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Showing posts with label land swap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label land swap. Show all posts

Friday, January 17, 2014

Muriel Bowser on local Dupont/Logan/U Street Issues

Ward 4 City Councilmember and mayoral candidate Muriel Bowser spoke last night (January 16) to a group of approximately 60 potential voters in the ballroom of the Chastleton Cooperative (1701 16th Street NW). The event was co-hosted by several Commissioners from midcity Advisory Neighborhood Commissions (ANCs) and by the Bowser campaign.

Bowser spoke to the crowd about her biography, accomplishments, and vision for the future. See a one-minute YouTube sample of the beginning of Bowser's address below.

If video will not display, see it on YouTube here.

 

Here is what Bowser said about some of the issues of purely local interest, posed at a subsequent question-and-answer session.

16th Street Bus Traffic

ANC 2B/Dupont Circle Commissioner Kishan Putta (district 04) began the question-and-answer portion of the evening by asking Bowser about the difficulties that riders in his district were experiencing on the 16th Street bus (S1, 2, and 4). Putta told Bowser the buses were often full by the time they descended from Columbia Heights down to the area below U Street. Putta solicited another member of the audience to testify to the severity of the problem. The other member of the audience said on some mornings ten city buses pass by without stopping.

"We made some adjustments in the last year," Bowser said. "It sounds like we need to do more."

Bowser went on to say there was not a lot of extra space to add buses on 16th Street during rush hour, and special lanes were really not an option. However, Bowser said there could be improvements in "bus prioritization". Federal money had gone to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) for this purpose. WMATA had in turn transferred to funds to the District Department of Transportation (DDOT).

"But DDOT hasn't done anything about it," Bowser said.

Bowser also mentioned "bus signalization". This would enable approaching buses to send signals to traffic lights, which would help keep buses moving more smoothly through congested areas.

Reeves Center Land Swap

Bowser touched on the state of the proposed land swap that would trade the Reeves Center (14th and U Streets) for a parcel of land in Southwest Washington, in order to allow the construction of a stadium for the D.C. United soccer club. (See SALM blog post of January 7.)

"With the soccer stadium, it's not a fait accompli," Bowser said. "There are many moving parts to that."

Bowser called D.C. United "good neighbors" in D.C. and said they had approached the land swap deal thoughtfully. However, she was not enthusiastic about the land swap deal.

"It's not perfect. A land swap is a bad idea because we don't know the true value of the Reeves Center," Bowser said.

Bowser concluded that the $150 million that D.C. is putting into this deal would be better spent rebuilding the District's middle schools.

"What we should be doing now is challenging all the council members not to rubberstamp a deal that they haven't seen," Bowser said. "That's number one: let's get a good deal for the residents."

Charter Schools vs. Community Schools

An audience member objected to the way charter schools were developing, especially the way the students with the most involved parents ended up in charter schools, and the rest ended up in community schools.

"This is the problem of not being able to put the toothpaste back in the tube," Bowser said.

Bowser said she expected to continue to see a lot of charter schools attempt to open, but not always serving the people who needed them.

"We ought to be able to limit the number of charters that open and be able to direct what part of the city they open in," she said.

She continued: "You also probably know I have the unpopular idea that charter schools have to educate kids in their neighborhoods."

Bowser recalled that she had a big argument with journalist Tom Sherwood on this issue on WAMU's "Kojo Nnamdi Show". However, her opinion was unchanged.

"I do think we have to have a neighborhood preference for charter schools," Bowser said.

At the end of the question-and-answer session, ANC2B Commissioner Stephanie Maltz (district 03) thanked Bowser for coming to speak.

Also attending were ANC2A Commissioner Jackson Carnes (district 07), ANC2F Commissioner Chris Linn (district 03), ANC2B Commissioner Mike Silverstein (district 06), and Jack Jacobson, Ward 2 representative on the DC State Board of Education.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Reeves Center Swap Deadline Missed

Representatives of D.C.'s Department of General Services (DGS) told a public meeting January 2 the deadline had been missed for assembling a complex land swap that would open the way for D.C. United to build a new stadium at Buzzard's Point. According to the terms of the agreement between the team and the D.C. government, D.C. United may now choose to "exit the transaction".

D.C. United play Real Madrid in 2009 (Wikipedia)
DGS public outreach coordinator Kenneth Diggs and Chief Operating Officer Scott Burrell briefed Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 1B/U Street on the state of the land swap. The pair told ANC Commissioners that the promise had been to complete the deal by the end of 2013, but it had not been.

The end-of-December deadline was still being championed as late as December 17 by D.C. City Administrator Allen Lew, while at the same time the City Administrator's office was promising to send an agreement to the City Council before Christmas.

This is of great interest to ANC1B and local residents because, according to the proposed terms of the deal, the city will swap land at Buzzard's Point in Southwest Washington for the city-owned Reeves Center at 14th and U Streets NW. Commercial real estate developer Akridge may have to make a cash payment as well.

DGS testimony

In spite of the missed deadline, the deal still seemed to be in the works. Diggs and Burrell told ANC1B about the plans for disposal of the Reeves Center, should the deal go through. Three independent assessors would determine the worth of the Reeves Center, and "money would exchange hands". The plan now was to close the swap in "early to mid-2014" and then lease back the building to D.C. for three years so the agencies in the building would have time to find other accommodations.

At times, it seems like the DGS had astonishingly little information about the building they proposed to swap.

Commissioner James Turner (district 09) asked about the average maintenance budget for the Reeves Center.

DGS didn't know.

Turner then asked about the "book value" of the property.

DGS didn't know.

How many jobs would be moved? he continued.

All of them.

How many jobs was that? Turner asked.

DGS didn't know.

When pressed, the pair speculated that 70-80 percent of the jobs now in the current Reeves Center might move to the proposed new building, also to be called the Reeves Center, in Southeast Washington. The rest of the jobs might remain in the neighborhood, some perhaps at the office space above the Green Line metro station at 1250 U Street. The DGS currently rents space in this building.

Public reaction

The fate of the Reeves Center was the subject of a public hearing on December 17, 2013. At that time, to quote the Washington Post:
The dozens who spoke at the meeting were nearly united in their desire to see the Reeves Center replaced not with luxury apartments, as is almost certainly the most profitable use of the site, but with office space or other uses that would generate daytime commerce in a neighborhood that is increasingly dominated by nightlife businesses.
Members of the public who spoke at the January 2 meeting expressed similar sentiments.

One woman said: "We need daytime foot traffic. We don't need more high-priced condos."

"The community has a different definition of the efficient use of this space," one man said.

"It's offensive to the community to find our that you're giving away a community asset," another woman said. "We should have been part of the process."

"Maximizing profits shouldn't be the main goal," a resident of W Street said.

A woman who identified herself as a local resident since 1988 said: "Two thousand people work here. If you move them away, our area will lose daytime traffic. Businesses will close."

Brianne Nadeau, former ANC1B Commissioner and candidate for the Ward 1 seat on the D.C. City Council, spoke at the meeting and distributed a flyer calling on Mayor Vincent Grey and the D.C. Council
to specify commercial and community space as the primary designated uses for the building and lot, reserving office space within for entities such as the Office of Latino Affairs, the LGBT Center, the DOES Career Center and the U.S. Post Office...
Nadeau has set up an online petition in support of this initiative.

ANC1B unanimously passed a motion to hold another briefing about the fate of the Reeves Center with DGS and other appropriate agencies before the next ANC meeting in February.