has been shifted one block north to Lang Place NE. This necessitated shifting 2 other nearby blocks to keep the size of any Carver-Langston SMDs from falling below 1900 residents.

What is curious is that India Henderson lists her residence with the Office of Advisory Neighborhood Commissions at 1807 L Street NE, Kathy Henderson's house, while she is registered to vote at 1812 L Street NE, a house India Henderson herself owns.

Which SMDs the Hendersons are or are not located in is of little concern to me personally, but this move also took a block of Trinidad out of one of the 3 SMDs for the neighborhood. The homes on the east side of the 1200 block of 16th Street NE are now separated from the rest of a compact, cohesive neighborhood, instead to be represented along with a different neighborhood on the other side of a major arterial road, Bladensburg Road.

It would be interesting to hear from the councilmembers on the redistricting subcommittee both why they haven't moved the bill for so long and why they deemed these changes necessary. Is it over something as silly as placating a local politico, or is there a solid, defensible reason for undoing prior work to make logical sense of the boundaries at the neighborhood level? Why has this process festered for so long without reaching its ultimate conclusion, and how much longer will we wait?

The FBI requires 55 acres surrounded by a large security "moat," which makes it impossible to locate downtown and undesirable in most any DC neighborhood. Prince George's and Fairfax counties are both vying to make one of their Metro stations the future home for the FBI.

As the map above shows, Pepco's main parcel (outlined in black) covers approximately 80 acres. There is plenty of space here for a new FBI headquarters. This could be an option if DC truly wanted to fight to keep the FBI here.

There would be other obstacles, though. A Senate committee required that the GSA place the FBI within 2½ miles of the Beltway, and within 2 miles of a Metro station. The Pepco site is less than ½ mile from the Minnesota Avenue Metro, but more than 5 miles from the Beltway. It is, however, adjacent to a freeway that directly connects to the Beltway in two places, but Congress would need to amend the requirement to make the Pepco site eligible.

FedEx Field, the current home of the Redskins, and its adjacent parking lots encompass approximately 160 acres. A National Park Service maintenance facility and land used as a trash-transfer station lie immediately north of the power plant. These could be combined with the plant site, creating a 90-acre parcel (outlined in red).

While this is significantly smaller than the area currently used by the Redskins, it's not much smaller than the approximately 95 acres of RFK Stadium and its adjacent parking lots, which the Redskins used for decades (when the team actually won multiple championships). Plus, a new stadium could take up less space by replacing the massive asphalt deserts that surround RFK and FedEx Field with more compact parking decks while still leaving some surface space for tailgating.

The west facade of the power plant. Imagine incorporating this into a new stadium; would you be ready to watch football at "The Powerplant"? Image from Google Maps.

The Pepco plant abuts a freeway, two Metrorail lines, a major street that provides direct access to downtown, and eventually, a streetcar line which will run along that street. Bicycle infrastructure in the form of trails and Capital Bikeshare stations are being added adjacent to the site; the Anacostia River trails are already close by. An infill Metrorail station could be built at the western end of the parcel, serving a stadium or a headquarters building as well as the River Terrace neighborhood to the south.

A serious obstacle with this site is that building anything first requires environmental remediation. While that might delay any construction there, Pepco and the District Department of the Environment have reached a preliminary agreement on site cleanup (more here and here (PDFs)). Planning for an actual use for the site could help make cleanup a higher priority for all parties involved.

A football stadium or FBI headquarters building would not foster good urbanism, but this site is already cut off from the neighborhoods to the east by the freeway, while the highway-like Benning Road and the Metrorail tracks form a formidable barrier to the south. Parkside, the neighborhood to the north, is not yet fully developed, and the Anacostia River lies directly to the west.

Administration officials are actively negotiating with the Redskins about putting a practice facility at Reservation 13, on the western side of the Anacostia. Unlike the Pepco site, this area can directly connect to the adjacent neighborhood if DC extends the street grid, as is planned.

If the District's leadership continues to insist on bringing the Redskins back, the Pepco would make more sense in the long run than Reservation 13. If they believe we shouldn't let the FBI walk away from DC, this could be a location worth looking into. In addition, there could be many other uses for this site, from adaptive reuse of the plant itself, to light industry (perhaps renewable energy generation?), a unique mixed-use neighborhood, or expanded parkland.

The District shouldn't wait to seriously plan for the reuse of this valuable piece of riverfront property, but will city leaders be able to pursue a use that's creative?

