Can you include the attached. It's good illustration of urban agriculture in the McMillan Caverns. thanks.
McMillan indoor vertical agriculture
Daniel Goldon Wolkoff comments on Kojo Namdi show today on Development in DC and saving open space:
Kojo managed again to avoid any real discussion of the social justice, as well as city planning issues at McMillan,thanks a lot Kojo, consistently distoriting the public debate on McMillan.
Kojo managed again to avoid any real discussion of the social justice, as well as city planning issues at McMillan,thanks a lot Kojo, consistently distoriting the public debate on McMillan.
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. Kojo, 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 Williams', excellent nomination for McMillan 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, and that it is in surprisingly good condition. Ironically its preservation, is in the DC govternment's incompetent, ignorant hands, who is by law, charged with McMillans preservation not paving over. McMillan is a Registered DC and National Park Service Registered Historic Place,,, not an office park, or condo row.
Mayor Gray/VMP development plan at McMillan will demolish the 20 acres of underground water filtration galleries, and over-urbanize the site with 50 buildings , including 13 story condos. The community struggle to Save McMillan Park, preserving the Olmsted designed surface park and existing 20 acres underground, creates the exciting potential for Sustainable large scale "indoor agriculture" and Family Fish Network, and creative food and other services. With proven vertical indoor growing technology we could convert the McMillan/Olmsted Park caverns to a fully functional, local food production facility , making it a truly sustainable site. Imagine superior organic fresh fruit, vegetables and Family Farmed Fish freshly produced right here in DC , no longer trucked from California, Florida and Mexico. Our food will be fresher, riper, pesticide free, and produced sustainably and we'll save energy, as thirty five percent of trucks on the road are transporting food!
Daniel Goldon Wolkoff
Adams Morgan Stained Glass
1231 Randolph Street, NE
Washington, DC 20017
Tel: 202-232-8391
www.adamsmorganstainedglass.com
Adams Morgan Stained Glass
1231 Randolph Street, NE
Washington, DC 20017
Tel: 202-232-8391
www.adamsmorganstainedglass.com
Sure great as long as Daniel is willing to come up with the extra money that will be need to do this no problem. Dan I am sure they will take a personal check.
ReplyDeleteVertical, indoor farming is a great idea, and I would love to see it come to DC. Maybe a collective can get some grant money and use an old warehouse in an industrial zoned area. We already have pot grow centers, why not lettuce...
ReplyDeleteHowever, this is a horrible use for desirably located public space, since the lighting and atmospheric conditions are good for plants, but bad for people. If Mr. Wolkoff does donate the millions of dollars necessary to reinforce and develop additional cells, I would suggest that he comes up with a plan that is more respectful of this amazing site and its value to the community. Why propose using such a special site for technology that is so useful specifically because it can be done anywhere?
I guess the $50 to $80 million the DC govt. has flushed down the toilet already at McMillan is not enough waste. All we need is much less cynicism, and you can do that. Your getting construction for 15 years of their profits, with your support of VMP , you'll be breathing heavy equipment exhaust fumes for 15 years, a bargain!
ReplyDeleteTregoning and Gray made an " exclusive rights agreement", no bid development plan to give away OUR McMillan Park where fabulous recreation on 25 acres above ground is crucial to a healthy DC, and they are manipulating the public to accept the destruction of the underground caverns. We need to fight the "surplussing", a corrupt $billion "give-away" to an out of town consortium of ten big corporate developers, of DC public assets at McMillan. We need to restore this beautiful historic site, our legacy in DC, and a Glen Echo art/music/ performance park , with sunset vistas, and safe place for kids to play. The brilliant "indoor agriculture" in caverns at McMillan can be a fresh food source for the District in 20 acres underground if we stop Gray from demolishing our park.
Please see this fascinating video: (http://youtu.be/ILzWmw53Wwo)
and you can understand the theft of our healthy future at McMillan by this corrupt city govt. Stop the "surplus" defeat Gray!
CNN reports DC has spent $80 million dollars on an urban farm of 25 acres creating the most expensive farm land in the world and you thought it couldn't get worse in Washington! LOLOLOL! Daniel Please! Create McMillan Park!
