The Georgetown Metropolitan

A developer submitted a plan for Old Georgetown Board review this month for two lots it owns along the waterfront, and boy are they shabby.

The lots–located at 3224 and 3226 Water St.–currently consist of two rowhouses built in the mid-20th century. They, along with a third next door, are unique properties in all of the District. They are the only single family homes that are truly waterfront. There are some apartment buildings, like Washington Harbour, that are technically on the water, but no other properties have private backyards that end with a shoreline.

And that uniqueness actually poses the greatest challenge for these lots. This land gets flooded. A lot. And it’s only going to get worse with rising oceans and climate change-driven extreme storms. There is no way you would be able today to build townhouses like the ones that occupy the site right now. You’d have to build in some significant flood-mitigation, like an unoccupied ground floor.

However, that’s not what the developer did. It submitted the plan with no such measures. The plan, as it is, calls for the construction of a 8 units apartment building. The rendering, however, makes it appear that the proposed five story building would only be about 8 feet taller than the third remaining townhouse. In reality, it would be about two stories taller.

Which is fine as far as GM is concerned. We need more housing in Georgetown and can’t keep letting obsessions about current viewsheds keep getting used to thwart all construction. (And in this case there would be literally no view being blocked.) But between the failure to address the floodplain and the ridiculously out-of-scale renderings, it seems fair to conclude that this developer is not up to the challenges this site presents.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The GU Covid situation is not getting better. This week marked the highest cases reported and positivity rate since the beginning of the semester.
• After a $50 million gift, the new Georgetown Hospital wing will be named after Grant Verstandig.

Dumbarton Oaks Park

Halloween was yesterday, but GM would like to reprint again a Georgetown ghost story as told by Tim Krepp in his fantastic Ghosts of Georgetown (which you should buy!):

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The Tombs has now reopened.
• GU saw a sharp increase in covid cases last week and ordered all students to get tested.

Way back in 2009, GM took a look at the population data for Georgetown and predicted that the neighborhood was on the cusp of a baby boom. This was based upon the rate of increase in the child population over the preceding nine years. And in 2017, GM went back to test his prediction and found that it had mostly come true.

Sadly though the boom appears to have gone bust (or perhaps never existed in the first place).

In 2000, there were 615 children 14 years or younger in Georgetown. In 2010, that number grew to 838. In 2017, population estimates put that number at approximately 1,029. But in 2019 estimates put that number back down to 873.

To be fair, both the 2017 and 2019 numbers are estimates based on survey data spanning five years each. The margin of error is in the hundreds. So it’s completely possible that the 2017 numbers were simply on the upper end of the margin for error. An accurate picture of the numbers won’t become clear until the Census Bureau releases the age data from the 2020 count.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Interesting opportunity to enjoy a private performance of traditional Korean music along the waterfront this week.
• More on the shooting on 28th st. from last week.

The ANC will be meeting for its November session next Monday night at 6:30 pm via Zoom. On the agenda are several interesting items, but the one that caught GM’s eye was the Old Georgetown Board item concerning the sidewalk extensions throughout Georgetown.

The extensions have been in their current form and extent since earlier this year, when the BID constructed them. While the sections that have been converted to outdoor dining have been received mostly positively, the sections that merely expand the sidewalk have received more mixed reviews. And the ANC sided with the critics and passed a resolution in September opposing all sidewalk extensions that aren’t being used for dining so that a few people can park their cars there instead.

That resolution concerned the permitting of the sidewalk extensions. This month the matter comes up under the OGB calendar. Could this be the end of the sidewalk extensions? We’ll see. It would be a perfect statement of the reality of historic preservation if the OGB decides it’s somehow too inconsistent with history to have wide sidewalks but a Virginian parking his 2021 Toyota Tacoma there for three hours is A O.K. Historic preservation for thee, not for me, essentially.

Also on the agenda is a possible resolution concerning DDOT’s recent announcement that it would move to streamline the adoption of traffic safety measures in response to a spike in traffic violence across the city. The agency made the move because people, including little kids, keep dying on the streets and the approval process to make the streets safer is too slow and filled with veto points that prevent safety measures from being adopted. So naturally the ANC–one those veto points–is requesting information about this new process. GM hopes they support making these changes but fears they’d rather keep the current system.

Here is the rest of the agenda: