Planning
Dear Planned For:
Ed Delaney and Sue Hemberger, below, write about two aspects of the
city's planning process — the secrecy with which the city is pursuing
plans for a baseball stadium as part of the Anacostia Waterfront
Initiative (Ed rightly calls it a “clandestine process”) and what
Sue calls the “mind-boggling” way in which the Office of Planning
deals with neighborhoods and residents. Good city planning is done to
benefit the residents of the city, and involves the citizens in the
process of planning from the very beginning. When planning is done
right, it is done from the bottom up; it starts with and builds on the
needs and desires of the residents. But in DC, planning begins with the
greed and desires of politically favored developers, and the
administration, the Office of Planning, and the city council treat the
city's citizens as obstacles to be overcome. Citizens are brought in at
the last step of the planning process, after the city's plans are
complete, and they are brought in only to be informed of what will be
done. The plans, whether they profit the Billionaire Boys Baseball Club
or the average politically connected developer, supposedly represent
progress, and citizens who may object to what will be done to their
communities are viewed merely as obstructionists. This isn't a class
conflict; it isn't rich against poor, or rich neighborhoods against poor
neighborhoods. It's them against all of us, rich, middle-class, and
poor.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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A Delegate Condition (or, Regime Change Begins
at Home Rule)
Mark Eckenwiler, themale at ingot dot org
Just to put the DC Democratic Presidential Preferential Primary in
perspective, here's a depressing quiz: of the 39 DC delegates to the
Democratic Convention, how many will be chosen by citizen participants
in the caucuses later this year? 100 percent? 75 percent? Half?
Nope. Try 26 percent (10 of 39). The other 29 are automatically
included by virtue of official position (e.g., the mayor) or hand-picked
later by the State Committee. (See http://www.dcdemocrats.org/delegateselection.pdf
for details.) Of those 29, the vast majority (23) are “unpledged” (aka
“superdelegates”), meaning that they are not committed to a
particular candidate. According to a chart in last Sunday's Post Outlook
section, no other US jurisdiction has such a lopsided proportion of
party-insider delegates.
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The Times ran a detailed story on the DC baseball effort's
plans for a stadium at Banneker Overlook (http://www.washtimes.com/sports/20040122-113957-3019r.htm).
The implications of considering such a site and the manner in which the
process has been conducted are extremely troubling. Jack Evans points
out that: “This is still very much in the conceptual stage.”
However, the time for this to be in the conceptual stage was either in
1999 during the DC Sports Commissions stadium site evaluation project,
or the 2002 redux of that (both of which were funded with upwards of
half a million dollars of DC public funds and included every possible
site in the city, according to the consultants), not to have it
presented as late as 2004. In fact, its absence from the studies
suggests that it did not meet the criteria set forth by the well-paid
consultants who examined every possible site in the District and
winnowed them down to a list of only six.
An excuse for Banneker Overlook‘s being overlooked as a stadium
site is offered, but doesn't hold water in the slightest: “It is
because of such uniqueness Banneker Park was not included in the 2002
ballpark site evaluation study led by the DC Sports & Entertainment
Commission and later forwarded to MLB executives. The goal of that study
instead was to find potential ballpark sites that could be more readily
developed without any disruption to roadways.” “Uniqueness” isn't
the word, since Capitol North disrupted the I-395 extension and New
Jersey Avenue as well as the suggested closing of 6 blocks of 1st
Street, SE, to make a Eutaw Street-type walkway, MVS closed a section of
4th Street and I Street, the Anacostia one would have closed part of 1st
Street and O Street, SE, and the NY Avenue site would reportedly have
necessitated a major reworking of the NY Avenue/Florida Avenue
intersection as well as other redesigns of NY Avenue to made it more
aesthetically pleasing. More likely, the site was found to be
insufficient because of the uniqueness of the enormous logistical and
cost implications too lengthy to list but which the article does
chronicle in part, including this unique quandary: “Decking part of an
outdoor stadium over a roadway, however, is believed to be without
precedent in America.”