ReplyDeleteAs in all his posts, Mr. Wolkoff is conflating two separate arguments that should be addressed separately.
ReplyDelete1) Was the process in choosing a developer fair?
This has nothing to do with the quality of the development plan or the benefit to the community. A fair bidding process could result in horrible plans with high intensity development throughout the site, while (if Mr. Wolcoff ran the city), a corrupt, noncompetitive process could result in underground agriculture and fish farming. It all depends on the priorities in the selection process.
We can debate the fairness of the process all you want. On one hand, Mr. Bader recently posted documentation of a process that seems to have followed the rules... and there haven't been any successful lawsuits against the process, though I'm sure Mr. Wolcoff would have taken us in that direction if his case had any merit. On the other hand, I don't have a lot of faith in the ethical conduct of our city's government without oversight. It doesn't have a great track record.
However, at this point I believe that this whole argument is a distractor and a talking point. What is far more important is argument number two.
2) Will the current plans benefit the community.
Here Mr. Wolcoff is throwing another straw man at us... the idea that we could just turn around tomorrow and implement a "better" plan. The process that has led to the current plans has gone on for decades. The records that Mr. Bader has posted demonstrate the intense community involvement over the past years. If we scrap these plans and start from scratch, it will be another decade before we get back to the point we are now. During that decade the city will, as Mr. Wolcoff puts it, continue to "flush money down the toilet" to maintain the surface of the site while the underground structures continue to deteriorate.
So, do the current plans benefit the community? The answer is an unequivocal yes! They provide an enormous amount of park space and community resources on a fenced off industrial site that has been inaccessible for 70 years. They provide a much needed grocery store, and affordable housing. And yes... the development will make a profit for the developer. I suppose that Mr. Wolcoff knows lots of developers that will bid on projects in which they don't stand to make a profit, but I don't.
So, if the argument is that the bidding process was unfair, take your evidence to the courts where it belongs. If you think that our government officials are unethical, take it to the voters before the next election. If you think that there is a better plan for the McMillan site that can be implemented in a timely manner, I would love to see the practical details regarding financing, impact, and timelines for completion.
Alex,
DeleteLet me pose a question to you. If you took the current plan that VMP, LLC proposed to the zoning commission, did away with the medical center component (to be developed by Trammell Crow), and could still show how EYA and Jair Lynch would profit from the other two sections of development (multifamily/retail component and townhome component) and that the District would recoup all its invested expenses and generate enough revenue to sustain the undeveloped plots of land (albeit slightly less than currently proposed), would you support that plan more or less than the current plan being proposed? [I apologize for the run-on sentence]
I think part of the confusion in these discussions surrounds what is being funded by the District and what is being funded by the vertical developers associated with this project. The actual amenities in this case (e.g.community center, park, potential museum) are being funded by the District, as I understand things. The vertical developers are simply constructing development components that allow the District to re-coup any expenses for those community amenities through tax revenue. The only negative effect for taking any piece of land off the table for development is that the District loses additional revenue and developers lose additional profit. Those are the discussions and decisions that we need to be having (what level of return can the District live with) and speak in strict dollars and cents.
I am asking you in all sincerity. Such an approach in effect would not start from square one nor negatively impact the District in so much as it agrees to a lower return on investment. It would still utilize the current schematic/architectural drawings for the site. Just trying to deviate this conversation from an all or nothing discussion.
Mathew Bader
BCA MAG Representative
Thank you Mat, for your very rational question. I have been thinking a lot about the dynamics and politics of this discussion, and I think that we are in a very unfortunate situation. Politically, this discussion has devolved into two camps.
ReplyDeleteThere is a large group of people who want access to, and community benefit from McMillan. They feel that the current plans are an acceptable, if not ideal compromise that has been reached after years of discussion and negotiation.
There is another group that feels that we can do better than the current plans. Unfortunately, they are publicly represented by a few, very motivated, very vocal, very unrealistic ideologues who are attempting to fire-bomb the whole process and all the work that has gone into it. They distort the facts and accuse opponents of being either corrupt, or suckers to the developers.
I firmly believe that if it weren't for those few fundamentalists, members of both groups could come together to pressure the developers for additional community amenities. However, these particular voices are so loud that they are dominating the discussion and preventing a change in focus. As long as the argument is between the current plan and no plan, as opposed to "how can we make the current plan better?", I (and I believe the majority of the community) are for the current plan.
