But not just any development.
I’m pro-dense, urban, well-designed, well built development.
I’m against crappy development, like the strip mall at W and 14th which, thankfully, now has construction fences around it.
To create good development, you need government oversight in the way of zoning and building codes, and you need community involvement. Constructive community involvement. The community needs to support good development and oppose bad development. The problem is, of course, that people have different definitions of what those things are. For instance, as I stated in my last post, the Dupont Conservancy is opposed to the proposed development at 14th and U, but where were they when that horrible strip mall was built a few blocks away? Perhaps they didn’t exist then, but that’s the kind of development that needs to be opposed.
There are other great things happening in that part of the neighborhood.
Along with the fence around the strip mall, there are two other big
projects underway. And they just took down the scaffolding in the most
well constructed building ever built on the NE corner of 14th and U. I
say that because they’ve been working on it for about 15 months, and
it’s a small three story building, so it better be the best building in
the history of the world! I’m not sure what’s going to go in there, but
right next door is the new Marvin. We’ve only been there for a drink,
but it looks fantastic and I have a feeling that the food is good.
Further up 14th is the new Union Row where a Yes! Market will soon open.
The silly European style alley they built through the middle of the
building is actually quite nice! I hope that building fills up. If
they build something of that quality at 14th and U, who could have any
concerns?
Thanks to all who read and commented on my last posting about the
project at 14th and U. Surprisingly, all the feed back I received was
positive. I figured there would be someone who disagreed with me.
Showing posts with label urban planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label urban planning. Show all posts
Monday, December 10, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
14th and U Street Controversy
A developer has proposed a ten story apartment and retail building for the southwest corner of U and 14th Streets, where the McDonalds now is. The proposal is to get rid of the bad one story development along 14th Street and incorporated the historically contributing structures into the design of the new building. This, of course, has brought out all kinds of opposition from various community group, including, for some reason, the Dupont Circle Conservancy and the Dupont Circle ANC, even though 14th and U is NOT in Dupont Circle.
But that’s OK, because in this great city of ours, anyone and everyone can throw their two cents into any issue at any time. Since I live two blocks from 14th and U and walk past that corner twice a day, I figure I probably have more right than people who live at 22nd and S Streets to comment on it. So here goes.
I support the development. To not support dense in-fill development in the middle of the city is to be both anti-urban and anti-environment.
Anti-urban because dense development, as Jane Jacobs pointed out in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is good for the economy and good for public safety. Anti-environment, because in a neighborhood that is well served by public transportation (the Metro is one block away), and in a world where global warming is a reality, leaving a huge plot of land like that under-utilized is backward looking. Us urbanites should be leaders in the environmental movement, not NIMBYs.
The arguments against it come down to traffic and “massing,” which is the same as saying “I don’t like it ‘cause it’s too big.”
The traffic argument doesn’t work because, again, Metro is one block away. Who on earth would move to that building so they could drive to work every day? Plus, I walk past there at rush hour every day, and there ain’t that much traffic there, something the Dupont Circle folks might know if they every actually ventured into my neighborhood.
The “massing” argument is also absurd. To support the “I don’t like it ‘cause it’s too big” argument (and I quote from The Dupont Current), the Dupont Circle Conservancy said that “unlike the Reeves Center to the north, which was built on a large site, this project is being wedged into an existing historic district with considerable adjacent existing residential areas.” The sheer idiocy of this statement is mind-boggling! First, to hold up the Reeves Center as some sort of model of development is lunacy. The first problem with the Reeves Center is that it doesn’t use all of it’s large site, not to mention that it has such things as huge ventilation systems fronting on U street and empty glass and ugly brutalist architecture, all of which make it relate extremely poorly to the prominent corner on which it is situated and not fit in with the historic structures all around it. Which brings up the second problem with the Conservancy’s statement: the Reeves Center is in the exact same historic district, surrounded by the same residential areas, as the proposed site. In fact, it is right across the street! Their argument is simple nonsense. A 75 to 100 foot building would have the same “massing” as the self-storage building it will abut, as the Reeves Center, and as all the other apartment and condo buildings that have been built along 14th Street.