It is equally troubling to learn from the piece that “city
officials have spent the last two months quietly studying the pros and
cons of Banneker Park as a stadium site.” It’s not only troubling
because of the waste of time and money this makes the site evaluation
studies if new sites previously passed over are now receiving more
time-consuming (and dollar-consuming) study from public officials, but
because of the clandestine nature that once again appears to rear its
ugly head in the MLB chase and leaves the public as the last to know and
out in the cold as far as the information loop and more importantly, the
decision-making process. And this next item from the story confirms that
officials are indeed spending more time and effort on evaluating stadium
sites and financing options when the two studies were supposed to have
accomplished that: “If a Banneker ballpark were developed, Evans said
he likely would seek to replace a proposed tax on the gross receipts of
District businesses with some combination of other funding elements that
could include federal transportation funds or additional private capital
from developers.” And as none of the stadium funding elements have
materialized after intense efforts over the past few years to secure
them, Evans adds that “I'd certainly like to do this without raising
taxes.” That quote is particularly foreboding since it leaves open the
implication that while he wouldn’t like to do this without raising
taxes, he still would! Further bolstering that is the fact that Evans
supported the idea starting this summer that the city divert excess tax
revenues from the convention center’s bonding to the stadium despite
repeated public promises from Evans and just about everyone associated
with the DC effort that no existing revenue would be diverted from the
general fund, as well as his telling the Portland Oregonian in
September 2003 that he “hasn't ruled out levying new taxes” for a
stadium! To further make his point to the Oregonian, Evans told
them that “I just built an $800 million convention center. I can
certainly build a baseball stadium.”
And how are DC citizens supposed to have found out about all of this?
Not by being engaged by those city officials for their input, but
through a carefully framed leak from the DC MLB effort via the Times
sports section months after its consideration and evaluation; only
sharing comments from two boosters (Evans and noted listmaker Fred Malek)
who wax poetic about the site! When exactly do DC citizens — whose
money has gone towards the two costly site evaluation projects and who
will no doubt be asked to fund the stadium directly and indirectly —
and those living near the potential stadium project in question get to
have their say? This question is especially relevant since those
affected could encompass quite a large part of the community — given
that the project, like many of the potential stadium sites, could be
used to spearhead or even fast-track a city development plan such as the
Office of Planning suggested for most of the previous stadium proposals,
which in this case would be the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative. The AWI
has tremendous implications that demand extensive public input, and it
is imperative that the input be included on the front end of the project
all the way through, not only the back end. Perish the thought that the
DC baseball effort actually consult on the front end with anyone but
themselves or some interested private concerns like Herb Miller,
“chairman of District-based Western Development Corp. and a friend to
Evans,” as the article states. It further states that “the Banneker
site has drawn interest from local private developers in the property,
particularly Herb Miller” with Evans adding that “Herb is the one
that first mentioned the idea to me." So despite the considerable
hurdles that all seem to point at the impracticality of considering this
site — not to mention two separate studies on the subject finding the
site insufficient for a stadium, a few well-placed whispers from a
developer has “city officials [spending] the last two months (and
likely more public resources) quietly studying” the previously
discarded stadium site and drawing up sketches as the article states.
Now that I’ve seen this, I wish I were a friend of Evans and had some
private interests to peddle; who knows what I could get city officials
quietly spending two months on?
Finally, we learn that “the Banneker site will be mentioned during
further discussions city officials likely will have with MLB later this
winter.” Yes, it’s already been decided by select baseball boosters
to discuss with MLB officials a site that was left out of the site
evaluation studies and the public process (such as it was) that
followed, but without consulting the public or relevant public
officials! I thought the DC baseball effort pledged to engage the public
as part of the stadium and site selection process; instead, they’ve
gone around it by ignoring the public completely as well as the process
they designed themselves, and are now seeking to deal directly with
anyone but the public on this matter until the absolute last minute.
This is unacceptable, and reaffirms the need for the public to be in
control of this process lest private interests from Herb Miller to Fred
Malek and beyond as well as select public officials from the mayor to
Jack Evans (who builds convention centers single-handedly, to hear him
tell it) keep quietly scheming up plan after plan with only themselves
and MLB in the loop for as long as it suits them.
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Office of Planning
Sue Hemberger, Friendship Heights, smithhemb@aol.com
So, what's your neighborhood's experience with the Office of Planning
(OP)? Up here in Tenleytown/Friendship Heights, it's been truly
mind-boggling, and I've sensed from previous posts in this forum that
other neighborhoods have had similar experiences. But because each of
these development disputes is so localized and time-consuming, and
because residents in each neighborhood are so easily and automatically
represented to other city-dwellers as NIMBYs, I suspect that very few of
us have a big-picture perspective on planning throughout the District.
Help me put together the pieces of this puzzle — please tell your
OP story (positive or negative, here or privately via E-mail to me at smithhemb@aol.com).
