Friday, August 01, 2014

Roger K. Lewis: "McMillan plan combines preservation, urban design and inventive architecture"

Click on the link to read the * entire *  post by Washington Post columnist Roger K. Lewis.

You should click on the link below to see the included cartoon graphic at the Post website  (which I have not copied in here to keep the Washington Post attorneys off my back) -- the graphic sums up the two positions well!
             

Real Estate

McMillan plan combines preservation, urban design and inventive architecture

 August 1 at 7:40 AM

The fate of the McMillan Sand Filtration Plant has been the subject of heated controversy ever since the federal government closed the water purification facility in 1986 and sold the 25-acre site to the District of Columbia.  During the years, dramatically differing opinions and ideas for transforming McMillan have led to multiple contrasting plans for the site.
But next month the destiny of the historically landmarked McMillan site may be determined and the disputes rendered moot.  The D.C. Zoning Commission is reviewing the latest plan (www.envisionmcmillan.com), a well-conceived, pragmatic work of urban design and architecture.
The ongoing controversy has pitted two camps against each other. One camp strongly believes that most if not all of the site should be a city park.  The other camp strongly favors blended use of the site — relatively intense real estate development coupled with a fair amount of open space.
...
Clearly, the plan for the McMillan site is much more than a conventional, two-dimensional mapping of land uses. It is a thoughtfully considered, multi-dimensional work successfully marrying historic preservation, creative urban design and inventive architecture, all benefitting the public. Already given a thumbs-up by the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board, this ambitious plan deserves the Zoning Commission’s approval.


Roger K. Lewis is a practicing architect and a professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland. His cartoon may be seen atwww.washingtonpost.com/realestate.

1 comment:

Daniel in brookland said...

More propaganda, disinformation from WAMU, Wash Post, City Paper, charged by the US constitution with informing the electorate. we have not been allowed to decide our own home, parks, stores, green space that we own, public land. Stop corruption in DC! This is pure rag journalism, to force this environmental catastrophe of wrong minded corruption down our throats, SHAME ON YOU ALL!
People get into the present day of global environmental crisis, and do the right thing, SAVE THE PARK! Get out of the manipulative delusion of "Smart growth", it's BIG MONEY!
Marypat and Phil Blair have fought to Save McMillan Park for 25 years!. Marypat exposes Jaime Fontaine Company, Baltimore PR firm DMPED hired to subvert democratic community opposition to mega over-development and demolition of McMillan Reservoir Historic District.The unethical, illegal subversion by DC officials of community rights to oppose environmental destruction, heat island, traffic congestion, destructive over-development on publicly owned park, we need to easily provide water- and food-security for all of DC.
http://youtu.be/uXkOgHV7Lhw
join friends of McMillan NOW!, McMillan Coalition for Sustainable Agriculture amglassart@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: [Brookland] McMillan story in today's Post
It reads like an ad. I wonder what the Post Ombudsman would think if this.
Katherine
12ish and Kearney

Here's a link to the McMillan story in today's Post real estate section.
Sounds like the reporter talked to only the developers:

.