"NIMBYs?" "Smart growth advocates?" Might you be creating an incendiary atmosphere with your own language?

by Fbase on Aug 9, 2008 8:51 pm • link • report

I'm a bit sick of the attitude that schools have to be sacrosanct, segregated places that don't interact with the community, whose outsides resemble a mall with some grass.

It's a *library*. The *school* nextdoor is wearing out. A fenced-in private blacktop/playground environment is one of the few things you can do with a roof better than you can do with a field. Why not just combine the properties, and build large?

When real estate is so expensive and developers are banging down the door, that should be an huge opportunity for large public landowners, not a problem.

Redevelop the whole superblock, stash some parking underground, and you've just found the funds to build the school and the library three times the size they were before (on several floors of the building you just built), and a brand new soccer field on the side.

Investing in real estate is something that a school system does implicitly... so why is the only 'out' to renovate the existing school building and sell the land next to it?

by Squalish on Aug 9, 2008 11:03 pm • link • report

The proposal to eliminate parking on one side of the street could be made more palatable by implementing a parking benefit district, charging enough to clear one street of parkers, while dedicating the money to building the wider sidewalks the community desires.

Those of you who have a copy of "The High Cost of Free Parking" can take a look at figure 12-4 on page 312.

The first photo depicts a wide street in London, on Grosvenor Square, near Hyde Park, before implementation of parking meters in 1958. The actual street is about 4-5 cars wide, and there are cars parked on both sides of the street, with extensive double parking on at least one side for nearly the length of the street.

The second photo depicts after parking meters are installed at 6 pence per hour, 1959 (about 50 cents today). The meters are all full, but there is no double parking.

The third photo depicts after the rate is increased to 2s per hour (1/10 of a pound) in 1965, or $1.30 today. Although parking on the left side of the street is apparently still legal, there are only a handful of cars parked there. Additonally, there are a couple of empty spaces available on the right out of space for about 12-15 cars.

I'm not saying it would take prices that high, this was after all a very rich neighborhood in one of the richer cities in the world, but it was intended to illustrate that it is possible to clear an entire side of a street through market pricing.

by Michael on Aug 10, 2008 1:29 am • link • report

@Squalish Is this a one-size-fits-all suggestion? Are you saying that for all neighborhoods where real estate is expensive and developers want to buy publicly owned land cheap, we should give up all our parks and playgrounds, and let the children play on the rooftops of high rise buildings during those hours when the management provides them access?

by Tod on Aug 10, 2008 8:10 am • link • report

This is very unfortunate that the ANC and a few vocal residents of this community are so opposed to this development. Tenley has a metro station and good access from the 30s-line bus routes yet in the immediate vicinity on Wisconsin Avenue there are numerous surface parking lots, a high office vacancy, and generally low-quality retail. Contrast this with just about any other area with a metro station in the DC region. More high-quality residential would attract more retail and other mixed-use development. This would actually alleviate traffic/parking issues as Tenley residents could walk to nearby establishments rather than having to drive to Tysons, Georgetown, etc... Opposing these developments near transit will only push development towards the outlying suburban areas, increasing air pollution, traffic, and oil dependency.

Look just two miles further down Wisconsin Ave at Glover Park. Glover Park is a neighborhood that has successfully managed to have higher density, mixed-use, development along the Wisconsin Avenue corridor while preserving some of the best residential neighborhoods in the DC area.

The unfortunate truth is that the large and visible homeless population in Tenley should be a greater concern for the parents at Janney Elementary than having high-quality, environmentally responsible development above the library. If the proffers and financing of this development get reworked, perhaps LCOR could contribute a small percentage of the revenue this generates to providing services to the homeless.

by Ben on Aug 10, 2008 9:13 am • link • report

@Squalish, Are you familiar with this particular location? The soccer field that would become a 170-unit apartment building is used by many young children and teams of older children during the hours when the elementary school is not using it. As a matter of fact, while Fenty was making his announcement, two organized teams of teenagers were playing on the soccer field. Have you looked into DC Public Library’s policy on branch sizes? Have you considered the underground streams in the area that cause many including the Archdiocese to be concerned about deep excavation for parking?

@Ben, If you had looked at the RFP, you would have seen that we will be giving the developer all the funds that have been allocated to build the library, renovate the school and put an addition on the school. Should we pave over all the open space near Metro and sell off as much public land as developers will buy?

If we want to have families living in the District and using the Metro to commute to work, it seems that we want to have attractive neighborhoods near Metro, and that includes holding on to the publicly owned landthat we need even if developers would like to buy it and having adequate space for playgrounds and parks. If we don't want families in the District, we can follow your suggestions.

by JW on Aug 10, 2008 9:55 am • link • report

JW-- We absolutely should develop as much open space next to the metro stations as possible. Denser development next to metro will lead to far greater preservation of open space elsewhere and a significantly greater reduction in vehicle miles traveled. In addition to the development of the Tenley library, I'd suggest redeveloping the large vacant lot next to the Shaw-Howard metro. There is also open-space in L'Enfant (7th & Maryland Ave) that is directly next to four metro lines and provides virtually no utility as open space. It would be a great area to see further office development. Choosing not to develop this sites will only lead to greater sprawl elsewhere.

by Ben on Aug 10, 2008 10:08 am • link • report

"Denser development next to metro will lead to far greater preservation of open space elsewhere" ... 'cept I can't imagine families taking their kids back and forth to West Virginia for soccer practice.

by Lance on Aug 10, 2008 10:25 am • link • report

Lance-- absolutely correct. Tenley parents would only have to take their children across the street to Fort Reno.

by Ben on Aug 10, 2008 10:33 am • link • report

Exactly. I can't believe that under that plan, the field size would have been halved, or something like that. How can people defend that? (Or is it the entire playing field, as I read in the comments section at:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dc/2008/08/cheh_joins_the_opposition_to_t.html ?) Incredible.

I think we need to pay attention to the facts of each particular case.

by Jazzy on Aug 10, 2008 10:34 am • link • report

What you have to imagine in PE teachers forced to walk their classes to Fort Reno. Not going to happen. Do we really want to argue that smart growth means that kids who live near Metrorail stations don't deserve athletic facilities at their schools?

And Squalish, DC doesn't own this "superblock" -- there's a church, a parochial school, another religious organization (which just got HPRB approval to double the size of its building), and probably a half dozen single family homes in addition to Janney and the public library. The school's campus is already smaller than most DCPS elementaries. And given that its classroom space needs to be doubled, it doesn't have room to spare for private development.

For what it's worth, I don't believe that schools are sacrosanct -- I'd have loved to see a public-public partnership between DCPS and DCPL that put an auditorium/performance space and maybe a teen center on top of the library for school and community use. But there's no synergy (just a zero-sum game) from adding housing to this site.

Finally isn't a vocal minority scenario -- if it were, you wouldn't see Cheh flip-flopping. Whenever there's been public input, it has been overwhelming opposed to the project.

by Z on Aug 10, 2008 5:46 pm • link • report

If this is the site I think it is (next door the the Best Buy?), perhaps a neighborhood school doesn't belong in that space in the first place. There's a metro station right next door there and it is on Wisconsin Avenue. This land can be much more effectively used for other purposes. Can't we build a new neighborhood school further into the residential part of the neighborhood where the children will utimately be safer ... and the land more cost-effectively uses?

This is like recently I've learned that the District is spending millions to transform a building it owned in the heart of Georgetown on P Street (the block just west of Wisconsin) into a special ed school. Mind you, this isn't a neighborhood school, but a school intended the serve the entire District's special ed needs. In my opinion, whoever made this decision probably needed to attend a special ed school themselves when they were young ... and didn't. This school could have been built ANYWHERE in the District. Why build it in an area of town that is only affordable to the wealthiest of the wealthy in DC? This shows absolutely no respect for the taxpayer in this city. And no, I don't care if the District already owned the land back from a century ago when it cost nothing to buy. They could have sold that land and bought land in a much cheaper part of the city with the proceeds ... and returned the rest to us hardworking tax payers who pay their salaries. But no, they have no sense of the value of money ... since to them it is "free" money.

by Lance on Aug 10, 2008 6:15 pm • link • report

The 1700 block of U St is in fact scheduled for a road diet - they will remove one lane of traffic in order to widen the residential sidewalks (long overdue). But the other block desparate need wider sidewalks too. DDOT said they would not consider it elsewhere because of traffic requirements, but the Post writer is right - it's ridiculous to have so little walking space on one of the city's most vibrant streets. See photos at http://flickr.com/photos/mvjantzen/970486396/ and http://flickr.com/photos/mvjantzen/412137809/

by Michael on Aug 11, 2008 10:47 am • link • report

I hope when planning wider sidewalks the designers think about all of the up and coming babyboomers who will be riding motorized wheelchairs. I plan to get one myself when the time comes and i'm on the trailing end of the boomer cycle. Motorized wheelchairs take up more sq ft area then the average pedestrian.

I expect in 10 years dc sidewalks downtown and in commercial corridors will experience their own rush hours.

by erahk0 on Aug 11, 2008 12:52 pm • link • report

YES! I live on the 1700 block of U Street and I can't believe how narrow the sidewalks are. It's about time they got rid of the parking and expanded the sidewalk.

Michael, do you have a link to something on the plan for expanding my sidewalks? It sounds too good to be true.

by RyanA on Aug 11, 2008 1:09 pm • link • report

See http://www.dccouncil.washington.dc.us/EVANS/newsletter/Week.of.06.06.08.htm#USTREET

Dawit Muluneh is DDOT's project manager.

People really will need to push for wider sidewalks between 17th and 13th.

by Michael on Aug 11, 2008 1:21 pm • link • report