As for the answer to your specific, hypothetical question, I would need more information to answer. I don't know any of the developers personally, or have any information about their expenditures, but I can't imagine that all the various plans and drawings, years of community meetings and government hearings have been cheap for them. When you say they would still make a profit, is it enough of a profit that they (or any developer) would still want to undertake this enormous, risky, and controversial project?
Despite my profession as a nurse, and the fact that the buildings would probably bring more jobs to the area, and that they are against Michigan Ave and Hospital Center and don't disrupt the integrity of the lower portion of the site, I am not particularly invested in more medical buildings. However, what would be the legal implications of cutting out Trammel Crow's portion of the development? How long would it delay work on the site? How much money would the District loose? Would they have to recoup it through fees on access to the park's public amenities? Would it limit accessibility, maintenance, or security?
If there is a plan that would substitute public space and amenities for the medical buildings, that you can guarantee would not delay opening the site, and that you can guarantee would not negatively impact maintenance of the site, then I am all for it! Shoot, I would love to get rid of some of those buildings and put in a transit hub with trollies or light rail that connect to the subway at Catholic U and Howard U. You will understand, after all the community debate and wrangling to get to this point, if I am skeptical that we can practically affect such a major change.
Alex,
ReplyDeleteI should clarify one additional point. The developers have not in fact funded or paid for anything up to this point as it pertains to the master plan, especially the schematic drawings for this project. Vision McMillan Partners, LLC was contracted by the government to serve as Land Development Partners (the solicitation I posted). What this means is that the District pays Vision McMillan Partners, LLC $1.34 million each year to develop a comprehensive/master plan for the District (not for the developers) and walk through the various District processes (HPRB, Zoning, Mayor's Agent). As such, all the money used for that purpose has been funded by the District and not the developers. It may be that the developers at times have decided to inject their own money (e.g. the lawn signs), but that is at their discretion. The District funding covers all items such as legal fees and community outreach.
I know it is sometimes unclear as Vision McMillan Partners, LLC is serving on this project in two respects. The first, is on behalf of the District in their role as creators of a master plan. The second, if the District so chooses to allow the company to purchase the land, they will serve to build on parcels of the land. To this end, the only cost incurred by Vision McMillan Partners, LLC will be when they physically build a site. For example, if it costs EYA $200K per townhome and they build 200 townhomes, the entire project (both now and then) would cost them $40 million (minus inflation). If they sold each townhome for $800K, they would profit a net of $120 million on the deal. The only unfactored cost here would be the initial purchase of the land, which is estimated between $20 and $30 million (and that cost is split across the companies). Likewise, the developer is not funding any of those community amenities as I understand it. All amenities proposed to date come from the District. So there is very little risk right now on the part of the potential developers.
Keep in mind that the plans and schematic drawings have already been commissioned by the District and I believe are, in turn, the property of the District. They could choose to not use the developers associated with Vision McMillan Partners, LLC and instead use three other developers for the site and still produce the exact same plan as you've seen VMP, LLC tout at various meetings.
I will work to provide you with specific figures for each of the parcels. Please keep in mind that I will be doing so only from the information available to me (fiscal impact analysis, similar home sales, etc. etc.) as I will not have access to the original documents used to estimate the cost of this project.
I look forward to speaking with you more on this matter as more information becomes available. I think it would also serve everyone if we hold a community meeting to discuss some basic facts and figures associated with the current plan. I will try and schedule something like that for folks.
Mathew Bader
BCA MAG Representative
Thank you Mat. I still maintain that a project of this size and complexity is a VERY risky and uncertain proposition... particularly when dealing with the District Government and an ever-changing group of elected and appointed officials. Also, a $30 million dollar initial outlay is nothing to sneeze at. Developers don't take risks without the promise of significant profits. However, the information about VMPs costs (or lack of) in the planning process is useful, and I really look forward to anything else you can share with the community.
ReplyDeleteI do think that the community still has significant leverage on the details of the within the current plan (if we can stop it from being hijacked by extremists). And, a complete understanding of the facts is certainly important to the discussion.