To: HistoricWashington@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 02:40:15 -0800
Subject: [HistoricWashington] WAMU MetroConnection McMillan Report
How much history should be preserved at McMillan?
Is our history measured in amounts, by the yard, pound, sq. foot, percent, like VMP tells us? We have a case here at McMillan of successive DC administrations who placed no value on our history, *no value* on the residents of an entire section of their city. Since 1986 the DC government fenced this land off, blocking peoples access to their needed outdoor recreation, with absolutely no concern for community health. WAMU, would this park be fenced off had it been located in Friendship Heights or Georgetown?
To understand the historic importance please read our Office of Historic Preservation Kim William's excellent nomination to the National Register of Historic Places http://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/13000022.htm You will quickly understand that McMillan is an amazing resource of *national significance*, that it is in surprisingly good condition and its preservation, ironically, is by law a charge of the DC govt. McMillan is a Registered DC and National Park Service Registered Historic Place, not an office park, or condo row.
We have an unacceptable disparity in this city, based on institutional racism and economic class discrimination, with five times the park land provided to the priveledged upper NW sections of DC, than this dense and more urbanized section around McMillan Park. Would the DC govt. have waited thirty years to mitigate the flooding in Bloomingdale, had raw sewage been flooding into the basements of Kalorama?
In upper NW parks are geologic, cultural, historic civil war fortifications, stream valleys, Glens. So what percent of McMillan (a commodity) should be preserved as a park?
All of it, and we have to get the reservoir and all 113 acres of this Historic District included. Just like NY's Central Park, we need places to walk, hike, jog around the Reservoir, watch the sunset, the July 4th Fireworks.
Obesity is epidemic, so stop fencing our nicest area to jog, our area to grow urban gardens, healing gardens for Children's National Medical Center, *our* Glen Echo of art/performance/music/festivals, and millions of recreational use.
VMP has concocted the most ridiculous warnings of why we can't use the McMillan Park, *Our Park* for our needs. And it is offensive that the media trumpets the "ridiculous" instead of real investigation of this issue.
We have been blocked out as if we don't have any value to our own govt. , in recent years even ANC tours of the 20 acres of mystical underground vaulted galleries were blocked by Jeff Miller of Dep. Mayor's office, as hundreds of people began to see the value of real preservation and potential creative adaptive-re-use.
The 20 acres of under-surface galleries are perfect for "indoor urban agriculture" that can produce 5 times the fresh vegetables of regular farms, and provide for our food needs without trucking vegetables from California and Mexico. Should we let this opportunity disappear for VMP's big profits, for Mayor Gray, and his deputy mayor. Every benefit this community needs can be accomplished with saving all of McMillan as the wholeit was designed to be, and creating a sustainable eco- campus, it is VMP/Gray that cuts off the potential and builds over the site for 15 years.
This link below is a youtube video from the Netherlands shows the critical urban agriculture opportunity the DC govt. is now destroying in it's determination for a Suburban Office/Condo Mall, on our land, our park.
Using our licensed vertical indoor growing technology we could convert the McMillan/Olmsted Park caverns to a fully functional, local food production facility and only utilize a relatively small part of the space ... making it a totally sustainable site.
...now see this response from Richard Layman:
From: rlaymandc@yahoo.com
To: HistoricWashington@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 08:55:43 -0800
Subject: Re: [HistoricWashington] WAMU MetroConnection McMillan Report
Not that I want to "pick a bone" but one of the problems with consideration of "open space" issues in the city is the inadequate categorization of land.
In the 1950 Comp. Plan, which I have been reading lately, they have an additional category of "semi-public" space which included government-controlled non park lands, but not institutional spaces somewhat open to the public like college campuses such as Catholic University or the Franciscan Monastery. (The AFRH is another issue. My understanding is that they have long term plans to reopen for public access a significant part of their grounds.)
Much of the advocacy in Brookland fails to acknowledge that Greater Brookland probably has more "semi-public" space, especially that controlled by semi-public entities like colleges, than any other part of the city.
That being said, I am not impressed with the park plans put forth by VMP. It's an illustration that the impetus, guidance, and direction for robust park planning should come from the public sector and not necessarily from real estate interests (even though in general I have a high degree of respect for EYA in particular, one of the lead developers in the VMP partnership).
Richard Layman
In the 1950 Comp. Plan, which I have been reading lately, they have an additional category of "semi-public" space which included government-controlled non park lands, but not institutional spaces somewhat open to the public like college campuses such as Catholic University or the Franciscan Monastery. (The AFRH is another issue. My understanding is that they have long term plans to reopen for public access a significant part of their grounds.)
Much of the advocacy in Brookland fails to acknowledge that Greater Brookland probably has more "semi-public" space, especially that controlled by semi-public entities like colleges, than any other part of the city.
That being said, I am not impressed with the park plans put forth by VMP. It's an illustration that the impetus, guidance, and direction for robust park planning should come from the public sector and not necessarily from real estate interests (even though in general I have a high degree of respect for EYA in particular, one of the lead developers in the VMP partnership).
Richard Layman
No comments:
Post a Comment