From: HistoricWashington@yahoogroups.com
To: HistoricWashington@yahoogroups.com
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2014 02:25:59 -0700
Subject: [HistoricWashington] McMillan Park or Massive Development--What`s at stake?
The place we are trying to save (www.friendsofmcmillanpark.org) for all kinds of recreation, is McMillan Park, the 25 acre National and DC registered historic site on N. Capitol with the concrete silos. We can have various recreation, sunset strolls and skyline views, sustainable agriculture in the 20 acres under-surface masonry galleries, a Glen Echo style historic art/performance/classes campus, a Wolf Trap for outdoor concerts and music festivals, a "Great place" to walk, bike, meet and picnic every day. A large Central DC park where the city is deprived of green space, 1/5 as the privileged sections of upper NW.
The DC govt. kept the 25 acres of green-space inaccessible with a barbed wire topped fence for 28 years. Would that have happened in Friendship Heights?
They now plan to "surplus", a give-away of public land to corporate conglomerate Vision McMillan Partners, to pave over the site for 600 condos, multi-family buildings,
2 humongous 13 story medical office towers(untenanted), a small pool and community center in a lawn, a McPark, in front of a grocery store also still untenanted. This is a real Estate investment scam of the most massive size with 10 development corporations, everyone is in on this one, a $ Billion privatization at our expense.
The cool breezy green space soon to switch to an "urban heat island" of continual construction for many, many years. They will have to demolish the Registered Historic Place, demolish the mystical underground masonry arched galleries, 20 acres where the district fresh food and nutrition hub awaits family participation. If we fight for it!! We can grow "vertical agriculture" indoors in the McMillan Underground, including fresh fish with aquaponics, (see this fascinating video http://youtu.be/ILzWmw53Wwo)
Even the First Street sewer tunnel shows miserable planning, as green infrastructure and saving the sand filtration site could supply water for the urban agriculture and the aquaponics, like the new DC Sustainable Agriculture Bill supports, and we *must* save the site for our own clean water security.
Please see the City Council hearing video below, Brookland residents landscape architect Mary Pat Rowan and historic restoration artist Daniel Wolkoff testify to Muriel Bowser Chair of the City Council Committee on Economic Development. This link goes to the testimony on McMillan Park from February 2014
http://youtu.be/uXkOgHV7Lhw
It is our land, our food, nutrition and exercise hub, a Glen Echo type cultural/performance and art space, and a Wolf Trap outdoor concert place in DC, just take a stand for our city! The sustainable adaptive re-use potential is endless! Stop the "out of any balance" Zoning, stop the corporate "give-away" by Mayor Gray, the City Council, Kenyan McDuffie and Muriel Bowser.
Who is minding the Fox?
The Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, Jeff Miller, former VP at Trammel Crow lead developer, has hired an "astroturf" PR firm from Baltimore. The Jamie Fontaine Company, to subvert our legitimate community input. Their own documents say "Neutralize the Opposition", "set up community opinion leaders", they list the repeat supporters, the same "broken records that testify over and over again, like Cheryl Cort of the so-called Coalition for Smart Growth. Fontaine will "supply all materials, lawn signs etc", to "create the appearance of community support". We now pay our taxes to have our own democratic input corrupted by a Baltimore PR firm, we have No Voice when Nobody Listens.
The DC govt. kept the 25 acres of green-space inaccessible with a barbed wire topped fence for 28 years. Would that have happened in Friendship Heights?
They now plan to "surplus", a give-away of public land to corporate conglomerate Vision McMillan Partners, to pave over the site for 600 condos, multi-family buildings,
2 humongous 13 story medical office towers(untenanted), a small pool and community center in a lawn, a McPark, in front of a grocery store also still untenanted. This is a real Estate investment scam of the most massive size with 10 development corporations, everyone is in on this one, a $ Billion privatization at our expense.
