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| | Neighbors irked by proposal
to reroute Pennsylvania | | June 29, 2009 | | | | Voice Correspondent | | Norma Wright and her husband were attracted to Capitol Hill six years ago by a quiet charm that they felt set it apart from busier neighborhoods. The park across from their Edwardian row house on D Street SE needed improvement, and the Eastern Market Metro plaza on nearby Pennsylvania Avenue SE seemed a little dreary, but those were sore spots they could live with.
To the dismay of Wright and other residents, however, a pair of redevelopment proposals that have been in the works for years aim to do more than clean up the fragmented, shabby parks and Metro plaza. At issue are the potential reconfiguration of Pennsylvania Avenue and creation of a central square (or circle) equal in size to Stanton Park. A 16-member task force comprised of representatives from business and residential associations, assembled by the 10-year-old nonprofit revitalization group Barracks Row Main Street, is overseeing the design study.
Wright, who is president of the Eastern Market Metro Community Association (EMMCA), and other community leaders contend that the design study has lacked transparency. Wright’s group, which was not originally represented on the task force but later included after it complained, says task force leaders have ignored the views of homeowners who would be affected by a change in traffic flow. They are bracing for a confrontation on July 1, when a set of proposals for the land is unveiled at St. Peter’s Church, 313 2nd St. SE.
“I’ve invited the task force to my house so they can see how close it is to the avenue,” Wright said last week. “Over and over, our opinions have been disregarded.”
Plans for a town square have been in the works since 2002, according to Dick Wolf, president of the Capitol Hill Restoration Society. In 2002, his group and the Capitol Hill Association of Merchants & Professionals (CHAMPS) put up $2,500 each to study landscaping options for the Eastern Market Metro plaza and adjacent pocket parks — federal property that Congress has entrusted to the District to control. The leaders of those groups began discussing the resulting design plans with D.C. legislators and advisory neighborhood commissioners, Wolf said, though the idea to reconfigure Pennsylvania Avenue materialized later.
Around 2003, Barracks Row Main Street began to receive federal appropriations earmarked for the plaza’s planning and construction, with the help of Hill resident Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., according to Barracks Row President E. Linwood “Tip” Tipton, a lobbyist with the Tipton Group and co-chair of the task force. Tipton’s group now controls $2.5 million in federal funds and $200,000 in District funds earmarked for the project. The goal is to link Barracks Row and Eastern Market to create a pedestrian-friendly destination spot for shoppers, tourists and residents of the metropolitan area.
Tipton’s group assembled the task force last summer. “It was Tip and I and a number of people sitting around deciding who in the broader community would have an interest in developing the neighborhood,” said David Perry, a Barracks Row board member and co-chair of the task force. “You can’t have huge meetings to do this sort of thing. You have a steering committee to ensure broad representation.”
The original 11-member task force tapped veteran D.C. architect Amy Weinstein to conduct the design study. Weinstein came up with three proposals: one to spruce up the parks and Metro plaza and leave Pennsylvania Avenue intact; a second to create a rectangular central park and re-route the avenue around it; a third to create a traffic circle with a park in the center and triangular parks off the circle to the northeast and southwest.
Though the restoration society's Wolf, who is on the task force, said he doesn't speak for the group as a whole, he acknowledged that the planners’ ambitions to improve the stature and commercial viability of the area are high.
“This is the nation’s capitol, the world’s capitol,” Wolf said. “We [on Capitol Hill] are a small town in a major city, but we are part of a major attraction. Some residents like this area the way it is, but the issue is larger than them.”
The Pennsylvania Avenue reconfiguration idea surfaced last summer. Community meetings last July and October attracted hundreds of residents, and some people voiced objections. Last week the task force reviewed Weinstein’s proposals, and on July 1 the community will have another opportunity to weigh in. After the presentation, there will be a 45-day public comment period, said task force co-chair Perry. The task force will then winnow down the options and begin a cost analysis. “We’d hope that the task force could reach a consensus at that point,” he said.
The final proposal will require approval from the National Capital Planning Commission, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and at least two District agencies. The process could take years.
Charles Allen, chief of staff for Ward 6 D.C. Council member Tommy Wells, said his office is looking to the D.C. Office of Planning and the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development to facilitate a comprehensive planning process in light of redevelopment plans at nearby Hine Middle School and the Old Naval Hospital. But Sean Madigan, spokesperson for the deputy mayor's office, said his office is not involved.
Anita Hairston, chief of staff at the Office of Planning, said her office has its “finger on the pulse” of the Metro plaza project. When asked about her office’s view of a Pennsylvania Avenue reconfiguration, she replied, “I don’t get the sense that we are at the point where that is the leading option.”
According to Wolf, a 40-year veteran of city planning, significant District government involvement would be premature at this stage. “You’d be surprised how much gets done in this city as a result of community planning,” he said.
Some in the immediate vicinity of the proposed project feel that Tipton and Barracks Row Main Street commandeered the planning process even as the group apparently attempted to include more people by expanding the size of the original task force. Norma Wright’s D Street neighbors Barbara and Thomas Riehle say Barracks Row appointed a D Street representative to the task force without telling other residents. “That was news to us,” said Barbara Riehle, who helped found EMMCA, which has 65 members from D Street and the vicinity who are now formally represented on the expanded 16-member task force.
“We have enormous concerns about the process from the beginning,” she said, citing meeting announcements and task force e-mails that excluded her group, and unanswered questions about why traffic reconfiguration is necessary. “The residents have not been consulted because we don’t like the ideas that involve rerouting Pennsylvania Avenue. I think Tip Tipton has dealt with us separately so we would have limited access to deliberations.”
Tipton, whose D Street lobbying offices are across from where Riehle and Wright live, has strong feelings about such allegations.
“The community has rushed to judgment,” he said. “EMMCA has not been left out. They are represented on the task force and their views are respected.” Tipton declined to say which proposal he favors. Both he and Perry declined to explain why reconfiguration is central to two of the proposals.
EMMCA is not the only group that feels the planning process has left some community stakeholders in the dark.
“There’s a [verbal] report [to the Barracks Row Main Street board] each month but not much in the way of specifics,” said Julia Christian, a Barracks Row Main Street board member and executive director of CHAMPS, which is also represented on the task force. “Obviously with any development everyone wants to have a part in the process.”
Over at the Metro plaza, residents, commuters and patrons of area businesses have mixed opinions about the key issue: reconfiguration of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Mary Williams, of Dumphries, Va., used to work at the Navy Yard and still shops regularly in the area. She said rerouting “doesn’t make any kind of sense.”
But Charles Harrell, who lives at 12th and D streets, said reconfiguring Pennsylvania Avenue “sounds alright to me. It’s something different.”
The original version of this article quoted sources who incorrectly stated that the task force was assembled in the fall. It also incorrectly stated that there was a community meeting on the issue in December and that the idea to reconfigure Pennsylvania Avenue came to light in the fall. The Voice regrets the errors. | | | Capitol Hill Town Square | | | | Log in to comment on this article |
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