Development

Fight for your right for a vibrant Wisconsin Avenue

by David Alpert   •   January 21, 2009 11:39 am

Tonight, the Cleveland Park ANC (3C) will debate the controversial Giant PUD at Idaho and Wisconsin. Both supporters and opponents of the PUD have been working to flood ANC Commissioners with letters. If you live in 3C, please email your Commissioner to ask him or her to support the Giant, and attend tonight's meeting at 7:30 at the Second District Police Station on Idaho Avenue (at Newark St) McLean Gardens Ballroom, 3811 Porter St (near Wisconsin).

Residents have been hotly debating this project on the neighborhood email list. Unlike many past debates, numerous residents have written in support of the Giant. For example, one resident wrote,

There are truly hundreds of citizens and residents of our neighborhood who, though quiet, would like nothing more than to see the new Giant store and accompanying project started and completed at the earliest possible time. We are all disgusted with the present state of Wisconsin Avenue in our neighborhood. Most of us no longer walk or shop anywhere near the area and cannot understand why or how the authorities have allowed it to be like this now for over two years. Nor do we believe the continuing professional critics of the project should be allowed still once more to succeed in getting further delays.

No project of this magnitude will or can ever be perfect or acceptable to everyone. The critics are well aware of this, but nonetheless continue with their multipronged efforts, obviously hoping to still further delay if not thwart the project altogether. Please do not let them do so again. Nothing would more demoralize the neighborhood than to see the deplorable state of that area allowed to continue for any longer than it takes for Giant to carry out its current plans.

Another resident tried to put this debate in context:

I have been in the CP neighborhood for some 42 years. During this time, I have witnessed numerous innovations that have generated great heat, some light, and usually an improved community. ...

Common to these innovations over the years were their very newness, the opposition of a small group in the community willing to turn out for meetings, the silence of the great majority in the community not attending meetings, concerns and reservations that usually have not come to fruition, and eventual acceptance resulting in community betterment.

I see the same situation with the proposed expansion of our Giant, now going into the ninth year of discussion. We hear constantly from a small group of dissidents: Cars will be speeding down my street, my basement will suffer structural damage, parking will be insufficient, it will be a destination Giant, even though there are several larger stores within two miles, and other issues you have heard and read on the ListServe.

It is time to move forward. I think the vast majority of our community wants us to move this project with all haste, even though they don't attend the meetings.

Jeff Davis, organizer of the pro-project organization Advocates of Wisconsin Avenue Renewal (AWARE), wrote,

The difference this time is that the vast "silent majority" is no longer silent. A group of neighbors has joined together to stand up to the small group of naysayers and to speak up for the Giant PUD Application.

Others, of course, see the past fights that blocked development as successes. Exhibit A is Cleveland Park's Metro stop, where riders emerge from the escalator in the midst of a "historic" parking lot on an anemic commercial strip. Wrote one pleased resident,

Community activists got a provision in the Comprehensive Plan stating that Cleveland Park at Connecticut should not have the same high level of development as other metro stop neighborhoods. That provision was vital in blocking the high rises [proposed for this area] ... where the Park and Shop stands.

That poster and others wrote about anti-development fights over the Wardman Houses, the Tregaron Estate, McLean Gardens and more. Some of these do represent historic resources worth saving, in whole or in part. But as in many neighborhoods, those who want to preserve the historically valuable often find common cause with those who simply wish to oppose everything. In Cleveland Park, both have grown strong. Another resident reacted with disgust to this sentiment:

I'm sorry folks, but I am really not interested in all these self-congratulatory e mails about Cleveland Park's successes in discouraging higher density developments in your neighborhood. ...

I also recall well the fight you all led against the Giant's last PUD proposal. ... That "victory" was what led to the design with a "blank wall" on Wisconsin. One of the people who had been most vociferous at ANC meetings ... was on television complaining about Giant's plans to do what she had been asking for all along.

Frankly, I am sick of having my neighborhood shopping area being the pathetic, woebegone collection of outdated buildings and empty shops that it is now. I'd even be happy to see more restaurants there. I want the wonderful, friendly staff at my neighborhood market to have a modern facility that will make their work easier and will give the many shoppers who live west and south of Newark & Wisconsin the kind of first-rate grocery store & shopping district that we deserve.

The fireworks will start tonight at 7:30 at the Second District Police Station on Idaho Avenue (at Newark St) McLean Gardens Ballroom, 3811 Porter St (near Wisconsin). The "silent majority" must speak up and let the Commissioners know that a new store and a mixed-use corner is right for the neighborhood.