Posts about Bloomingdale

Capital Bikeshare: The mayor is funding 10 more Capital Bikeshare stations beyond the ones that area already supposed to be going in. In December, DDOT announced 78 locations, of which it had funding for 54 and was going to install those by March. Unfortunately, it's late in installing most of those. That list also identified 24 future locations, so this budget funds 10.

Buses: The budget office's presentation did not discuss the Circulator or other bus projects. I will follow up to find out whether any Circulator expansion in that master plan have funding. Streetcars are important, but they are one of several modes we need, and for many neighborhoods, better bus service is the better way to help people get around.

Bridges: The South Capitol "racetrack" project and new Frederick Douglass Bridge gets $622.5 million, which would fully fund the project.

Taxes: The budget imposes no new taxes or fees, maintains DC's fund balance, and keeps the debt cap at 12%. The administration also wants to get rid of the tax on out-of-state bonds, which they say primarily impacts seniors and is far and away the biggest complaint they get about taxes. Gray chief of staff Chris Murphy said they "always felt it was ill-conceived."

Affordable housing: As promised, the administration is putting a one-time $100 million into affordable housing. $86.9 million goes into the Housing Production Trust Fund, ($20M in FY 2014 and the rest in FY 2013). The rest, $13.1 million, goes to other smaller initiatives that the recent Comprehensive Housing Strategy Task Force recommended. He is also promising to keep the 15% of the Deed Recordation and Transfer Tax, which is supposed to go to the HPTF, in there; previous budgets raided that to fund other programs.

Parks: The capital budget provides $50 million for parks (likely a few different small parks) in NoMA: $25 million to acquire land, and $25 million for development. DC made a mistake when it upzoned NoMA without any plan for parks, which is why this is going to be expensive. However, NoMA is generating a lot of tax revenue.

Other parks capital spending includes $20 million fro the Fort Dupont ice arena, $26.4 million for Barry Farm, $2M to renovate and improve athletic fields and parks, $18M for the Southeast tennis & learning center, and funding to modernize 32 play spaces in 8 wards including Fort Greble, Palisades, Macomb, and Takoma which will start in April as well as already-underway work at Noyes, Raymond, and Rosedale.

Libraries: Gray is expanding funding for DC Public Libraries so that every library can be open 7 days a week. Most will be open until 9 pm Monday to Thursday as well as afternoons on Saturday and Sunday. They also get $2 million for books and e-books.

Further, the budget provides $103 million to renovate and, as part of a public-private partnership, expand the MLK Library. There is $15.2 million to renovate the Cleveland Park library, $21.7 for the Palisades library, and $4.8 million for Woodridge's library.

Trash: Residents who want to replace their trash cans are in luck: the administration wants to replace everyone's trash cans over 5 years, for free. If there is money available, they also hope to let people replace stolen or damaged cans without the fee residents have to pay today.

Flooding: Bloomingdale residents hopefully will see some relief from their flooding problems with $1.5 million in the budget to pay for recommendations from the task force studying those problems.

Police and fire: The public safety budget pays for 4,000 sworn officers, replacing police and fire vehicles, cadet training programs and maintaining domestic violence programs that are seeing federal cuts. In general, the budget officials say, they are replacing all federal from sequestration across the board, even assuming sequestration will continue throughout the year.

Raises: DC employees will get their first pay raise in 4-7 years, spanning both union and non-union employees, and DC will fully fund its pension obligations.

We'll have more analysis and further details in upcoming posts.

VMP's next step is to design the buildings themselves. They will hold a community meeting about preliminary building designs on Saturday, April 20, 10 am-noon at a location to be announced.

Under the Northeast Boundary Neighborhood Protection Project, developed by the Mayor's Task Force on the Prevention of Flooding, DC Water will store excess rainwater runoff in the two cells as a temporary remedy for flooding. In the long run, DC Water's Clean Rivers Project will build large underground sewers to store water by around 2022. When that is done, the two cells will be drained and will become available for use, potentially as unique public spaces.

The now larger park along Channing Street NW will feature an open grassy lawn. One of the filtration cells to store excess runoff will be underneath part of the park. The other cell lies at the site's northeast corner, and the original development plans already called for retaining it.