The cool breezy green space soon to switch to an "urban heat island" of continual construction for many, many years. They will have to demolish the Registered Historic Place, demolish the mystical underground masonry arched galleries, 20 acres where the district fresh food and nutrition hub awaits family participation. If we fight for it!! We can grow "vertical agriculture" indoors in the McMillan Underground, including fresh fish with aquaponics, (see this fascinating video http://youtu.be/ILzWmw53Wwo)
Even the First Street sewer tunnel shows miserable planning, as green infrastructure and saving the sand filtration site could supply water for the urban agriculture and the aquaponics, like the new DC Sustainable Agriculture Bill supports, and we *must* save the site for our own clean water security.
Please see the City Council hearing video below, Brookland residents landscape architect Mary Pat Rowan and historic restoration artist Daniel Wolkoff testify to Muriel Bowser Chair of the City Council Committee on Economic Development. This link goes to the testimony on McMillan Park from February 2014
http://youtu.be/uXkOgHV7Lhw
It is our land, our food, nutrition and exercise hub, a Glen Echo type cultural/performance and art space, and a Wolf Trap outdoor concert place in DC, just take a stand for our city! The sustainable adaptive re-use potential is endless! Stop the "out of any balance" Zoning, stop the corporate "give-away" by Mayor Gray, the City Council, Kenyan McDuffie and Muriel Bowser.
Who is minding the Fox?
The Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, Jeff Miller, former VP at Trammel Crow lead developer, has hired an "astroturf" PR firm from Baltimore. The Jamie Fontaine Company, to subvert our legitimate community input. Their own documents say "Neutralize the Opposition", "set up community opinion leaders", they list the repeat supporters, the same "broken records that testify over and over again, like Cheryl Cort of the so-called Coalition for Smart Growth. Fontaine will "supply all materials, lawn signs etc", to "create the appearance of community support". We now pay our taxes to have our own democratic input corrupted by a Baltimore PR firm, we have No Voice when Nobody Listens.
Anthony Hood, the Chairman of the Zoning Commission, said at the end of a month of hearings, "nobody testified to save the entire 25 acre park". He admits to not listening to or reading dozens of community testimony to *do just that*!
Trammel Crow has hired top dog government lobbyists The Carmen Group, at $10,000 a month "indefinitely", who have visited Mary Cheh and David Grosso. The sole source "exclusive rights agreement" and still unethical dirty tricks, By Jeff Miller at DMPED and the Development Conglomerate, for their $100's of millions in profit! Friends take your city back, start right here at McMillan.
Save McMillan Park!!!
Daniel Goldon Wolkoff
1231 Randolph Street, NE
Washington, DC 20017
202-232-8391
Trammel Crow has hired top dog government lobbyists The Carmen Group, at $10,000 a month "indefinitely", who have visited Mary Cheh and David Grosso. The sole source "exclusive rights agreement" and still unethical dirty tricks, By Jeff Miller at DMPED and the Development Conglomerate, for their $100's of millions in profit! Friends take your city back, start right here at McMillan.
Save McMillan Park!!!
Daniel Goldon Wolkoff
1231 Randolph Street, NE
Washington, DC 20017
202-232-8391
4 comments:
As long as reasonable opponents of the McMillan project allow themselves to be overshadowed by hysterical people putting forth laughable proposals like growing "fresh fish," growing plants underground in collapsing vaults (don't plants need sunlight?), and using archaic sand filtration technology to purify water for agriculture (not even sure what this means, frankly), the majority of residents of the area, like me, will conclude that we're better off with a solid proposal put forth by experienced developers. It's almost like the developers have seeded the opposition with dreamers to sap their credibility.
Some residents are able to distinguish the fact that that different people have different ideas and that the "opposition" is composed of more than one person.
While I certainly think Mr. Wolkoff has unique ideas that are unlikely to be implemented, I'm not so foolish to think he represents anything more than his own ideas.
Frankly he drowns out other voices. It's unfortunate, frankly, because I'm not convinced that the development is a good idea, and I fear it ending up either destroying us with traffic, being shoddily built, or being a monstrosity like DCUSA.
Citizenalpha: I get around the neighborhood quite a lot, as it were. I have meet dozens upon dozens of neighbors, some of whom are not all that engaged in the McMillan project. For these neighbors who are not all that engaged, their general perception is that the "fringe" positions indeed represent the key opposition position.
Not what you wanted to hear, but that is my anecdotal observation.
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