With more effective management of the District’s on-street vehicle parking space we can foster quality neighborhoods, reduce congestion and air pollution, and enhance housing affordability. As a participant in the 2003 Mayor Williams’ Parking Task Force, I continue to support many of the reforms that were proposed in Task Force Report, including the recommendation “that parking is market priced for all users.” We still need to move forward in this direction – price parking so that supply equals demand. Where supply is ample, prices will be low. Where demand is high, price should reflect that scarcity.
Category: Transit-Oriented Development
Testimony before the D.C. Zoning Commission in support of the Hine Junior High School project
We wish to express our support for the proposed project for the Hine Junior High School site. We concur with the results of the HPRB approvals and believe that the proposed scale and overall design conforms to the Capitol Hill Historic District and enhances key historic assets such as the open space of the L’Enfant square on Pennsylvania Avenue and the market house. Given the large amount of open space adjacent to the site, we agree that a larger scale building is needed to give definition to the expansive square around Pennsylvania Avenue. The project also restores the historic street grid with the reconstruction of C Street. The project offers important benefits to the community in the form of a flexible low-speed C Street that can accommodate an adapted flea market, new retail space to complement Eastern Market and Pennsylvania Avenue retail, office space to support surrounding businesses, and affordable and accessible housing.
Support of proposed ZTA revising the requirements for permitting accessory apartments
We strongly support the zoning text amendment proposal to revise and similify the requirements for permitting accessory dwellings. We commend the Planning Board for addressing some of the key problems within the current rules which are discouraging the creation of accessory apartments that are perfectly compatible with existing neighborhoods. We also commend the Board for recognizing the potential of accessory units as a key opportunity to address the county’s tremendous affordable housing shortfall.
Presentation to Montgomery County Council A Network of Livable Communities (full text of prepared remarks)
Of course Montgomery County had begun many years before to implement smart growth policies, earning a national reputation for its early planning initiatives including: wedges/corridors, Agricultural Reserve, TDR’s, downtown Bethesda, Kentlands/King Farm, and of course, MPDU’s
Testimony in Support for McMillan Sand Filtration Plant Master Plan
We wish to express our support for the proposed Master Plan for the McMillan Sand Filtration Plant. This plan is a careful, extensively vetted redevelopment and preservation plan that will highlight the unique historic resources of the site. The plan proposes to provide interpretation and public access to key elements of the distinctive historic resources. This would not be possible without the redevelopment program that helps pay for the cost of the restoration. For decades, access to this large area was prohibited, thus creating a wide gap between surrounding activities and neighborhoods. When you walk across this area, bicycle along Michigan Avenue, or wait for a bus by the hospital as I have done, you feel disconnected, as if you are traversing through no-man’s land. This master plan will reengage the site with its surroundings and turn this gap into an inviting destination with a distinctive heritage.
Testimony to Alexandria Planning Commission on Beauregard Small Area Plan
The plan has benefitted from very extensive community involvement and input, particularly regarding the need to preserve and add affordable housing. We commend the community, and our affordable housing partners in particular, for helping to shape this plan and increase the number of committed affordable units. The plan has also benefited from the developer’s early inclusion of the nation’s top new urbanist architecture, town planning and transportation experts.
Principles Linking Smart Growth & Stormwater
eams that feed it. Stormwater runoff from farms and development gouges out streams and pours pollutants such as farm and lawn fertilizers, livestock waste, and oil and gasoline from cars and trucks into the very water we drink and depend on for food and recreation. As our communities have spread out and our daily activities have become increasingly separated and car-dependent, we have consumed thousands of acres of forest and farm land for parking lots, roads and highways to accommodate our vehicles. This explosive increase in land consumption for paved or impervious surface has exacerbated and continues to exacerbate the stormwater runoff problem throughout the Chesapeake region.
Where and How Should Prince George’s Grow?
On January 26, 2012, leaders gathered with the Coalition for Smarter Growth and Envision Prince George’s Community Action Team for Transit-Oriented Development to discuss where and how Prince George’s County should grow.
Testimony: Support for D.C.’s West End Library and Fire Station project
We wish to express our support for this project. The proposed project will leverage the value of public land to build a new West End Library, a new fire station on Square 50, along with complementary retail and residential units. The combined project of the new library on Square 37 and the new fire station offer a tremendous public benefit for the residents of the District of Columbia that is not otherwise possible. We are only able to create these new state-of-the-art public facilities due to a joint public-private partnership where the full subsidy for the public benefits is derived from the air rights above the public facilities. This project renews important outdated public facilities, and does it at no cost to the District.
DC: Support for Howard University Central Campus Master Plan
We wish to express our support for the Howard University Campus Plan. We especially want to commend the university for committing to the reconnection of several important streets – Bryant Street between Georgia Avenue and Sherman Avenue; W Street between Georgia and 9th St, NW; and, College Street between Georgia Ave. and 6th Street, NW. This commitment to reconnect these streets will have a major positive effect on the surrounding community and help mitigate traffic impact from campus growth. This was a key request by surrounding residents and civic groups. We applaud the university for its commitment to make these street connections.