The devil, of course, is always in the details. The plans have to be good. But since it is in a historic district, and there are zoning specifications it must meet, and a lot of it has to be reviewed by the ANC (the ANC that has actual jurisdiction over the area, not one from across town), the plan will have to be good to pass muster.
In this day and age, with the price of oil climbing to ever higher levels, with the reality of global warming, NIMBY-ism and obstructionism should not be allowed to derail good, dense, urban in-fill development, which I believe this will be.
But that’s OK, because in this great city of ours, anyone and everyone can throw their two cents into any issue at any time. Since I live two blocks from 14th and U and walk past that corner twice a day, I figure I probably have more right than people who live at 22nd and S Streets to comment on it. So here goes.
I support the development. To not support dense in-fill development in the middle of the city is to be both anti-urban and anti-environment.
Anti-urban because dense development, as Jane Jacobs pointed out in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is good for the economy and good for public safety. Anti-environment, because in a neighborhood that is well served by public transportation (the Metro is one block away), and in a world where global warming is a reality, leaving a huge plot of land like that under-utilized is backward looking. Us urbanites should be leaders in the environmental movement, not NIMBYs.
The arguments against it come down to traffic and “massing,” which is the same as saying “I don’t like it ‘cause it’s too big.”
The traffic argument doesn’t work because, again, Metro is one block away. Who on earth would move to that building so they could drive to work every day? Plus, I walk past there at rush hour every day, and there ain’t that much traffic there, something the Dupont Circle folks might know if they every actually ventured into my neighborhood.
The “massing” argument is also absurd. To support the “I don’t like it ‘cause it’s too big” argument (and I quote from The Dupont Current), the Dupont Circle Conservancy said that “unlike the Reeves Center to the north, which was built on a large site, this project is being wedged into an existing historic district with considerable adjacent existing residential areas.” The sheer idiocy of this statement is mind-boggling! First, to hold up the Reeves Center as some sort of model of development is lunacy. The first problem with the Reeves Center is that it doesn’t use all of it’s large site, not to mention that it has such things as huge ventilation systems fronting on U street and empty glass and ugly brutalist architecture, all of which make it relate extremely poorly to the prominent corner on which it is situated and not fit in with the historic structures all around it. Which brings up the second problem with the Conservancy’s statement: the Reeves Center is in the exact same historic district, surrounded by the same residential areas, as the proposed site. In fact, it is right across the street! Their argument is simple nonsense. A 75 to 100 foot building would have the same “massing” as the self-storage building it will abut, as the Reeves Center, and as all the other apartment and condo buildings that have been built along 14th Street.
The devil, of course, is always in the details. The plans have to be good. But since it is in a historic district, and there are zoning specifications it must meet, and a lot of it has to be reviewed by the ANC (the ANC that has actual jurisdiction over the area, not one from across town), the plan will have to be good to pass muster.
In this day and age, with the price of oil climbing to ever higher levels, with the reality of global warming, NIMBY-ism and obstructionism should not be allowed to derail good, dense, urban in-fill development, which I believe this will be.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
What City Do You People Live In?
I like dcblogs new little brain tickler at the top of the page each day. Nice addition!
So I’ll devote this posting to a response to DC’s not quite an urban paradise yet, but we’re getting there.
My response is to the original post(s) at American Prospect by Ezra Klein and the comments specific to DC.
My first response: what city do you people live in? Cause it ain’t MY city.
The amount of mis-information floating around in the original posts and the comments is astounding, such as:
"...a plurality of [DC's] population is well educated and in many ways upper middle class, while far more of its population is poor and not well educated..."
Huh?
(First, I think the word “plurality” is misused: you’re either well educated, or you’re not.)
Some facts: DC Poverty Rate: 18.3%; Percentage of DC residents with a BA or higher: 39.1%
(From the U.S. Census) Please don’t comment that 18.3% is high. It is, but it is not a majority. And 39.1% is also high. Extremely.
DC has a bad rap as being a poor, crime-ridden place. There, of course, is a racial overtone to that bad rap, since DC is 57% black. But the statistics don’t back up the rap.
