Posts about Hine School

Another concession to neighbors removed street-activating retail at a prominent corner. Still, the ANC pushed for changes that allayed many residents' concerns while maintaining many of the benefits of the project.

A pair of residents who wanted the ANC to more strongly oppose the Stanton-Eastbanc proposal are running to unseat the commissioners in the districts right around Hine, Ivan Frishberg in 6B02, and Brian Pate in 6B05. These opponents, Gerald Sroufe and Steve Holtzman, respectively, specifically cite Hine as the primary, if not the only, reason for running.

The Hine project is a good one for Capitol Hill. It will activate this major corner, bring new customers to local businesses, increase housing choices near Metro, and add retail space to better connect Barracks Row to the south with the 7th Street commercial strip and Eastern Market to the north. If the election is a referendum on Hine, voters should resoundingly return Pate and Frishberg to the commission.

However, elections shouldn't turn on a single development project alone, especially not over issues that are now essentially settled. Hine isn't the only reason to re-elect these 2 incumbents. They have worked hard to listen to their neighbors on this and many other issues. They have toiled to improve the quality of life on matters that will ultimately affect residents far more than the number of floors on the Hine project.

Pate pushed to restore a Capital Bikeshare station at Lincoln Park after DDOT almost took it away. He and Frishberg both ran 2 years ago on a platform of improving the procedures of the ANC, involving more residents and increasing transparency.

Ironically, Frishberg and Pate had the support in 2010 of the Eastern Market Metro Community Association (EMMCA), an organization that fought implacably against the Hine project this year. EMMCA hasn't visibly supported one set of candidates, but Hine was the only concrete issue they asked the candidates about in their voter guide.

Elsewhere in the neighborhood, Hine aye votes Dave Garrison (6B01) and Brian Flahaven (6B09) are running unopposed, as is Francis Campbell (6B10), who voted against the project. There is also only one candidate in the open seats for 6B07 and 6B08, Sara Loveland and Chander Jayaraman, respectively.

Longtime commissioner Norman Metzger, who voted for the Hine compromise, is not running for re-election. 2 candidates are vying for the seat: Philip Peisch and Randy Steer. Steer says he would have opposed Hine, while Peisch would have supported it; single-issue voters would therefore be best off supporting Peisch.

But that's again not the only reason. When listing the challenges the ANC face, Steer's statement in the EMMCA voter guide focused primarily on opposing things, like liquor licenses on Barracks Row, or future buildings that might be even a little tall. On the other hand, Peisch talked more about building consensus and also helping Barracks Row thrive while balancing its needs against resident issues such as noise and trash.

Kirsten Oldenburg (6B02), another vote in favor of Hine, has a write-in challenger, Tim Britt. Britt does not make any overtly anti-growth statements and generally seems supportive of some change. Meanwhile, Nichole Opkins and Chris Harlow are running against incumbent Jared Critchfield in 6B06, who voted against the Hine project. Both Harlow and Opkins emphasize the bread-and-butter ANC issues like being accessible to constituents; Opkins says that she got involved because Critchfield wasn't reaching out to the people in his district.

I met Opkins at a recent event and was impressed with her commitment and energy, but ultimately, as with the districts where Hine is the primary issue, residents of these districts are best off trying to meet their candidates directly, or reading the candidates' online statements and platforms discussing the many issues that affect the community.

Where will Prince George's build its medical center? The county definitely needs a regional medical center, but will it go at a Metro station or a car-dependent exurban location? A Coalition for Smarter Growth forum will discuss that very important question next Wednesday, July 18, at the New Carrollton station.

Finally, Arlington will present its plan for expanding Capital Bikeshare tonight at 1501 Wilson Blvd, Suite 1100, from 7-9 pm. Plus, BikeArlington is offering a free 1-year membership to one lucky attendee!

