Friday, January 08, 2016

Save McMillan Action Coalition: "City’s Over-Development of McMillan Park Challenged in Court"

First, see these accompanying tweets:

Jeffrey Anderson ‏@jeffreyanders19  · 1h1 hour ago 
.@dc4reality @ScottRobertsDC @Shawington @TheInTowner After the deal comes apart, media outlets who looked the other way will be discredited

Jeffrey Anderson ‏@jeffreyanders19  · 2h2 hours ago 
.@dc4reality @ScottRobertsDC @Shawington @TheInTowner Remember: Phil Mendelson publicly opposed the project yet voted for it -- repeatedly.

Jeffrey Anderson ‏@jeffreyanders19  · 2h2 hours ago 
.@dc4reality @ScottRobertsDC @Shawington @TheInTowner I'm still amazed @MayorBowser and 12 members of the @councilofdc ignored DC Auditor.

Jeffrey Anderson ‏@jeffreyanders19  · 2h2 hours ago 
.@dc4reality @ScottRobertsDC @Shawington @TheInTowner The McMillan deal eventually will collapse under its own debasement. You heard it here.


And here is the press release.

Click on the link to read the entire press release.

Is compliance with the DC Comprehensive Plan really enforceable?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact: Amal Mimish, Save McMillan Action Coalition, 202-706-9408, savemcmillan@activist.one
               

City’s Over-Development of McMillan Park Challenged in Court

Plain Language of Development Rules at Question


Washington, D.C. — The battle over the McMillan development project is now in the DC Court of Appeals, DC’s highest judicial body. In a bold move, McMillan Park supporters have recently asked the Court to take summary action to overturn the DC Zoning Commission’s approval of the District’s proposed mixed use development.   Park supporters say the Commission’s decision, on its face, violates the District’s Comprehensive Plan, the basic land-use law for the city.
Specifically, Friends of McMillan Park (FOMP) contends that granting the developer and the city’s request for a “high-density” zone to allow a “115-foot-tall Health Care Facility/Medical Office complex” and over 2 million square feet of development is “inconsistent” with the Comprehensive Plan’s plain language designating the McMillan property for “moderate density” development.  Moderate density is characterized as single-family homes, row houses, and some low and mid-rise apartments.
The developers, Vision McMillan Partners (VMP) argue, via their lawyers, Holland & Knight (in this case, paid for by DC taxpayers), that the Comprehensive Plan is “generally not binding” and that, moreover, the door is open to any zoning district the Commission might use because the Plan says that “other districts may apply” in addition to moderate ones.  The Deputy Mayor’s Office of Planning and Economic Development (DMPED) agrees with this interpretation and supports the proposed density.
FOMP, however, points out that DC law sates emphatically and unequivocally that zoning “shall not be inconsistent with the comprehensive plan for the national capital” and that “other districts” means districts that are “similar to those specifically” mentioned, i.e., only those consistent with the Comprehensive Plan’s moderate density language.
“It is unconscionable for the Commission to have approved high-rise, dense commercial development for McMillan Park,” said Jim Schulman a local Architect and advocate for adaptive reuse.  “If allowed, this development will insert intensive and prosaic K Street-scale development into a low-rise, reviving residential neighborhood with inadequate transportation infrastructure. This could be DC’s Central Park or High Line, a major municipal amenity and tourism destination. If allowed to stand, the zoning decision effectively renders the Comprehensive Plan moot.”
...

5 comments:

Nate said...

Cool. Have fun with it being fenced off for another 40 years. Be realistic for once FOMP

Daniel in brookland said...

Project for Nate, Barrie Danneker, