Residents of Friendship Heights and Tenleytown are outraged at the District's proposals for development along northern Wisconsin Avenue, demanding further analysis and revisions to the plan before it is introduced to D.C. Council.
The D.C. Office of Planning has thought up a strategic framework plan that calls for office, retail and residential space to be constructed to lure more people to the area. If approved, as many as 1,800 residential units could be built over the next 10 years within the Upper Wisconsin Avenue Corridor.
The plan has a four-fold objective, including aims "to preserve existing assets of the corridor and enhance them," according to Cindy Petkac, spokesperson for the Office of Planning.
To avoid congestion, development will be centered near Metro stations. This would also mean people will have shorter walks to get places.
Representatives of area Advisory Neighborhood Commissions - District governmental units for different neighborhoods - in Ward 3, along with the Advisory Steering Committee that was set up in 2002, will conduct a series of evaluations before the plan is passed on to D.C. Council, Petkac said.
A 90-day period designated for comments from community members ended Friday. Once revisions are made to the plan, the amended version will be delivered to the council by mid-April.
However, under the current plan it is impossible to promote growth while protecting neighborhoods, said Bruce Lowrey of the Coalition to Stop Tenleytown Over-development.
"The plan is seriously flawed in many ways," he said. "It has galvanized the neighborhood."
The plan has failed to consider the capacity and infrastructure of Tenleytown and would create additional problems, such as overcrowding in the District, Lowrey said.
He said the Tenleytown-AU Metro station was not designed as a high-density stop, like Friendship Heights was. This means it would be difficult for the Tenleytown stop to accommodate an increased number of commuters.
The coalition has taken action against the plan by speaking to the Tenleytown community about existing miscalculations.
"We don't want something that will destabilize the neighborhood," Lowrey said. The signatures of 1,600 community members were submitted to Mayor Anthony Williams in protest of the development plan.
Without the approval of the ANCs, Williams has said he will refuse to forward the plan to D.C. Council. The mayor's stand represents a positive step towards acknowledging the concerns of the community and endorses the "democratic system that the country is focused on," Lowrey said.
"All we're asking the D.C. government is to think about this very carefully and to do their homework, listen to the residents and get factual information," he said.
The community is not objecting to new development as long as it is feasible and not plainly based on increasing tax revenue, which would be counter-productive for the mayor and Office of Planning, he added.
Lucy Eldridge, a commissioner for ANC 3E, which represents Tenleytown, Friendship Heights and American University Park, also opposes the plan because she feels its analysis of infrastructure is insufficient.
"The ANC recently passed a resolution to withdraw the corridor study, urging the mayor and their representative, D.C. Council member [Kathy] Patterson, to allow the community to revise the plan," Eldridge said.
Eldridge is concerned with overcrowded public schools the ability to move more residents into the area and adequate parking spaces and public transportation.
She also disagrees with the Office of Planning's move to try to revise present zoning laws.
"The goals articulated in the plan can be achieved with the current zoning," Eldridge said. The project currently exceeds the regular zoning in the Tenleytown area.
