Category Archives: ANC

June 1, 2011 · 10:00 am

ANC Round-Up: Summer’s Here Edition

Last night the ANC met for its June session. It retreaded on some familiar ground,  but there was enough new stuff to keep it from “Groundhog Day” territory.

Crime:

Sgt. Hedgecock gave his ordinary presentation on the state of MPD activity in Georgetown. It contained the normal reminders to keep your eyes open and to make sure not to keep your doors unlocked. But then he reported on a rather alarming crime. Apparently on May 22nd, a woman was picked up by a cab from the corner of Prospect and Wisconsin. But the cab driver drove the cab to somewhere other than where the woman wanted, and then proceeded to sexually assault her. This may be related to an earlier assault that originated in Dupont. Police have a lookout for a 30-40 year old middle eastern man driver a dark colored taxicab, not that that’s particularly helpful, but you ought to keep your eyes out for suspicious acting taxicab drivers.

O & P Streets:

The ANC gave a quick update on the O & P Streets construction. Apparently Washington Gas has had to extend its construction footprint due to the nature of their conversion to a high-pressure system. Also worth noting is that the project has its own PR firm and a website. So you don’t need to come to interminable community meetings to keep up to date. Finally, if you live along the construction and want the water pipe replaced between your house and the street, you need to reach out now.

Capital Bikeshare:

Chris Holben, DDOT’s CaBi director, spoke before the ANC about the two new proposed Georgetown stations: on P north of Rose Park and in the Long and Foster parking lot. The ANC is opposed to the north Rose Park location (they prefer the south end of Rose Park along M St.) and don’t necessarily oppose the Long & Foster location, but would prefer a station at Hyde-Addison. Holben said he’d take another look at those two locations, but made no promises.

Better news: Holben announced that on top of the 25 more stations that DC is adding soon, Tommy Wells has added $2 million to the budget for station expansion, which will result in 40 addition stations beyond the 25. This will mean a total of over 160 stations in the District (plus dozens more in Virginia). So even if Georgetown isn’t 100% happy with this next expansion, there will be more bites at the apple. Continue reading →

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May 24, 2011 · 10:00 am

ANC Preview: Georgetown Gets More Britisher Edition

Union Jack by Iker Merodio.

Next tuesday, the ANC will be meeting for its June session. Note the shift from the normal Monday spot in order to avoid making people choose between civics and Memorial Day barbecues. It will be at the normal time and place, though, which is 6:30 at Visitation.

The agenda’s a full one, but one relatively small item jumped right out at GM. Apparently the British clothing store Jack Wills is planning on moving in where the O Salon used to be (just south of M on Wisconsin). This is the third highish-end British clothier to move into Georgetown in the last year or so. The others are Barbour–which is open–and All Saints–which is opening soon. Add to that Brooks Brothers, which is about the most Anglophilic of American stores, an a full-blown British invasion. Continue reading →

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May 3, 2011 · 10:00 am

ANC Round Up: Disconnect Edition

Last night the ANC met for its May session. And to the extent it had an overriding theme, it would be one of a disconnect between neighbors.

EastBanc

The first case that had this disconnect was the EastBanc project at the Exxon station. This has been discussed here before. Essentially, EastBanc wants to build a five story building where the Key Bridge Exxon now stands.

This would cut off a part of the currently magnificent view enjoyed by the homes on Prospect St. When the ANC first reviewed this project, it took the neighbors’ side, but not aggressively so. It asked that OGB to seriously consider the effect on the Prospect St. neighbors’ views, but they didn’t really come that hard against it, at least not in the resolution.

So last night, EastBanc was back with some modest tweaks to the design. Primarily it reconfigured the facade to be less modern and to “read more” (i.e. kinda look) like a set of rowhouses. Apparently they made a few modest changes to the building’s positioning, but they were all pretty minor.

The neighbors were back again. The criticisms seem to fall into two buckets: the effect the building’s height has on the views of the Prospect St. neighbors and the impact the building would have on the “gateway” of Georgetown.

In GM’s opinion, the “gateway” argument is really just a tarted up way to complain about the height. Right now there’s a gas station, and GM suspects a lot of the people complaining about the height would be perfectly fine if the gas station stayed. Besides, as EastBanc argued last night, the building would be on your periphery as you come across the Key Bridge. Your eyes are directed straight at Dixie Liquors, not the Exxon: Continue reading →

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May 2, 2011 · 10:00 am

ANC Preview: EastBanc Back Again

Tonight, the ANC meets for its May session. It looks like a relatively uneventful agenda, but that’s never stopped the ANC from going long before!

EastBanc

EastBanc returns again tonight to discuss one of their proposed large scale projects. This time its the Verizon building project on Wisconsin just south of the canal. The project has gone through several revisions. The first major change was to shift away from an all-stone project to a mixture of brick on the Wisconsin Ave. side and stone facing the canal. Last month, however, the Old Georgetown Board still objected to the design. The objections focused on the imposing nature of the stone wall facing the canal, and the confusing facade facing Wisconsin (GM’s seen it, and it is a bit jumbled).

We’ll see tonight how they respond.

Capital Bikeshare

Despite efforts to identify locations in the neighborhood for new Capital Bikeshare stations, DDOT proposed two other locations, neither of which make a ton of sense (one is at the east end of Rose Park, the other is in the Long and Foster parking lot on Wisconsin Ave.)

Tonight the ANC is taking the first steps to politely request that DDOT consider the locations that the ANC first identified. There is a bit of a fear that if the ANC complains too much about the proposed stations, DDOT will simply take them away. The ANC has to strike the right tone by saying that Georgetown definitely wants these two stations, they just need to be relocated to more desirable spots.

One spot that was not previously considered, but which might make a ton of sense, is at that triangle park between Pennsylvania Ave. and M St. next to the gas station. The park itself is owned by the federal government, and DDOT hasn’t worked out an arrangement with the feds yet to locate stations on federal land. But the sidewalk next to the park is city owned. And with the park next to the sidewalk, a station could go on the city-owned sidewalk without blocking the way (pedestrians would just walk around the station onto the federally owned part). While this still wouldn’t get a station into the residential blocks, it would provide a better option for lower East Village residents than currently exists. Continue reading →

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April 5, 2011 · 10:00 am

ANC Round Up: Right to a Room With a View?

Photo by BoopBoopBoopBoop.

Last night, ANC 2E met for its spring session. And like last month, a couple of major EastBanc projects dominated the conversation. This time it was just the Exxon and Verizon projects, but two was enough to stimulate some rather interesting conversation.

EastBanc Projects

As described last month, EastBanc is proposing constructing two new condo buildings: one where the Key Bridge Exxon now stands and one on the parking lot next to the Verizon switching building (between the canal and Grace Episcopal). The ANC and the OGB objected to the design of both the buildings, so EastBanc came back with new designs for both.

Dealing with the easier one first: the new design for the Verizon property changed from a stone-clad building to a brick-clad building (stone still clads the base and canal side). Here is what it looks like now (sorry for the bad cell phone camera):

The ANC generally liked the new design and approved the concept. GM asked about the Bikeshare station that is immediately in front of the proposed building. The EastBanc reps said it would have to be moved. The ANC insisted that they be consulted on any change to the station (it would have to go through DDOT anyway, but it’s worth knowing that EastBanc intends on getting it moved, hopefully to a very close new location).

The new building would have a little retail on the first floor. Last month it was proposed to contain 9 units. EastBanc didn’t mention any change to that with the new design.

The far more controversial project was the Exxon project. EastBanc made some cosmetic changes to the project, but it essentially looks the same as last month:

Design-wise, the ANC seemed inclined to approve the building. For one thing, they aren’t even asking for final design approval yet. This is still just the size review. And that’s what was the thrust of the conversation. Continue reading →

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April 1, 2011 · 10:00 am

What to Expect With Redistricting – Part 2 – The Single Member Districts

Yesterday, GM talked about ward and ANC redistricting, and how Georgetown is unlikely to see either. Today GM turns to part two: single member districts (SMDs). SMDs are the districts that each individual ANC commissioner represents. Here’s a map of ANC 2E’s current SMD boundaries:

The History

The history of how this map came to look as it is is actually quite interesting. It begins back in the mid 90s. At that time, town-gown relations were possibly even worse than they are today. In response to several changes in policies viewed as antagonistic to students–removal of parking reciprocity and an attempt to limit student rentals to three residents per house were among them–a group called Campaign Georgetown organized students to vote in the ANC elections. Up to this point, no GU student had ever been elected to the ANC. And unlike now, there was no “student” ANC seat. Every student voted in districts mixed with non-students.

Campaign Georgetown was very successful getting students registered and getting them to the polls. As a result, in 1996 two students, Rebecca Sinderbrand and James Fogarty, were elected to the ANC, one representing west Georgetown and the other Burleith. The victory was followed by years of litigation over whether the students were in fact eligible to vote. The lawsuit wasn’t settled until 2002, well after the original commissioners had served their terms. In the mean time, a student, Matt Payne, won the west Georgetown seat in 1998 (the late Barbara Zartman won the Burleith one over a student that year) and two students, Justin Wagner and Justin Kopp, won both the seats again in 2000.

Then in 2001, the SMDs were redistricted. Up to this point, as discussed above, the student population was split up into several districts that also contained non-student residents. It took a large effort for the students to get organized to vote, but once they did they represented a significant enough bloc within each respective SMD to secure repeated victories in two seats. But the 2000 redistricting changed that. Continue reading →

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March 31, 2011 · 10:00 am

What to Expect With Redistricting – Part 1 – Ward and ANC Redistricting

While it’s fun to look at the census numbers to analyze demographic changes, their primary purpose is to assist lawmakers to periodically redraw political districts. And in DC that means three things: drawing ward boundaries, drawing ANC boundaries, and drawing Single Member District lines.

Ward Boundaries

District law requires that the boundaries of each ward be drawn in such a way that each ward’s population is within 5% of one eight of the District’s population. And the most recent count of DC’s population brings the total to 601,723 and one eighth of that is 75, 215. So each ward must have a population between 78,976 and 71, 455.

And most of them in fact do. But Georgetown’s ward, Ward 2, has about 1,000 too many people. And Wards 7 and 8, which are mostly east of the Anacostia river, both are several hundred people too small. So Ward 2 needs to give up some land and Wards 7 and 8 need to grow.

The political consensus (rim shot) seems to be coalescing around the idea that Ward 8 (which is entirely east of the Anacostia and bounded by Maryland to the east and Ward 7 to the north) will take some of Ward 7’s land. And Ward 7 will in turn take some land from either Ward 5 or Ward 6. Which ever of those two wards that give up some land will likely be the ward that takes portions of Ward 2.

Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Barry has made it no secret that he would rather grow by taking some land from the booming waterfront on the other side of the Anacostia. But Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells looks like he’ll put up enough of a fight to prevent that.

Either way, for Georgetown it looks like all of it will stay in Ward 2. It helps that Jack Evans: A. lives here and is unlikely to redistrict himself out of a job, and B. on the redistricting committee. Continue reading →

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March 30, 2011 · 10:00 am

ANC Preview: Odds and Ends Edition

As we suffer through the last days of this lousy Smarch weather, we can look hopefully on the fact that next week is April. We can get through this! And with the first week of April comes the April ANC meeting. And the agenda for that meeting has been released, and it’s a mix of odds and ends.

French Market

The French Market returns again this year on the weekend of April 29th. It’s a great affair highlighting the stores on the north end of Wisconsin Ave. GM thinks it would be even better if they closed down traffic on Wisconsin Ave. for the event and created a true plaza, but that’s not in the cards. Even taking out a lane of parking to increase space would be great, but the city refuses to shut down only a part of the road for events like this.

Anyway, it’ll still be a great event and wonderful way to support the Book Hill shops.

Georgetown Village

The Georgetown Village is an effort by citizens in Georgetown to replicate a program that has been successful in other neighborhoods, like Capitol Hill. What this program is designed to do is to encourage seniors to age-in-place and continue living in the communities that they’ve grown to love by creating a network to “support the medical, functional, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of older adults.” In real world terms, that could mean rides to the Safeway or a doctor, daily check-ins, and social events, among other things. Small things that can cumulatively really make the difference between staying in your home or not.

Right now, the Georgetown Village effort is recruiting its inaugural members and will hold a kick-off meeting on April 26th at 6:30 at the Georgetown Presbyterian Church. Continue reading →

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March 1, 2011 · 10:00 am

ANC Round Up: Moving On Edition

Last night the ANC met for its March session. The most important item on the agenda was the adoption of its resolution opposing Georgetown’s ten year campus plan. In the end, though, this was one of the shorter items on the agenda. The rest of the evening was filled with projects and items that will surely dominate the discussion for the rest of the year.

Ten Year Plan

The discussion around the proposed resolution was strictly hemmed in. G.U., CAG/the Burleith Citizens Association, and DC Students Speaks, were each given ten minutes to make their final case. Linda Greenan, Vice President of G.U.’s external affairs, spoke first. She expressed the disappointment the school has that the parties couldn’t reach an agreement and reiterated the school’s position that the proposed plan is modest and has been tailored to address the neighbors’ complaints.

Lenore Rubino of the Burleith Citizens Assoc. and Jennifer Altemus of CAG then split up 10 minutes. They repeated their organizations previous statements that that the plan fails to seriously address the already existing negative impacts that the school has on the neighborhood and the threat that the non-student uses are going to be pushed out unless the situation is remedied. They both supported the ANC’s resolution (CAG strayed a bit from the ANC’s resolution by demanding that no students be allowed to park a car in the neighborhood).

Finally, Hao Shen of DC Students Speaks, well, spoke. He gave an energetic defense of the school’s proposal. He pointedly stated that objecting to the plan is a violation of the District’s Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based upon matriculation status. This would be a compelling argument, that is if the DC Court of Appeals hadn’t explicitly rejected it in one of the court cases that sprung from the last ten year plan fight (837 A.2d 58, in case you’re interested).

Beyond this, there was little other discussion. Ron Lewis echoed Greenan’s disappointment in the failure to agree. In the end the resolution was passed 6-1, with Jake Sticka voting nay. Continue reading →

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February 28, 2011 · 10:00 am

The ANC’s Anti-Ten Year Plan Resolution: The Transportation Section

On Friday, GM dug into the first section of the ANC’s proposed resolution regarding Georgetown University’s ten year campus plan. That section dealt with enrollment numbers. Today, GM will take a look at the second section, which deals with transportation issues.

The resolution focuses on three broad issues with regards to transportation:

  • The number of cars being driven to the campus
  • The number of cars being parked in the neighborhood
  • The effect of shuttle buses

Cars Being Driven to the Neighborhood

The university is proposing to add 2,100 new students to the main campus. These would be primarily graduate students, but would also include some non-traditional undergraduate students, such as second degree nursing students.

Many if not most of these students will not live in walking distance of the campus. This is particularly the case for School of Continuing Studies students, who frequently work full time and are not likely to move in order to enroll.

So a large percentage of these students will have to travel to attend classes. Many will choose to drive cars. This adds a burden to congested streets, particularly since many of the relevant classes are held in the early evening, which is to say right around rush hour.

Moreover, G.U. is proposing building an additional 1,000 parking spaces on campus. 750 of those are for the hospital and 250 are for the university. The 250 university parking spots would be added to the Southwest garage, which currently hold 465. This would be a 54% increase in parking spots.

The school argues that this is to address non-regular visitors who are resistant to instructions to use the shuttle bus. But night graduate students would still be permitted to use the additional spots. They simply have to pay $3.00, which is significantly below the market rate and cheaper even than taking transit. Continue reading →

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