Incumbency grants Alexander a leg up for fundraising. She's managed to raise over $82,000 (PDF) as of the last filing date, far ahead of the rest of the field.

Second in money raised, and by many accounts a candidate who could be a strong challenger, Kevin B. Chavous has raised nearly $29,000 so far. He touts the endorsement of the Ward 7 Concerned Citizens Coalition on his website. This organization came together last year to find a candidate to run against Alexander.

With grassroots support and name recognition (Chavous' father was the Ward 7 councilmember for 3 terms from 1992-2004), Chavous appeared to be in good shape until a mid-December arrest on a charge of solicitation of a prostitute. Yesterday, he agreed to a deal that would lead to the charges being dropped, provided he completes community service within the next 4 months.

Some in the ward have said Chavous is too young, and doesn't appeal to older voters. In addition, being a "legacy" candidate could be a hindrance.

Tom Brown, who ran in the special election last year to fill the at-large seat vacated by Kwame Brown (and temporarily filled by Sekou Biddle), is running on a platform that focuses on job creation. Ward 7 residents I have spoken with believe he's a strong candidate, but has not done as good a job convincing voters he's a strong challenger as others. He has a background in job training, which is a key issue in the race. Brown has raised nearly $18,000 so far.

Bill Bennett is a pastor in Ward 7. His website remains a landing site with no information other than his name, currently. Bennett has gathered support from many churches in the ward and has raised $11,000 so far.

Of interest is the person listed as the contact for the Bennett campaign on the BOEE website: Willie Wilson. Wilson has a history as a long-time advocate for the poor in Ward 8, but also has been called out for controversial statements in recent years.

Dorothy Douglas, who also ran in last year's special election to replace Kwame Brown, is running again. Monica Johnson is the remaining Democratic candidate. Neither of the two appear to be gathering large amounts of support in the ward in the early going.

What makes the Ward 7 race interesting is the inclusion of non-Democrats in the race. There are two Republicans running for the seat, Don Folden and Ronald Moten. One of the two will have an additional 7 months to make his case to the people of Ward 7, facing off against whichever Democrat emerges from the 6-way primary scrum.

If media savviness and attention alone would dictate the winner of the Republican race, Ron Moten seems well-placed to win. Moten, one of the founders of Peaceaholics, a non-profit that worked with at-risk youth in the city, has been in the news since the organization came to prominence during the Fenty administration.

Moten's decision to run as a "Civil Rights Republican" appears to some as a way of simply avoiding the Democratic primary to live another day. While that may play into the political calculus, individuals I have spoken to in Ward 7 believe that Moten would have a good chance in the general election against any of the Democrats.

Last week, Ward 7 resident Dawn Matthews challenged Alexander's ballot petitions. Whether this will keep her off the ballot in April remains to be seen, but other incumbents have been able to survive being knocked off the ballot in the past and still win reelection via write-in (see Anthony Williams in 2002).

The main theme of the race seems to be the perception, fair or not, that Alexander has not done much for Ward 7. Economic development, and the related topic of employment, appear to be first on the mind of many voters. A splintered field works in the incumbent's favor, but the addition of a strong Republican challenger will make this a race worth watching, regardless of who emerges from the primary election on April 3.

Thomas' office released this map, prepared by the Office of Planning, yesterday in an email. The council will vote on ANC and SMD redistricting December 20.

There are only minor changes from the map we proposed. The ANC and SMD designations come from the Office of Planning map.

• Catholic University has moved from ANC 5B to ANC 5A.
  
• A census block with a population of 19 has been shifted from 5C04 (which includes the Arboretum) to 5D03 (the northwestern part of Carver Langston).
  
• Two SMDs in Bloomingdale have a population shift of 53. The houses on the eastern edge of Crispus Attucks Park, which is north of the unit block of U Street NW had been included with the census block south of the unit block of U Street NW. Those houses have now been added to the rest of the block bounded by U, V, First, and North Capitol Streets NW.
  
• The Washington Gateway project, at the corner of Florida and New York Avenues, has been moved from Eckington's 5E03 to 5D01, which includes the Florida Avenue Market, Gallaudet University, and Ivy City.

Thanks are due to Councilmembers Harry Thomas, Jr., Michael A. Brown, Jack Evans, Phil Mendelson, and their staffs for working diligently on the redistricting process in our ward and others around the city.

The Office of Planning's Associate Director and Chief Information Officer, Charlie Richman, and his staff deserve credit for producing easy-to-read maps that allow DC residents to make sense out of the legalese that the Council will be voting on.