Want to know more about what the city is doing, or could do, to use public lands for more affordable housing? How might a library be a good candidate to become mixed-use and mixed income? Join us on Wednesday evening, June 6 for a conversation with the leading thinkers and decision-makers on what gets built on city-owned land, including Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Victor Hoskins and DC Chief Librarian Ginnie Cooper.

DC's history of affordable housing

Throughout the 2000s, DC has provided thousands of housing units, including a large share of affordable and deeply affordable units, by aggressively managing its surplus lands. 9 parcels on 13 acres of land in Columbia Heights produced nearly 600 new affordable housing units, or 35% of all new units.

The City Vista project at 5th and K NW generated a robust mix of 685 units of housing and retail. 138 units, or 20% of the total, were made available at moderate to deeply affordable levels, including some for those earning no more than 30% of the area median income (AMI).

During earlier decades of disinvestment and population decline, the District acquired substantial amounts of vacant and underutilized land. Many of these properties are now valuable assets that have been or can be redeveloped for housing, commercial uses, or new public facilities. The District also owns large parcels of former federal property as well as scores of aging schools, libraries, and other public facilities with the potential to meet a range of community needs.

Since 2000, starting with Mayor Anthony Williams' administration, the District government has racked up an impressive list of accomplishments putting surplus lands back into productive use through public-private partnership deals. Affordable housing has been a priority for these redevelopment projects, with DC seeking to designate 20-30 percent of the overall units as affordable.

Going beyond some affordable housing deals, DC sought to create a mix of housing opportunities at very low income levels. It's most difficult to pay for deeply affordable housing, but there is the greatest need for this housing because it's expensive to build and most low-wage jobs don't pay enough to cover even that cost.

A promising success story: The Hine school

The Hine School project stands out as an example of how a project on public land can balance affordable housing and other public benefits with market-rate development. Located between the Eastern Market Metro station and the historic market house, the Hine School project has an extra challenge of rebuilding in an historic district.

Residents and prominent local community groups engaged early in the decision-making process to express their vision for the site and influenced the selection of the developer, design, and uses. The project will include 46 low-income housing units, with 5 units at 30% area median income (AMI), 29 at 60% AMI, and 12 at 80% AMI.

In addition, the project would rebuild C Street SE as a curbless street and plaza and provide room for weekend vendor tents that can accommodate much (but not all) of the flea market currently using the existing school parking lot. Unlike many public land deals, the developer is also adding office space, which can diversify the activity in the area throughout the day and generate revenues that contribute to what the city collects as both taxes and rent.

In all, the Hine project adds up to a winner of a public land deal. Its design fits the historic context of the neighborhood while offering a mix of affordable and market-rate housing, along with office, retail, and public space in a highly desirable neighborhood and adjacent to a Metro station.

A missed opportunity: The Tenley Library and Janney School

One of the big ones that got away was a mixed-use proposal for the Tenley Library and Janney School. Few chances exist to provide affordable housing in the affluent upper Northwest neighborhood of Tenleytown. This project would have provided 53 units (30% of the total) at 30% AMI, offering low-income residents the chance to live in the community, rather than only commute to it.

The deal would also have accelerated needed upgrades to the popular Janney Elementary School at the same time, using up-front payments from the private developer, and it would brought $5 million in cost savings to the library.

The plan followed a lengthy and tortured path until 2009, when leaders decided to defer the project's housing elements with a promise to allow for putting it partly on top of the library in the future. However, it's hard to see how that would be feasible, let alone affordable.

Instead of using money from the project to fund Janney, the city reallocated money to pay for the school, exacerbating an already inequitable tilt in capital school expenditures towards Ward 3. The result was no affordable housing, no added resources leveraged by private investment, and a more inequitable distribution of school modernization dollars.

Community supporters for the mixed-use plan were disappointed. "The [school and library] agencies had no interest in combining land and resources, said Allison Barnard Feeney, a Janney School parent and advocate for the mixed use proposal. "By the time the mayor got behind it, this idea had quite a lot of entrenched opposition."

What's next?

Public land deals have delivered a lot of affordable housing in the District through the 2000s. But the future direction for public land redevelopment is unclear. The recent request for proposals for the site near the Shaw Metro station (Parcel 42) has not specified specific amounts of affordable housing, which is a change from practices in the past decade.

The administration of Mayor Vincent Gray has not established its policy for future public land dispositions but has continued to execute deals with substantial amounts of affordable housing.

As for future deals, according to Deputy Mayor Victor Hoskins, the city may no longer insist that projects on public land require a specific amount of affordable housing or target income levels as they did under the Williams and Fenty administrations. Instead, the administration may ask developers to maximize affordable units below 80% AMI in their proposals, as with the Parcel 42 request. Under such an approach, achieving affordability reaching all the way down to 30% AMI is less likely. Deputy Mayor Hoskins has suggested that the Mayor's Comprehensive Housing Strategy Task Force, convened in February 2012, will help provide broader guidance on this question.

High costs of construction, a tighter District budget, and a shrinking federal role make the path to more affordable housing uncertain. While the District has completed many successful projects, many more opportunities remain to realize public benefits from public land.

I geocoded the first 30 complete addresses from people who sent letters in support of Hine through our form on Tuesday. One was in Arlington; the others are all on the map above. To protect privacy, I had Excel randomly adjust each address up or down by a small amount (up to about half a block) and only show this map at a distant zoom.

One person who left a comment opposing Hine said support comes "from folks that do not live [sic] or frequent the area." That seems fairly clearly not true, as you can see from the map, and the people who sent letters who don't live right in the area clearly noted how they often frequent the area.

Didn't get a chance to send your own letter? It's not too late. Opponents are trying to put pressure on pro-project ANC commissioners Ivan Frishberg and Brian Pate, and to ask for more concessions, including now setting back another floor of the building after the developers took the top, set-back floor away to try to satisfy opponents.

Some say that there won't be enough room for the flea market in the planned plaza along C Street, but Garber notes that closing 7th Street on weekends would create plenty of room. Another recent change placed a daycare at a prominent corner instead of retail. It would be better to locate the daycare elsewhere as long as it doesn't reduce affordable housing.

Here is Garber's letter:

Dear Chairman Hood and Members of the Zoning Commission:

I am writing in support of the Stanton-EastBanc development team's Hine School redevelopment project. Please note that although I serve as the Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for the Navy Yard neighborhood and as the Vice Chair of ANC 6D, my comments here are not meant to represent the opinions of my entire ANC.

I have been a regular visitor to Eastern Market my entire life; I have been following this redevelopment process closely since the school was closed in 2007; and I currently live one mile southwest of the Hine School site. I engage with the site almost daily—whether shopping or dining nearby, swimming at the Rumsey Aquatic Center, working from the neighboring coffee shops, or visiting with friends and family in the adjoining neighbor­hood, and can confirm that as much as the Eastern Market area is an amenity and point of interest for those immediately adjacent to it, it is also an important place for people from all sides of Capitol Hill, the city, and the region.

Our goal for this redevelopment should be to create—through architectural and urban design, landscaping, tenanting, and programming—1) an atmosphere that will bolster our mutual affection for the immediate area, 2) a diversity of options in affordability, size, and type of residential, office, and retail spaces, 3) connections across the site that do not exist now, and 4) a place that will sensitively take advantage of its location above the Eastern Market Metro station to bring more residents and daytime employees to the neighborhood already flush with local retailers that will only be strengthened by the presence of additional customers brought in by this project.

Acknowledging that no one development or design proposal will meet everyone's individual or group ideas for what is most appropriate, I support Stanton-EastBanc'current proposal because it goes a long way to accomplish many of the diverse hopes for the site. Their proposal communicates architecturally with the surrounding neighborhood without inauthentically bowing to it, adds a significant amount of affordable housing in an area that increasingly needs it, reopens C Street SE across the site, and respects the scale of the existing neighborhood while adding appropriate new density to a transit-accessible location.