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Still Dealing with the Aftermath of Isabel
Annie McCormick, amccormick@itic.org
Isabel swept through town September 18-19, 2003. Here it is the end
of January, a full four plus months later, and there is still a pile of
tree debris on the side of 14th and N Streets, NW. The interesting thing
is that right after the hurricane, the television news showed the same
pile on TV (we recognized the pile and the building). But there the pile
still sits. In the meantime, someone has discarded a Christmas tree on
top of the pile, but it's anyone's guess when the debris will finally be
removed.
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Re: 3:30 in the Afternoon/Crime in the City
Richard Layman, rlaymandc@yahoo.com
I am not trying to downplay what Larry Seftor wrote about a shooting
in Friendship Heights, but without knowing a lot more about what
happened, the generalizations he made aren't necessarily supportable.
Much of the gun crime in DC occurs between people who know each other,
or it occurs in "edge areas" like Capitol Hill, edge areas
defined as geographic areas with a mixing of people with a great
disparity of socioeconomic status levels. I don't think that means don't
be concerned (i.e., don't make acquaintance with people who own guns)
but I think it is difficult to say that people are starting to use guns
in the Friendship Heights area, “because there are no police.” The
best thing FH has going for it is the pedestrian vitality on the
streets, which helps “crowd out” negative behavior.
In any event, we can't substantively impact crime rates in the city
without really understanding the etiology of crime, especially in
particular neighborhoods. This is why the data and analysis programs
pioneered in NYC under William Bratton are so important.
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Friendship Heights and Property Taxes
Michael Bindner, mikeydc at yahoo dot com
The Booeymongers shooting was not surprising to me, since that area
has in the past been a robbery hot zone. However, murders are rare. The
murder will likely lead to increased patrol.
As to property taxes, it would be good to revamp the tax and spending
system in DC and assign various tax revenues to the funding of specific
activities (so that taxes can be adjusted for spending needs and
spending can be set to adequately deliver services). In such a system,
property taxes would fund fire protection, police patrols, street repair
on non-thoroughfares (supplemented by gas taxes) and neighborhood
services (trash, residential enforcement). They would also fund debt
service (as they do now). Sales taxes would be used to regulate
commercial transactions, while revenue from alcohol taxes would fund
restaurant and liquor sales enforcement and drug and alcohol treatment
services. Income taxes would fund education and social services.
Finally, if property tax values go up too much, there should be an
automatic cut in rates so that the growth in revenue matches the growth
of spending, but not more.
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Sorry to belabor the property tax debate, but I am compelled to
respond to the bogus reasoning in Mr. Lazere’s recent posting about
property tax relief. Mr. Lazere’s most sensational point is that the
10 percent cap would have resulted in the bulk of the relief going to
higher-value homes in Wards 2 and 3. He fails to indicate, however, that
he means dollar total relief and not percentage-per-household relief, an
inflammatory comparison. Since the higher valued homes are located in
Wards 2 and 3, Mr. Lazere is simply pointing out the obvious — that 15
percent (old 25 percent cap minus proposed 10 percent cap) multiplied by
a bunch of $500,000 homes will result in a higher dollar amount than
multiplying 15 percent by a bunch of $100,000 homes. This is third grade
math. So of course the higher-valued homes in Wards 2 and 3 will receive
higher dollar relief from a cap. But everyone would receive the same
percentage benefit citywide, i.e., all homeowners would be assured of
paying no more than a 10 percent annual increase. According to the Chief
Financial Officer’s testimony on the cap proposal, 71,385 of 86,627
homeowners would have benefited from the 10 percent cap.
Mr. Lazere notes how much relief would go to each Ward under the cap,
but ignores how much tax each Ward contributes to begin with.
Higher-value homes simply pay much higher dollar taxes. A $100,000 home
pays $672 and a $500,000 home pays $4,512. Since the higher-value homes
are mostly located in Wards 2 and 3, it should come as no surprise that
homeowners in these two Wards alone contribute 56 percent of the city’s
residential real property revenue. By comparison, Wards 7 and 8 combined
contribute only 6 percent of the revenue. By Mr. Lazere’s bizarre
logic of ward proportionality, shouldn’t homeowners in Wards 2 and 3
start complaining about paying far more than their proportional share of
taxes?
Mr. Lazere denies being a “high tax advocate.” But by advocating
for the Mendelson proposal, Mr. Lazere makes his position very clear —
he believes taxes should increase at the exponential rate of 20 percent
per year. So, if the shoe fits. . . .
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About Property Taxes and Community Action
Muriel Nellis, limn@lcadc.com
[Zinnia, themail, January 24, wrote:] “The lack of community
support [at the city council's public hearing on property taxes] is
truly astounding to me. Is everyone else out there living without a
budget constraint?”