Rendering of the newly-designed park space, seen from North Capitol Street at Channing Street NW. Image from Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects.

At the east end, next to the park's main entrance on North Capitol Street, will be a small pond that echoes the now-underground Tiber Creek which once flowed across the site. The pond will also serve as a reservoir for the site's stormwater runoff, allowing pollutants to settle out of it before it enters the combined sewer system.

Next to the pond will be an amphitheater and a community center with a green roof. The west end will feature a sculpture garden and plaza, with a spray jet fountain and smaller park spaces between the two, alongside the open grassy area. A tree-lined "Olmstead Walk" will surround the entire development, including the park.

Vision McMillan Partners' new planned layout for the site.

The office and residential buildings with ground-floor retail on the north end will be fewer than under the original plan (5 instead of 9), but taller. Instead of being in a stand-alone building, the "premium" grocery store will be on the ground floor of a 6-story apartment building.

The plan won't set back the buildings along North Capitol Street as far as under the original plan. Much of the office space will remain devoted to medical offices.

There will be less public space in the non-park areas of the site. The North Service Court (one of the two rows of original sand towers and regulator houses that sit on the site today) will feature wider sidewalks, but there will also be more through roads. Douglas and Evarts Streets will extend across the site (Douglas using the South Service Court as its median), a new Middle Street NW will use the North Service Court as its median, and a new Half Street NW will run north-south from Michigan Avenue down to Douglas Street.

The new plan integrates affordable housing throughout the development, instead of having a particular apartment building dedicated to affordable senior housing.

Residents in these camps concerned about development at the site have organized two groups, Friends of McMillan Park and Sustainable McMillan. The groups' leaders claim that Envision McMillan virtually ignored the ideas community members presented in the various public listening sessions.

In fact, the team has significantly altered the plan based on community feedback. It now has much more open space, with 13.55 acres overall, including a 4-acre central park and 8 acres of large, public, open spaces. The team also added a grocery store, a library and a community center.

The plan mixes preservation and growth

Envision McMillan comprises 9 architecture, design, landscape architecture, and consulting firms selected as the site's developer by the DC Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. The District government bought the site from the federal government in 1987 and has sought to develop it ever since.

Conceptual plan for the site. Image from Envision McMillan.

The majority of the existing above-ground structures on the site would be retained and repurposed. The plan calls for preserving more than one of the underground sand filtration cells for visitors to explore. The historic McMillan Fountain, currently in storage at the adjacent federally-owned McMillan Reservoir, would sit in a prominent location in a public plaza on the site.

The southern row of cylindrical sand silos would form the border between the project's central park and a cluster of row houses, which would match the architecture of the surrounding neighborhood. Stormwater runoff from the site would be completely captured on site by using state-of-the-art runoff management techniques.

Envision McMillan seeks to draw a grocery store and an eclectic mix of local retailers. Developers hope to create approximately 4,000 jobs at all levels as part of new healthcare office space on the northern end (adjacent to the VA hospital and Washington Hospital Center).

Additionally, the city plans to sponsor job-training programs to help District residents qualify for these jobs. 100 housing units will be designated as "affordable senior housing," and a mix of workforce and market-rate housing will be available throughout the site.

The team responds to community concerns

The next step for Envision McMillan and project supporters is to win the public-relations battle by convincing residents of the area, and the entire city, that the current plans represent the most appropriate balance of competing community needs and desires.

Traffic has been a central area of concern for nearby residents. First Street NW, in particular, is often bumper-to-bumper at rush hours between Michigan and New York Avenues, and Bloomingdale residents fear this will get worse once new homes, offices, and shops open up at McMillan. Envision McMillan analyzed current traffic to help create a plan to efficiently move people to and from the site, both by car and by other modes.

The study showed that there are no safe pedestrian crossings of North Capitol Street between Michigan Avenue and Channing Street. The restrictions on left turns from North Capitol onto Michigan from both directions cause more traffic to flow onto neighborhood streets. Cut-through traffic also overtaxes the alleys in the neighboring Stronghold neighborhood.

Envision McMillan's traffic plan calls for building 2 new through streets across the site from North Capitol to First NW, reducing traffic flow on existing neighborhood streets. It also recommends 2 new signalized intersections along North Capitol, and widening the North Capitol and Michigan Avenue intersection. Almost all of the parking on the site would be below ground.

But perhaps more importantly, the plan would enhance access to the site by non-automobile modes, thereby reducing the number of cars that will have to move through the surrounding neighborhoods. It proposes a transit hub on the north end with frequent Circulator buses connecting to the Brookland Metro station, a hiker-biker trail along North Capitol for the length of the site, several new sidewalks, and two Capital Bikeshare stations on the site—one near the grocery store and one in the middle of the mixed-use medical office/retail complex.

Yes, the surrounding neighborhood will feel growing pains as new residents, shoppers, and medical clinic patients move in. But maintaining the site as it is, empty and off-limits to the public, benefits nobody.

The only viable alternative to the status quo is some form of development. Putting this residential and business development in an urban neighborhood where people can take advantage of existing infrastructure at modest incremental cost makes the most economic and environmental sense. The long-term benefits to the region of developing the site in a conscientious way far outweigh the short-term costs.

Envision McMillan has proposed a plan for intelligent development and adapted it around reasonable concerns from the community. The plan will create a desirable place to live, work, and shop that retains both the character of the neighborhood and the uniqueness of this historic site.

Thomas' plan. Click to enlarge.

DC's Home Rule Charter states that each SMD should contain approximately 2,000 people, recognizing that it's impossible to reach that number exactly. This plan has so many SMDs that aren't even close. Thomas' plan appears to reduce the SMD containing McMillan to about 30% below standard.

It's impossible to precisely quantify that population would be, because its lines split up a block, and the Census doesn't report population in more detail than an individual block. Therefore, potentially as few as 1,399 (and as many as over 2,200) live in the critical SMD where this development is proposed.

It also carves McMillan away from the rest of Bloomingdale (its home neighborhood), Eckington, Truxton Circle, and Hanover-Bates. This will dilute the ability of these residents to make their voices heard regarding the largest development project in their immediate area.

Perhaps it is a coincidence, but the clearest and most defined opposition to the proposed McMillan development has coalesced in these neighborhoods, which the latest Thomas plan now puts in a separate ANC.

The latest Thomas plan moves the McMillan Sand Filtration Site into an ANC consisting in large part of the Armed Forces Retirement Home and the Catholic University of America. That is, McMillan will be in an ANC that is less-densely populated, with much of its population in essentially gated, private communities that lie relatively far geographically from the McMillan site and that will likely have less concern for the direct effects of what happens at McMillan.

Single member district size is another critical shortcoming in this plan. There are 38 SMDs in the plan, and more than half of them (20) have populations more than 10% above or below the ideal size of 2,000 people. The largest, in Carver Langston, is nearly 40% larger, with a population of 2,796. Meanwhile, the smallest, containing the Armed Forces Retirement Home, has a population nearly 55% smaller (917 people). These numbers make it impossible for an individual's vote to carry equal weight in the political process as every other vote in the ward.

Both Thomas' and the task force's plans fail to link communities with common goals and interests and distort voter power. Tomorrow, we'll present a neighborhood-centered alternative.

Meanwhile, if you want to weigh in on redistricting, the Bloomingdale Civic Association is holding a meeting on the issue tonight, November 1, 7:00 pm at St. George's Episcopal Church, 2nd & U Streets NW.

Charlie Richman of the Office of Planning sent us a clarification:

We think it's important for your readers to understand that redistricting plans aren't considered by the DC Office of Planning at all. That is for Council to do. Our role in this is purely technical. We review proposed legislative language provided by the Task Forces (or Council) and verify that the lines on the maps we use reflect that language accurately. Often we discover that this can't be done because the language isn't clear or consistent, and we work with the authors of that language to help make it clear and consistent. Once the lines are drawn, we report to Council on how many residents would be included in each proposed SMD and ANC. Ultimately final SMD and ANC boundaries are the Council's decision. OP's role is to provide technical support to Council in arriving at whatever decisions they deem best.