The black middle class in DC is HUGE, but they live in places few white people have ever heard of, because nothing ever happens there to make it onto the evening news and they don’t have any trendy night spots: Riggs Park, Michigan Park, Brightwood, Hillcrest, Fort Dupont, Fort Totten, etc. (Also in places you’ve heard of, like Capitol Hill and Anacostia and Bloomingdale and Ladroit Park and Shaw.) These people may or may not have college degrees (although many do), but they all have good, stable jobs (either blue or white collar), or own businesses. It’s true that some of these neighborhoods don’t have many “coffee shops,” but neither did McLean, Bethesda, Silver Spring, or Arlington until a decade ago.
The symbolic "coffee shop" comes down to culture: 20 years ago, a coffee shop was a diner. You went there for breakfast and a cup of coffee and sat at the counter. The United States has never had a tradition of cafes, or tea houses, or tea rooms, or hookah bars, or Hamams, or bath houses, or any other kind of "third place" (save neighborhood bars), except in ethnic enclaves, where people brought their old world traditions with them. (And by “old world”, I’m including Asia, the Middle East, and Africa: check out the coffee ceremony at Dukem some time.) To claim coffee shops are white is silly. They are a new phenomenon in most of the U.S., and are slowly spreading everywhere. At most, they are bell-weathers of new prosperity, which says little about race. By the way, Mocha Hut, Love Cafe, and Jolt-n-Bolt are all minority owned businesses. To add to the confusion, many of the new places on U Street (that cater to “Yuppies”) are owned by immigrants, minorities, or, brace yourself, partnerships consisting of whites and minorities together! How does this fit into the rich/poor/race/class/new-comer/old-resident/owner/renter/working class/yuppie calculus that so frustratingly dominates such discussions?
Ezra Klein seems to think that a city government conjures up things like coffee shops (and other amenities that make a city “livable”). While a city government can encourage local businesses in a variety of ways (something I think DC does a poor job of), the “free market” plays the largest role in how a city develops.
Moving on: the idea that DC doesn't have any University ties is also absurd. The city is full of Howard lawyers, doctors, and dentists who stuck around, as well as lawyers, doctors, and dentists (and every other profession you can name) from Georgetown, GW, American, CUA, Trinity, even UDC.
The assertion that DC doesn’t have bookstores or an arts culture is also ignorant. Within walking distance of my place, there are the following bookstores, some new, some old (you know, before all the hated yuppies moved in):
Red Onion Books, Second Story Books, Idle Time Books, Candidas, Books-a-Million, G Books, Kramer Books, Busboys and Poets, Lambda Rising, Howard University Bookstore, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.
There is a large and dynamic arts scene is DC. It’s just that it’s filled with people who actually spend their time painting, writing, sculpting, acting, and dancing, and not a bunch of highly visible posers who hang out at cafes NOT painting, writing, sculpting, acting, or dancing, like in other cities. Because to be able to afford to live in this city, you better get off your ass and do some work. Here are some fine examples:
Washington Writer’s Publishing House
Capitol Hill Arts Workshop
Mid City Artists
Brett Busang
Anna Demovidova
Agatekartstudio
Solas Nua
Lines and Stars
Burlesque Poetry Hour
And these are just the ones I know about.
Finally, I came to DC to go to grad school, and discovered that it is awesome, and so I found a job here so I could stay. It’s awesome because, unlike Portland and Seattle (overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly boring, overwhelmingly easy to live in (or "livable")), DC is diverse and challenging and stimulating. You’ll find a lot of people like me in DC, at least the DC in which I live.
So I’ll devote this posting to a response to DC’s not quite an urban paradise yet, but we’re getting there.
My response is to the original post(s) at American Prospect by Ezra Klein and the comments specific to DC.
My first response: what city do you people live in? Cause it ain’t MY city.
The amount of mis-information floating around in the original posts and the comments is astounding, such as:
"...a plurality of [DC's] population is well educated and in many ways upper middle class, while far more of its population is poor and not well educated..."
Huh?
(First, I think the word “plurality” is misused: you’re either well educated, or you’re not.)
Some facts: DC Poverty Rate: 18.3%; Percentage of DC residents with a BA or higher: 39.1%
(From the U.S. Census) Please don’t comment that 18.3% is high. It is, but it is not a majority. And 39.1% is also high. Extremely.
DC has a bad rap as being a poor, crime-ridden place. There, of course, is a racial overtone to that bad rap, since DC is 57% black. But the statistics don’t back up the rap.
The black middle class in DC is HUGE, but they live in places few white people have ever heard of, because nothing ever happens there to make it onto the evening news and they don’t have any trendy night spots: Riggs Park, Michigan Park, Brightwood, Hillcrest, Fort Dupont, Fort Totten, etc. (Also in places you’ve heard of, like Capitol Hill and Anacostia and Bloomingdale and Ladroit Park and Shaw.) These people may or may not have college degrees (although many do), but they all have good, stable jobs (either blue or white collar), or own businesses. It’s true that some of these neighborhoods don’t have many “coffee shops,” but neither did McLean, Bethesda, Silver Spring, or Arlington until a decade ago.
The symbolic "coffee shop" comes down to culture: 20 years ago, a coffee shop was a diner. You went there for breakfast and a cup of coffee and sat at the counter. The United States has never had a tradition of cafes, or tea houses, or tea rooms, or hookah bars, or Hamams, or bath houses, or any other kind of "third place" (save neighborhood bars), except in ethnic enclaves, where people brought their old world traditions with them. (And by “old world”, I’m including Asia, the Middle East, and Africa: check out the coffee ceremony at Dukem some time.) To claim coffee shops are white is silly. They are a new phenomenon in most of the U.S., and are slowly spreading everywhere. At most, they are bell-weathers of new prosperity, which says little about race. By the way, Mocha Hut, Love Cafe, and Jolt-n-Bolt are all minority owned businesses. To add to the confusion, many of the new places on U Street (that cater to “Yuppies”) are owned by immigrants, minorities, or, brace yourself, partnerships consisting of whites and minorities together! How does this fit into the rich/poor/race/class/new-comer/old-resident/owner/renter/working class/yuppie calculus that so frustratingly dominates such discussions?
Ezra Klein seems to think that a city government conjures up things like coffee shops (and other amenities that make a city “livable”). While a city government can encourage local businesses in a variety of ways (something I think DC does a poor job of), the “free market” plays the largest role in how a city develops.
Moving on: the idea that DC doesn't have any University ties is also absurd. The city is full of Howard lawyers, doctors, and dentists who stuck around, as well as lawyers, doctors, and dentists (and every other profession you can name) from Georgetown, GW, American, CUA, Trinity, even UDC.
The assertion that DC doesn’t have bookstores or an arts culture is also ignorant. Within walking distance of my place, there are the following bookstores, some new, some old (you know, before all the hated yuppies moved in):
Red Onion Books, Second Story Books, Idle Time Books, Candidas, Books-a-Million, G Books, Kramer Books, Busboys and Poets, Lambda Rising, Howard University Bookstore, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.
There is a large and dynamic arts scene is DC. It’s just that it’s filled with people who actually spend their time painting, writing, sculpting, acting, and dancing, and not a bunch of highly visible posers who hang out at cafes NOT painting, writing, sculpting, acting, or dancing, like in other cities. Because to be able to afford to live in this city, you better get off your ass and do some work. Here are some fine examples:
Washington Writer’s Publishing House
Capitol Hill Arts Workshop
Mid City Artists
Brett Busang
Anna Demovidova
Agatekartstudio
Solas Nua
Lines and Stars
Burlesque Poetry Hour
And these are just the ones I know about.
Finally, I came to DC to go to grad school, and discovered that it is awesome, and so I found a job here so I could stay. It’s awesome because, unlike Portland and Seattle (overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly boring, overwhelmingly easy to live in (or "livable")), DC is diverse and challenging and stimulating. You’ll find a lot of people like me in DC, at least the DC in which I live.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Rhode Island Place: A Lost Opportunity
With the various home renovation projects I’ve done over the past few years, I make the trip to DC’s Home Depot quite often. And every time I’m there, I wonder about the thought process of the people who approved that whole mess. The piece of land now occupied by the shopping center is some of the best situated real estate in the city: high up, with great views of the Capitol dome, the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and most of the city, it is served by Metro’s Rhode Island Avenue station, and it sits just outside of the downtown area.
Why, oh why would anyone have approved the ghastly suburban low density sprawl development that is Rhode Island Place?
By building a strip mall right in the heart of DC, we miss out on the kind of great urban development that could have happened there, that could have benefited DC with more tax revenue, and could have been done in such a way as to benefit the residents of Ward 5. Instead, we have acres and acres of underutilized land, stores, such as Home Depot, that ruin small, locally owned businesses and suck the profits right out of DC, and a suburban-modeled parking lagoon that creates traffic problems and ensures that few will ever walk there.
I suppose Vincent Orange, who, as a council member, wanted to bring economic development to his ward. (He also threw his support behind the dubious New Town development at the Capitol City Market.) But development like Rhode Island Place is actually counterproductive. (For a good discussion of all this development, check out this post on Rebuilding Place in the Ubran Space.)
The only pro I see to the development is the sales tax revenue from Home Depot that would otherwise have gone to Maryland or Virginia. But other than that, the whole development does more harm than good. The amount of wasted land up there is incredible. The city could have created a walkable, mixed use neighborhood, centered around a business district that could have supplied all the same amenities: a Giant like the one in Columbia Heights, locally owned small businesses, even chain stores, along with an urban Home Depot, if we must. They could have created community amenities as well, such as a well-situated park that takes advantage of the great views, a recreation center, a job training center. Perhaps, with such a clean slate of land and great metro and street access, someone (the city? The business community?) could have thought outside the box and created some sort of small business incubator, with affordable office space, like has been done in other cities. And, of course, a mix of market-rate and affordable housing. Instead, we got a strip mall.
The idea of economic development is to help pull people out of poverty, but low paying retail jobs do not pull people out of poverty. Empowering people to start businesses and to get job training will, in the long run, help those most in need. I only hope that Fenty will do something like this and not be wooed by all the rich and powerful developers who feed on tax breaks and special deals at the public real estate trough.
Why, oh why would anyone have approved the ghastly suburban low density sprawl development that is Rhode Island Place?
By building a strip mall right in the heart of DC, we miss out on the kind of great urban development that could have happened there, that could have benefited DC with more tax revenue, and could have been done in such a way as to benefit the residents of Ward 5. Instead, we have acres and acres of underutilized land, stores, such as Home Depot, that ruin small, locally owned businesses and suck the profits right out of DC, and a suburban-modeled parking lagoon that creates traffic problems and ensures that few will ever walk there.
I suppose Vincent Orange, who, as a council member, wanted to bring economic development to his ward. (He also threw his support behind the dubious New Town development at the Capitol City Market.) But development like Rhode Island Place is actually counterproductive. (For a good discussion of all this development, check out this post on Rebuilding Place in the Ubran Space.)
The only pro I see to the development is the sales tax revenue from Home Depot that would otherwise have gone to Maryland or Virginia. But other than that, the whole development does more harm than good. The amount of wasted land up there is incredible. The city could have created a walkable, mixed use neighborhood, centered around a business district that could have supplied all the same amenities: a Giant like the one in Columbia Heights, locally owned small businesses, even chain stores, along with an urban Home Depot, if we must. They could have created community amenities as well, such as a well-situated park that takes advantage of the great views, a recreation center, a job training center. Perhaps, with such a clean slate of land and great metro and street access, someone (the city? The business community?) could have thought outside the box and created some sort of small business incubator, with affordable office space, like has been done in other cities. And, of course, a mix of market-rate and affordable housing. Instead, we got a strip mall.
The idea of economic development is to help pull people out of poverty, but low paying retail jobs do not pull people out of poverty. Empowering people to start businesses and to get job training will, in the long run, help those most in need. I only hope that Fenty will do something like this and not be wooed by all the rich and powerful developers who feed on tax breaks and special deals at the public real estate trough.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Capital City Market/Florida Market
If you’re interested in development issues in DC, and you’re interested in a great place to get fresh produce, check out the new Capital City Market blog. It’s hosted by Richard Layman, who has another blog about urban development, and by Inked, who writes Frozen Tropics, another great blog about urban spaces and DC. They’ve been kind enough to post my recent Current Newspaper article about the Capital City Market on the new blog.
I love this city because of places like the Market and blogs like these.
I love this city because of places like the Market and blogs like these.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
New Town/Capital City Market Redevelopment
Yesterday, DC council passed a bill that allows for the redevelopment of the Capital City Market. Richard Layman, on his Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space blog, posted the bill I highly recommend Layman’s blog to anyone interested in development issues, both here in DC and globally.
In case you don’t know, the Capital City Market is the clump of wholesale and retail market and warehouse buildings along Florida Avenue near Gallaudet University in Northeast. It is a vibrant area full of small businesses and vendors. It may look a gritty, but it’s a thriving, non-blighted place.
I’ve got some concerns about the way the city and New Town Development, LLC, wish to redevelop the Capital City Market. I think a “main street” program that helped revitalize Barracks Row on Capital Hill is a great thing, but wholesale redevelopment of 24 acres of private property harkens back to the misguided policies of the mid-20th century that created so many urban problems and dead urban spaces, not to mention the destruction of many small businesses. The similarities are eerie: starting in the 1930’s and accelerating into the 1950s and 60s, local governments would declare an area “blighted”, and then use a combination of public and private money to “improve” the area. The problem was that many areas they labeled as “blighted” were anything but. They may have been working class and a bit run down in places, but they contained successful small businesses, families, churches, and tight-knit communities. Look at Southwest Washington between Independence and I-395, which is really nothing more than a suburban office park stuck next to the National Mall, to see the legacy of 1950’s redevelopment of blighted areas. Admittedly, the Capital City Market is a single use area (wholesale and retail), so the correlation with Southwest is not perfect. What it may need is the development of other uses while retaining the affordable storefronts and economic activity that make the Capital City Market the wonderful place it is right now.
But even the housing component of the new bill makes little sense. The bill has the noble goal of increasing affordable housing for people like fire fighter, teachers, police officers, and other workers who simply can’t afford to live in the city. However, one particular line in the bill undermines this goal: “(k) The land trust shall require that all units developed under the program remain perpetually affordable.”
This sounds good, but if these homes are for sale, why would anyone buy them? Homeownership is one of the basic and most successful ways for people to build a stable financial future. The teachers and cops I know have the same dreams of financial independence as anyone else. If they can’t sell the house at market rate later on, why buy it? It makes no sense. Creating homes that are affordable for first time buyers is a good thing, but to then limit the home’s future value is self-defeating.
In case you don’t know, the Capital City Market is the clump of wholesale and retail market and warehouse buildings along Florida Avenue near Gallaudet University in Northeast. It is a vibrant area full of small businesses and vendors. It may look a gritty, but it’s a thriving, non-blighted place.
I’ve got some concerns about the way the city and New Town Development, LLC, wish to redevelop the Capital City Market. I think a “main street” program that helped revitalize Barracks Row on Capital Hill is a great thing, but wholesale redevelopment of 24 acres of private property harkens back to the misguided policies of the mid-20th century that created so many urban problems and dead urban spaces, not to mention the destruction of many small businesses. The similarities are eerie: starting in the 1930’s and accelerating into the 1950s and 60s, local governments would declare an area “blighted”, and then use a combination of public and private money to “improve” the area. The problem was that many areas they labeled as “blighted” were anything but. They may have been working class and a bit run down in places, but they contained successful small businesses, families, churches, and tight-knit communities. Look at Southwest Washington between Independence and I-395, which is really nothing more than a suburban office park stuck next to the National Mall, to see the legacy of 1950’s redevelopment of blighted areas. Admittedly, the Capital City Market is a single use area (wholesale and retail), so the correlation with Southwest is not perfect. What it may need is the development of other uses while retaining the affordable storefronts and economic activity that make the Capital City Market the wonderful place it is right now.
But even the housing component of the new bill makes little sense. The bill has the noble goal of increasing affordable housing for people like fire fighter, teachers, police officers, and other workers who simply can’t afford to live in the city. However, one particular line in the bill undermines this goal: “(k) The land trust shall require that all units developed under the program remain perpetually affordable.”
This sounds good, but if these homes are for sale, why would anyone buy them? Homeownership is one of the basic and most successful ways for people to build a stable financial future. The teachers and cops I know have the same dreams of financial independence as anyone else. If they can’t sell the house at market rate later on, why buy it? It makes no sense. Creating homes that are affordable for first time buyers is a good thing, but to then limit the home’s future value is self-defeating.
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