It would be useful (even neighborly) to accommodate those of us who
have to tend to business, family and “budget constraints.” I’m
certain that many more than thirty people’s opinions were in the minds
and mail boxes of our various Council members. I know that I was not
alone in having sent strong and urgent messages prior to that hearing. I’m
grateful that this site offers the opportunity and information that
makes all manner of participation possible.
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As a District of Columbia homeowner, banker, and Commissioner, I want
to thank Councilmembers Catania and Evans for their fine legislative
work on behalf of District of Columbia homeowners. I admire both the
legislation and the fact that both members held steady under the
pressure from the opposition. Sometimes the minority is more vocal then
the majority in this city.
There are still neighborhoods in the City that have not had recent
assessments. When homeowners in these areas get reassessed in the coming
months they will too appreciate and enjoy the sensible benefits in the
legislation. Both Catania and Evans showed strong bipartisan leadership
on one of the most important issues that will benefit many District
residents.
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Property Taxes, A Continuing Saga
Nora Bawa, botanica@hotmail.com
While the property tax debate is settled for the time being, it will
surely re-surface in the too-near future. Here's a thought that seems
not to have been considered: rather than deal with differences in wards
or the value of individual properties when addressing fairness, why not
have a sliding scale, based upon the time in residence at the address.
In this way, people who bought their house as a home rather than for
speculation, seniors, and others who have lived in and maintained their
property for a long time, will be taxed at a lower rate that those who
upgrade frequently and make a hefty profit thereby.
This, plus a higher homestead deduction, would go a long way to
giving the city a fair percentage of the benefits of a hot housing
market while at the same time not driving longtime and/or less-affluent
residents out. Comments, anyone?
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Here's a question (and it's an actual question, not a rhetorical
point, because I really don't know): couldn't property tax caps wind up
putting the District in a position similar to California's? Granted, the
Prop 13 caps out there are much stricter than DC's 10 percent proposal,
but should this be a concern?
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CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Home Rule Anniversary Reception, January 29
James Bubar, DC Affairs Section Co-Chair, DC Bar, JBubar@aol.com
Please be sure to come to the DC Affairs Section's reception on
Thursday, January 29, in recognition of the thirtieth anniversary of the
signing of the District's Home Rule Act. The event will also honor the
life of Mayor Walter E. Washington. The reception will be held from 6 to
9 p.m. at the Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, in Room
412. There will be light hors d'oeuvres and refreshments. Cost is $20
for section Members, $25 for non-section members, and $20 for government
and nonprofit employees.
You need not be a bar section member to attend. Reservations (credit
card payments only) may be faxed to the DC Bar at 824-1877, or sign up
at the bar web site: http://www.dcbar.org.
You can also pay at the door. This event was rescheduled from last
month.
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National Building Museum Events, February 9
and February 25
Briana Hensold, bhensold@nbm.org
Bill Bamberger lectures on his photography on Monday, February 9,
6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Bill Bamberger, the highly acclaimed photographer
of American life whose work is featured in the exhibition Stories of
Home, will discuss the intimate nature of his work and the challenges
and benefits of artistic projects that invite everyday citizens to
express themselves as part of the creative process. This lecture
complements the exhibition Stories of Home, which will be open for
viewing. Admission $12 for museum members and students; $17 for
nonmembers. Registration required.
This House Is Home documentary will be shown, followed by a
discussion, on Wednesday, February 25, 12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. This
compelling documentary, created by University of North Carolina
undergraduate student Erin Sullivan, chronicles the conception and
design of the mobile gallery and its daily life in San Antonio. After a
screening of the documentary, photographer Bill Bamberger, mobile
gallery designer Gregory Snyder, and Sullivan will discuss the film and
their collaborative roles in the “This House Is Home” initiative.
This program complements the exhibition Stories of Home. Free.
Registration not required. Both events at the National Building Museum,
401 F Street, NW (Judiciary Square Metro, Red Line).
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CLASSIFIEDS — SERVICES
Income taxes prepared in your home or business. I come to you. Call
331-4418 for an appointment or E-mail TrendiVisionsltd@aol.com.
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CLASSIFIEDS — RECOMMENDATIONS
Anyone know a good brick repointer? The mortar between the bricks on
the side of my house has grown soft and porous, causing a leak in one of
our bedrooms.
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ISO House Painter
David Sobelsohn, dsobelso-at-capaccess-dot-org
A friend of mine who just purchased a condo is looking for a good
house painter. Please contact me directly or post your recommendations
to themail.
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