Top of the McMillan Fountain today (left) and in 1912 (right).

Though the top of the McMillan Fountain had been restored to the reservoir grounds, a Bloomingdale ANC commissioner told me the base of the fountain was in the woods in Fort Washington along with the remains of the fountain that stood at the center of the now-razed Truxton Circle.

I went to Fort Washington in search of these discarded works of art. I asked a park ranger where the fountain was and she drew me a map, saying that it stood in the park's "dump" and partly behind a fence.

I went to the picnic area nearest the site and walked into the woods a short distance where I found a fence. Behind it stood piles of bricks and other discarded building materials.

Beside the site is a dugout that serves as the back court to Battery Emory, a concrete gun battery built in 1898 to protect the capital city from enemy ships.

As I passed through the unfenced dugout, I immediately spotted few granite blocks that served as the cornerstones of the base bowl. Though they are strewn about the ground, a 1912 photograph can help us identify what pieces went where.

A cornerstone sitting on the ground (left) formed part of the fountain's bottom basin (right).

The elements of the fountain were stacked like totem pole. The bottom element features carved classical allegorical heads from whose mouths water gushed into the carved bowls below.

Fence material and tree debris cover the carved granite (left) that stood as the fountain base (right).

The next element of the stack is the fluted base to the top bowl.

Upside down on the ground (left) is the fluted base for the top bowl (right).

Several other large granite stones are stacked and marked with numbers, presumably to help in reassembly.

The site also contains the rusting remains of the fountain that stood at Truxton Circle, which formed the intersection of North Capitol Street, Florida Avenue, Lincoln Road, and Q Street. The circle was built around 1901 and the fountain installed there originally stood at the triangle park at Pennsylvania Avenue and M Street in Georgetown.

Truxton Circle stood at Florida Avenue, North Capitol Street, Q Street, and Lincoln Road from 1901 to 1940, when it was demolished to aid commuter traffic.

A newspaper at the time described it as one of the largest fountains in the city. The circle was removed in 1940 to ease the flow of commuter traffic. At that time, the fountain, which may date to as early as the 1880s, made its way to Fort Washington to rust in the woods.

The metal pedestal (left) held up the fountain bowl whose rim rusts in pieces on the ground (right). Notice the classical egg-and-dart pattern.

The fountain was also noted for the metal grates that stood near its base. Now these grates sit rusting in the woods.

If you want to see the fountain remains for yourself at Fort Washington National Park, go to picnic area C. Beyond the end of the parking lot is a restroom building and behind that is the fountain "graveyard." A fence encloses part of the site, but you can enter through the large gap down the hillside.

Rather than tossing aside our city's artistic patrimony, we should aim to restore these treasures to the neighborhoods from which they came. Public art is part of what differentiates cherished neighborhoods from unmemorable places.

These works remind us of the accomplishments and civic-mindedness of generations past and urge us to carry on the tradition of civic improvement for generations to come.

Cross-posted at Left for LeDroit.

R Street is one-way eastbound on the block between 2nd Street NE and 3rd Street NE. Westbound cyclists cannot legally remain on R Street, and either have to go out of their way, or bike on the sidewalk here. The proposal calls for a separated contraflow bike lane on this block. This design is similar to that of 15th Street NW, where a lane of parking provides a buffer between cyclists and traffic.

Segment of project from Eckington Place to 3rd Street, NE.

One goal of this project is to increase safety for both cyclists and drivers, especially for drivers on southbound 2nd Street NE, where the column of parked cars would obscure their ability to see oncoming cyclists.

Among residents in attendance, the proposal for sharrows along R Street was uncontroversial. Residents noted the unobtrusive nature of the markings, a sample of which was displayed by DDOT representatives, and that the sharrows will provide another welcome impetus for motorists in the area to slow down and be mindful of bicyclists and pedestrians (speed humps are already installed on this stretch of R Street).

Photo by nolantreadway on Flickr.

Of more concern to the gathered residents was the overall traffic volume in the neighborhood, particularly the truck traffic emanating from industrial areas along the MBT and railroad tracks, as well as from the FedEx facility at Florida and New York Avenues NE.

The ANC Commissioners present spoke of past agreements with these companies to limit the use of local streets for through-traffic, and how those agreements have been forgotten or ignored over the years. They also noted the difficultly of imposing weight-restrictions on R Street because of its status as a major east-west route and collector street.

Ultimately, attendees and DDOT representatives recognized the value of sharrows is more symbolic than physical. Unlike separated bike lanes, sharrows don't provide any physical protection to cyclists, who are still vulnerable to dooring or being squeezed by traffic.

Still, the sharrows provide an important psychological benefit, letting drivers know bicyclists are present and have a right to the road, and letting cyclists know they are welcome on the street.

As the next step in their process for community input and approval, DDOT will present at an upcoming ANC meeting. The ANC may hold a vote on the issue, though such a vote is not required for DDOT to move forward.

If approved, the project itself will be relatively inexpensive. Each sharrow marking runs about $75 and costs another $75 to install. Approximately two markings in each direction will be installed per block. Barring significant opposition within the community, DDOT representatives estimated the project could be completed before Thanksgiving.

Beneath the grassy fields visible from the surface there are 25 acres of underground concrete chambers, where the process of water purification was carried out.

Before water could be purified, it had to be delivered to the reservoir. It is still delivered in much the same way.

Water flows through aqueducts all the way from Great Falls to the Dalecarlia Reservoir, and then to the Georgetown Reservoir. From there water flows from the "castle" on McArthur Boulevard NW, at the reservoir's edge, through an arrow-straight tunnel to the pumping house on 4th Street at the McMillan Reservoir.

Diagram of the Washington City Tunnel by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

The reservoir, which is still active, opened in 1902 and is actually a dammed stream valley. The streams that used to flow here eventually formed Tiber Creek, which ran along what is now Constitution Avenue toward the Potomac.

Since the reservoir stores untreated river water, the water must be cleaned before it can be distributed to residents' taps.

At the turn of the 20th century a debate ensued regarding the best way to purify water, between proponents of chemical purification and slow sand filtration. Slow sand filtration won out, and Congress provided money to build a sand filtration plant for DC.

McMillan sand filtration site under construction. Photo by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

The process of slow sand filtration is pretty simple. Water fills a cell that contains 2 feet of sand sitting at the bottom. The water percolates through the sand, which traps contaminants. When the water reaches the floor under the sand, it is clean. The water then exits the cell and is distributed into the city's pipes.

Sand Pit.

The sand itself required routine cleaning to remove the contaminants. Clean sand was stored in the concrete silos that still stand in rows on the site, visible above ground.

Clean sand silos.

Workers replenished the cells by dumping clean sand through access holes on the roof of each cell. You can still see the circular access covers from the street, and even from satellite photos.

Sand pit.

This early photo shows fresh sand recently dumped into a cell.

Photo from the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Regulator houses such as this one contained valves for controlling the flow of water through each cell.

Senator James McMillan (R - Michigan), famous for his ambitious McMillan Plan to beautify Washington, proposed turning the ground level of the filtration site into a park. The idea found support, and a park was later designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.

The park unfortunately closed to public access during World War II, but many of the original park lamps, walkways, and staircases remain.

In the 1980s the US Army Corps of Engineers built a more modern rapid sand filter adjacent to the reservoir, west of 1st Street NW. With the new rapid filter in place, the old slow filters east of 1st Street became obsolete. The western section of the site still holds the active open-air reservoir and rapid sand filters that today supply clean water to much of Washington.

The western section containing the active reservoir and water treatment plant is closed to the public. What's most unfortunate is that the western section also contains the most notable feature of the old park.

Shortly after Senator McMillan's death in 1902, Congress and donors from his home state of Michigan honored the senator with an ornate fountain adorning the park that bears his name. The 1912 fountain, designed by Herbert Adams, contains a bronze sculpture of 3 nymphs on a pink granite base.

Photo by the US Army Corps of Engineers

In 1941 the fountain was dismantled, left in storage, and mostly neglected. In 1983 the top portion of the fountain was moved to Bloomingdale's Crispus Attucks Park, and in 1992 that section was moved again to its current location at the active reservoir site, where it is locked away from public access.