I remain concerned about some recently-altered elements of the project. First, I believe it is short-sighted to use the corner retail space at 8th and D Streets SE as a day care center. That space would be put to better use as a vibrant retail corner that, as such, would go a long way to visually connect retail activity on the north and south sides of Pennsylvania Avenue SE. The day care center would be more appropriately located somewhere on or off the site with less retail potential. Any relocation of the day care center within the site should also stear clear of space currently promised for use as affordable housing.

Second, although I understand that the removal of the penthouse level of the office building at the corner of 7th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue SE was in response to concerns that the building was too large, a new problem has emerged from its removal: there is no longer any graceful transition between the top of the building and the sky. What was a tiered structure has been left as a box, and I am confident that more can be done to gracefully break up or distinguish elements of the massing while retaining or sensitively adding to the building's existing square footage.

I would also like to speak to the concern that this redevelopment, as proposed, will reduce general open space as well as the size of the weekend flea market currently located at Eastern Market and on the Hine School parking lot. I would like to add my support to the idea of closing 7th Street SE between C Street and Pennsylvania Avenue SE for use by the flea market on weekends, and point out that—although currently underutilized in its present state—the Eastern Market Metro Plaza is a sizable neighborhood amenity immediately adjacent to the Hine School that could be designed and programmed for a variety of uses.

Again, I support Stanton-EastBanc's plans for the redevelopment of the Hine School. I know they are working hard, alongside ANC 6B and neighborhood organizations, to plan a project that will be a benefit to the neighborhood and the city. The inclusion of affordable housing and the reopening of C Street SE exemplify the kinds of community benefits expected from a Planned Unit Development and public land disposition. I am confident that their proposal will only bolster our affection for the site, and will finally bring a sense of completion to a place that has been—save for weekend market functions that can be redistributed across the site and surrounding streets—an economic and visual hole for too long.

A group of Hine neighbors was unalterably opposed to anything more than 5. At Dumbarton Oaks, 4 stories is "shocking."

Developers often try to accommodate resident objections and make their projects smaller. In Brookland, the Colonel' Brooks Tavern project lost 9 residences but opponents are still opposed. Hine lost 13 between March and April. There's a constant drumbeat of news of projects being scaled back.

Each time, that means fewer people can live in our great city.

Everyone else loses when this happens. We have fewer taxpaying residents to shore up the budget. We have fewer people to patronize shops and restaurants. Fewer people can ride the bus to justify more frequent service. Housing is more expensive because of limited supply.

And when resistance is too great, projects simply don't get built and lots stay vacant, or end up with less desirable uses. Because a zoning board limited a bed and breakfast at 16th and Riggs to 6 rooms instead of 10 in 2001, it couldn't stay profitable and will become a chancery instead, which adds less to the neighborhood than a stream of visitors who will eat in restaurants and go to museums and shows.

Fortunately, many of our current HPRB members recognize this. They tweaked Hine and pushed for a better design but ultimately didn't try to substantially shrink the project. The inclusionary zoning law provides a development bonus to create affordable housing, and HPRB chair Catherine Buell said that the current board recognizes the importance of allowing properties to use this density. Their role isn't to lop off several floors entirely.

HPRB isn't the zoning board, as former chair Tersh Boasberg was fond of saying. If zoning says a 5-story building is appropriate, it's not the role of HPRB to say that they think 3 stories should be the maximum. It is their role to make sure it fits into the historic district. Some, though, argue that "fitting in" means "being no taller than some of the shorter buildings in."

Mayor Gray was about to make 4 appointments to HPRB, but received strong pushback against some of his nominees. Now, he still has to fill those spots and has to find even more as another wave of members' terms are ending.

It's critically important to find people who respect this balance, who want to make projects look better and feel more compatible but who also recognize the importance of actually getting vacant sites developed, accommodating more residents in DC, and taking advantage of the very limited heights that our zoning and federal laws allow.

These decisions don't just affect surrounding neighbors or architects. They determine the very direction of DC, its budget, its housing affordability, and its ability to become more self-sufficient.

Without its august associations with its namesake and its designer, the MLK Library would have been demolished or gutted during the last real estate boom. That would never happen to the Old City Library, regardless of its historical merit as one of Andrew Carnegie's.

That building endures because there is something attractive and innately human in its scale. It elicits a sense of reverence and respect appropriate for its purpose. One cannot say the same for the MLK Library or the projects designed by TEN Arquitectos.

Of the West End project, Weber approvingly writes the viewer perceives the structure as a "pixilated glass amoeba," which is nearly as good a simile as that used by an architect who once appeared before ANC 6C who described his project as "two tectonic plates colliding." The Glass Amoeba overhangs the public space—an expedient trick that is about maximizing profit rather than design.

It reminds me of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. It's mass looms above the pedestrian, which always gives me a sense of unease as I walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. What they lack in an architectural idiom grounding them within an historic setting, neighboring architectural blunders aside, they make up for in shock value. They are stunning, but so is much of pop culture and neither will stand the test of time.

There are very few examples in DC where "new" (post-World War II) traditional design is done well. The Ronald Reagan building approaches it. The Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building alludes to it.

But in the wrong hands traditional architecture becomes kitsch. Some of the most vocal opponents of the current Amy Weinstein design for the Hine School site are neighbors that live in the 300 block of 8th Street SE, an example of 1970-ish infill where misapplication of traditional form is on display.

Turn the corner at 8th and C Street, SE and it continues, complete with curb cuts and garage entrances the degrade the pedestrian experience. Were these structures to be subjected to design review today, they would not be permitted.

Architecture can be a restorative act. When an architect takes cues from community and not her or his creative impulse, the design result can reconcile the built and natural environment, healing the mistakes of previous generations. I often think of what was lost—and what we were given—in the Southwest waterfront during the Great Society endeavors of the 1960s.

Architecture and urbanism in practice should seek to form a whole, to make something complete. Each element, be it a room, a house, a porch, a garden, a block, a neighborhood, or a city, provides transition and each element relies upon the previous.

This shared state of transition is the underlying principle of unity found in all things. It applies to cities, to ecosystems and agriculture, to art, to human systems of organization as bureaucratic and inefficient as Congress and to things as natural and enduring as families.

I think about this in the case of Hine School project at Eastern Market. I sympathize when I hear residents say they want something that is in keeping with the character of the neighborhood. Those parts of the Hill we love the most, we love for their "completeness."

Eastern Market is already "complete", not simply because of the attention Adolf Cluss gave to brick course and cornice (and, after the fire, the careful hands that restored it), but of the neighborhood that exists around it; the activity and personal connections formed through commerce and community across generations.

Paraphrasing architect Steven Mouzon: "If a building cannot be loved, it will not endure. And if does not endure, it is not sustainable." Progressive planners and some architects get this concept of sustainability. We demand it in our transportation systems, in our food systems. There is an interest in all things local. Why not in our buildings? Why is it that an architects practicing in the early 20th century understood this balance better than many practicing today?

The buildings will range from 4 stories across the street from townhouses to 7 stories right on Pennsylvania Avenue. On some residential façades, ground-floor units will have separate entrances to resemble the townhouses nearby. On the commercial streets, the buildings will have ground-floor retail and possibly some retail on the floor immediately below ground as well.

Opponents of the Hine project focused on a key word in the historic preservation law: "compatible." Any project in a historic district must be compatible with the neighborhood. But what does "compatible" mean?

To many people, a project is only compatible if it's no larger than any other buildings. One resident, in fact, argued that no project in a historic district should be allowed to be more than a single story taller than any other building nearby. Since Eastern Market is 2 stories, that means he opposes anything more than 3.

But that's not what "compatible" really means. Already on Capitol Hill are some 2-story buildings across the street from 5-story buildings. There are some 6- and 7-story buildings. Another resident argued that those buildings aren't compatible either, and shouldn't be built if they were proposed today. That's not how the historic district rules work. Compatibility takes into account all the conributing buildings in a district, not just the shortest ones.

The man also argued said this would become the tallest building between the Library of Congress and around 11th Street, SE. That is based on the building's tallest point, which is only a small piece of the building, but even so: it'll be the tallest between the next Metro station to the west and the next Metro station to the east.

That's how an urban form ought to look. Buildings right on commercial corridors and at transit nodes should be the largest, with smaller buildings like townhouses in the spaces between.

Fortunately, the Historic Preservation Office agrees. In an excellent staff report by Amanda Molson and Steve Callcott, HPO argued that the height of a building is not the only criterion for compatibility, and that at this prominent corner, something taller may be just what belongs in the historic district:

The Board's design guidelines for new construction do not explicitly lay out an acceptable ratio of the height of new construction to surrounding buildings. Instead, the guidelines state: "Perhaps the best way to think about a compatible new building is that it should be a good neighbor, enhancing the character of the district and respecting the context." As has been shown in historic districts throughout the city, this can be done with taller new construction if careful attention is paid to the design, proportions, materials and other characteristics that collectively work to achieve compatibility. ...

The Pennsylvania Avenue office building will be the project's "beacon" as viewed from the avenue, attracting the attention of riders emerging from Metro and drivers on the avenue. It will also likely be the tallest building on Pennsylvania Avenue. However, being the tallest building doesn't necessarily mean that it will be incompatible with the historic district. This location facing the commercial corridors of Pennsylvania Avenue and 7th Street is certainly the most logical place to locate taller construction.

Historically, the Wallach School, while not as tall as the proposed office building, provided a similar punctuation on the avenue with one of Capitol Hill's most important civic buildings. Given the breadth of the wide avenue, the relative hierarchical importance of this building in the totality of project, and the site's frontage on a L'Enfant square and adjacency to a Metro station, additional height in this location is not inappropriate provided that the
building is otherwise designed to "enhance the character of the district and respect its context."

The staff report had plenty of specific quibbles with design elements. It suggests angling the top floor of the office building to provide visual interest and reduce a bit of the perceived massing. (One thing height opponents often don't realize is that small changes to a roofline can greatly affect how tall a building looks, without changing how tall it really is.) Likewise, they suggest shrinking some of the retail bays or adding projections.

HPO staff also recommend rethinking the design of the northern residential building, which was designed as a "single pavilion" to evoke elements of Eastern Market. The staff feel that Eastern Market shouldn't get a "companion" and remain distinctive, and want to replace horizontal architectural elements with vertical ones, a common request HPO has also made elsewhere.

After much debate, the ANC came up with a resolution that also supports the overall density, though they do also ask to lower the heights of several buildings, creating two somewhat incompatible requests. Maintaining density while decreasing height might be possible if the developer can move some more retail and mechanical equipment to basement levels, though this is probably only feasible to a small degree.

The ANC made several other reasonable recommendations, including keeping the central courtyard open to the public instead of just to residents, and rethinking some of the architectural aesthetics that yielded negative reactions from residents.

There are plenty of architectural elements that could change for this project, and the design review that comes with historic preservation regulation as well as community involvement often makes buildings look much better than the initial proposals. Preservation the and ANCs are filling a valuable role when they focus on these elements.

If preservation instead gets hijacked by those who simply oppose new residents or don't want to look at any moderate-sized buildings, it not only starts to stretch beyond its mandate but risks politically alienating the majority of residents who think more neighbors and more stores to patronize would be lovely.

HPRB has deferred some of the decisions to next month. They should be very restrained in those to avoid cutting down on the overall ability of the project to bring in new residents and stores.

Update: The original version of this article suggested that the HPRB had fully adopted the staff report. Instead, they made comments in support of many elements but deferred other decisions. I've updated the post to reflect this.