Brookland resident Daniel Wolkoff: testimony to Zoning Case 13-14 Vision McMillan Partners

Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 00:36:21 -0700
From: amglassart@yahoo.com
Subject: Testimony to Zoning Case 13-14 Vision McMillan Partners
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Testimony to Zoning Case #13-14 Vision McMillan Partners applicant

July 11, 2014

 Daniel Goldon Wolkoff

McMillan Coalition for Sustainable Agriculture

  We must have the guts to stand up for a sustainable future for our children. To oppose the financial, industrial, political and social structures that are destroying the earth's environment, to stop these excessive land development monstrosities, and their consumption of our resources.  We must have the integrity, to deny abuse of power, malfeasance in office, and institutional corruption, a culture of corruption in the DC govt. destructive to our city, our families, our quality of life, our health and the earth. We have to be strong and brave and do what is right, to conserve the green space for a healthy quality of life. It is treason against posterity to support the same destructive things that are causing this environmental cataclysm.  Massive out of scale, out of balance projects, the VMP PUD, this grossly out of proportion plan from applicant Vision McMillan Partners must be rejected and the safe, healthy sustainable alternatives explored. McMillan Park is public property, and no politician, developer or the Zoning Commission have the right to overwhelm the public good with this misguided project by applicant development conglomerate. 

                            Vision McMillan Partners have had a community meeting to present their TIS, Traffic Impact Study for McMillan Development Plan. This proposed development is on a DC and National Registered Historic Site, a site protected by our Historic Preservation Laws. You would think this is some kind of Parody or Horror Movie spoof. They will demolish 80% of the site, including 20 acres of "protected" underground filtration galleries perfect for adaptive re-use as "vertical farms", sustainable urban agriculture. see this video on "vertical" farming, we can feed DC from McMillan!
http://youtu.be/ILzWmw53Wwo
The Zoning Commission must reject the applicant's plan, for it's destruction of this DC and Nationally Registered protected historic site, destruction of productive underground galleries and destructive impact on local traffic congestion. They plan to cross the site with more than 6 new "private" streets, and leave two forlorn rows of historic structures peaking out from amid 50 buildings in the ultra modern "brutalist" style.  An incredible and awful mismatch of architecture, offensive to the eye, and completely destructive to the historic preservation of the DC and Nationally registered site. At this point in re-development the site is no longer McMillan, it is Vision McMillan Partners, ugly, poorly designed and environmentally destructive behemoth. How can anyone legitimately include 3000 parking spaces and over six “private” city streets in a protected historic site? That is "historic" abuse of our intentions, 3000 parking spaces will never be acceptable in a historic site, period? That is simply DISGUSTING! How much excessive traffic, and pollution, and noise, and congestion can we pile onto the DC and National Registered Historic Place? We must reject the destruction of our Historic Preservation Laws by our own Office of Planning and Historic Preservation Review Board and staff. HPO finally nominated McMillan to the National Park Service Registry of Historic Places, it received this award, and now the corrupt DC govt. is destroying it! Our office of Historic Preservation, Kim Williams wrote this excellent nomination to the National Register of Historic Places:  (http://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/13000022.htm.

From this document we understand that McMillan is a resource of NATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE and it is in remarkably preserved condition, ready for restoration, a “great place”, part of the original plan for The National Mall.

  This TIS, does not contain an analysis of impact on Emergency Vehicles, in a city with hundreds of thousands of emergency transport a year, and the world's busiest fire house a short distance away. The TIS lists “three hospitals" nearby. That is flatly wrong. I don't trust a consultant who cannot count! Cause there is Washington Medstar Hospital Complex, Children's National Medical Center, United States Veterans Hospital, National Rehabilitation Center, Providence Hospital, and Howard University Hospital and Armed Forces Retirement Home, basically a medical facility as well. In reality there are at least 7 large medical facilities with emergency rooms and ambulance services, that share these streets, to transport the critically injured, and specifically children! I fault any so called Traffic Study that doesn't even include the full impact of thousands of additional vehicles and the congestion and backups they cause, on the constant emergency vehicle transport on our city streets, life saving emergency transport to critical medical facilities directly adjacent to the development. Where is the necessary analysis concerning the impact on constant medical emergency traffic which shares the very same streets and intersections as the thousands of additional vehicles generated by the development?

A large child daycare facility associated with the hospital complex, is also right on the corner of First NW and Michigan, where the VMP development will cause continual traffic congestion and backups, right next to the children outside playing! The TIS reports "No impact expected on Bryant Street", that seems ridiculous. Bryant is now one lane, one way East , with parking on both sides between the two major thoroughfares, N. Capitol and First St. NW, a tiny narrow street, so how no impact? With the poorly timed traffic lights, (thanks to the miserable work of DDOT), on both ends of the unit block of Bryant NW, which are already a failure, it will be backed up end to end, and as many streets already are in this neighborhood. They will all increase in congestion and the poorly timed traffic lights will result in gridlock in many areas. If anyone has tried to drive west on Irving at 14th NW, you can see exactly how streets adjacent to this Mega-urbanization will all fail, and be backed up and delay all our residents simply trying to go home, or shopping or anywhere at any time. Transit study does not concern air quality, even though the present number of cars on N. Capitol is at least 30,000 a day, and VMP will add 20,000 more cars, trucks and buses. N. Capitol is an official emergency evacuation route from downtown DC. What will the impact be to have the 20,000 additional vehicles clogging this strategic route when a natural or man-made emergency is underway? The VMP TIS does not recommend any traffic slowing improvements on First St. south of Channing. Of course, VMP will cause so much congestion; they will not need anything to slow traffic. The issue is how will traffic move, or will it just back up on every corner, worse than it already does all day long, and practically stops during rush hours, like it does now? The VMP TIS states "the McMillan Development will add 1 car every 9-10 seconds on First St South of Channing St." As if that isn't a gigantic increase in traffic! That is so misleading, because 1 every 10 seconds, or even fewer off peak is like 5000 to 8640 more cars per day. Why should TIS so diminish its own statistics? Where are the simple extrapolations, so we see exactly what one car every nine seconds really means, thousands, and thousands of congested polluting cars each day, every day! So add 10,000 cars to First street when a "box store" has a sale, or the Chinese franchise restaurant has an "all you can eat" buffet. The traffic impact as described by this TIS is unacceptable, and destructive to the health and safety of our city, our community and our hospital networks. The City Council Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, and the DC FEMS, should be responding to this clear endangerment of their safety and effectiveness saving lives and serving the sick and injured in this city. Department of Homeland Security have designated evacuation routes which include as primary evacuation from the inner downtown area, North Capitol Street and it is clear the development will negatively impact safe and timely automobile and bus evacuation during emergencies in DC. Each of these critical issues are glossed over and given no importance in this TIS, and numerous more issues that this development creates, all compounded by planned and additional development at Washington Hospital Center, just as the Veterans Hospital was recently doubled in size and Children's National Medical Center was doubled only a few years ago and likely plans to increase in size again. Development equally excessive in size is also planned for Armed Forces Retirement Home and more development at North Capitol for Catholic University as well. How far behind are many more developments, compounding each and every negative impact, already unacceptable and destructive to the community by the excessive Vision McMillan Partners Monstrosity? We all have a responsibility for a livable city, we have a right to expect our city zoning, and planning agencies to protect the interests of DC residents, the applicant must be rejected. A livable city includes proper large outdoor green spaces and decent open air recreation, Save McMillan Park for our families, and children.

                             

Daniel Goldon Wolkoff

McMillan Coalition for Sustainable Agriculture

1231 Randolph Street, NE Washington, DC 20017 

202-232-8391