One can still see the top portion of the fountain by glancing through the fence on 1st Street NW.

The base of the fountain is today somewhere in Fort Washington National Park, in Prince George's County. Perhaps someday the District, the federal government, and neighbors can raise the funds to reunite and restore the fountain for public enjoyment.

Cross-posted at Left for LeDroit.

Current ANC boundaries.

A more responsive system could be created by revising ANCs to be based on historic neighborhood boundaries, future economic development prospects, and common-sense issues of geography. This would improve local governance by ensuring that commissioners were voting on issues that they were engaged in and would impact their constituents. It would also make it easier for interested citizens to attend meetings and get involved in local government.

ANC's should comprise neighborhood clusters that are near each other and have similar densities and zoning characteristics.

For example, ANC 5C includes some of Ward 5's most densely populated neighborhoods along the North Capitol Street corridor, sparsely populated areas around the Armed Forces Retirement Home, and most of Catholic University. These neighborhoods have little in common and cover an area almost 3 miles from north to south.

This variation is problematic when the whole ANC votes on something that will in reality only impact a few SMDs. The controversy over Big Bear Cafe's attempts to secure a liquor license pitted commissioners from miles away against supportive commissioners from the neighborhood.

Issues can also arise when commissioners deal with changes or challenges from areas outside their borders that do not affect the larger ANC. For instance, the Eckington and Truxton Circle neighborhoods in ANC 5C are located very close to development in the newly branded NoMa neighborhood. They have to deal with related economic development and housing issues that will have little impact on 5C commissioners from farther north.

Many of the problems inherent in ANC5C's makeup could be solved by reducing its size and moving its northern most SMD's to another commission. A better, smaller ANC 5C could look like this:

Image by the author. Click for interactive map.

Similarly, the neighborhoods of Trinidad and Carver-Langston in ANC 5B, located north of Florida Ave and Benning Road, NE are part of the rapid economic development based around the H Street corridor. But ANC 5B stretches for miles towards the Maryland border. It includes the National Arboretum, and has several SMDs clustered around Rhode Island Avenue, NE.

These areas have different economic centers and geographies. It makes little sense for them to be involved in each other's parochial decisions.

These issues can be solved by creating a smaller ANC representing Trinidad, Carver-Langston, Ivy City and Gallaudet University:

Image by the author. Click for interactive map.

As currently constituted, several of Ward 5's economic corridors, historic neighborhoods and institutions are split between multiple ANCs. This makes it difficult to create coherent and effective policy.

Catholic University, the surrounding neighborhood of Brookland, and its main street of 12th Street are currently split between three ANCs. The nearby Rhode Island Avenue corridor also touches three separate commissions. Creating one ANC to encompass Catholic University, Brookland and neighborhoods to the north and south of Rhode Island Avenue, NE would allow local leaders to make smart decisions about the future of this area without undue outside influence.

Image by the author. Click for interactive map.

These examples do not form a complete plan for redrawing Ward 5's ANCs. But they do show that the existing commissions can be broken down in a more logical and effective manner.

The three ANCs in Ward 5 are vast. The current setup does not make participation in local politics easy for anyone, but it is especially problematic for seniors, people with small children and those without cars or easy access to transit.

Ward 5 isn't the only ward considering more, smaller ANCs. In Ward 1, which is currently divided into 4 commisions, ANC 1A and 1B each have 11 commissioners. 1B would now grow to 13 commissioners if its borders don't change. Kent Boese has proposed adding a 5th ANC in Ward 1, giving each 6-9 SMDs.

Creating smaller ANCs will make it easier for regular citizens to get involved in local affairs. This line of thinking appeared at the first task force meeting when members suggested that citizens will be more likely to attend meetings if they know it will be a short trip from their house.

The Ward 5 Redistricting Task Force has a chance to improve governance and get more people involved when making their recommendations. They should move forward by creating more ANCs and decreasing the size of the existing commissions.

Their next meeting will be held on Wednesday, August 24 at the 5th District Police Station, 1805 Bladensburg Road NE. Visit the Ward 5 Redistricting Task Force's blog for more information.