If you support these changes, I'd encourage you to send a note to the councilmembers letting them know you approve of this map. Their emails are available on the DC Council website.

At Florida Avenue and N Street NE, the crosswalk includes a stop bar for traffic on N Street to supplement the stop sign at this intersection (which is out of the frame).

Bright, wide crosswalks mark the intersection of Florida Avenue and 4th Street NE next to the entrance to the Florida Avenue Market and Two Rivers Public Charter School.

The centerlines have also been repainted. This was taken looking west from Florida Avenue and 6th Street NE.

Previously, there was no crosswalk at 7th Street NE at Florida Avenue. Now the corner is properly marked for pedestrians.

Here's another view at Florida Avenue and 7th Street NE.

The corner of Florida Avenue and West Virginia Avenue NE is heavily trafficked by automobiles and pedestrians, since it serves as the crossroads of Gallaudet University, Trinidad, and folks heading to and from Capitol Hill and Near Northeast. All the lanes and crosswalks are now well marked here.

Finally, here's a shot of Florida Avenue at 11th Street NE. There are now well-marked crosswalks at every corner along the southern edge of Trinidad.

I've seen simple improvements like this on roads all over the District, not just on Florida Avenue. More roads could use this level of attention, and Florida Avenue needs more than just the cosmetic treatment of a new coat of paint to make it a complete street for all types of users. But it's great to see the city taking this simple step to make sure roads are properly striped.

We are proposing this plan so it can be vetted by a wider audience, which wasn't possible with the other 2 plans, and because we believe this plan adheres to the expectations set down regarding redistricting, unlike those from the task force's executive committee or Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr.

This proposal consists of 5 ANCs, 2 more than the ward has currently, and one fewer than in the previous two plans. Here are this neighborhood-centered proposal's strengths:

It connects neighborhoods with strong common interests. The revised plan creates ANCs by grouping SMDs that share common characteristics and issues. Instead of the "long" ANC stretching from central DC to Maryland, one of the revised ANCs encompasses the southwest corner of Ward 5 and combines Truxton Circle, Stronghold, Hanover, Edgewood, Eckington, and Bloomingdale. These neighborhoods are physically close to one another, have similar populations, have similar housing stock, share similar issues and concerns, and often collaborate on projects and activities.

It equalizes voter strength. In this proposal, the disparity between the largest SMD (2,214) and the smallest (1,850) is about 360 people, not the 850-person disparity in the executive committee's plan.

These figures are reasonable when compared to the goal of "approximately 2,000" people per SMD. They are justifiable because they allow the neighborhoods that they are in to remain intact. For example, the large Trinidad district could be made smaller, but would slice off an edge of Trinidad and connect it to a district made up of the Langston and Carver Terrace neighborhoods.

It promotes cohesiveness. The revised map brings much of Woodridge back together into a single ANC. All Bloomingdale districts are in the same ANC (including McMillan). The revised ANCs maintain the social and historical integrity of the Trinidad and Carver-Langston neighborhoods.

It respects boundaries and barriers. The revised ANC in the southwest of the ward uses the Ward 1 line and the CSX railroad right of way as natural north-south boundaries. The ANC in the southeast corner of the Ward uses the huge Arboretum for a natural boundary.

It doesn't connect dissimilar neighborhoods. Instead of combining widely dissimilar communities, all of the Truxton Circle, Stronghold, Hanover-Bates, Edgewood, Eckington, and Bloomingdale neighborhoods are in the same ANC. The integrity of Trinidad and Carver-Langston is maintained. These neighborhoods have real overlapping interests and populations.

The residents of Ward 5 have a choice for our political, economic, and communal/societal futures. We can allow ourselves to be redistricted in a way that disrespects and divides us, or we can choose an approach that chooses people and neighborhoods as well as respecting the integrity of the numbers.

If you believe in the latter, then let Task Force Chair Ayawna Webster and Councilmember Harry Thomas know that you want them to support the neighborhood-centered proposal we describe here. We're not proposing this plan to be divisive or confrontational. Rather, we believe that the members of the community that were part of the task force didn't have all the tools (especially maps) available to them throughout the entire process that they should have, and we hope this helps rectify that problem.

If you're a Ward 5 resident, let the chair and councilmember hear your voice. Contact Mrs. Webster at 202-724-8028 or awebster@dccouncil.us, and Councilmember Thomas at 202-439-5103 or hthomas@dccouncil.us.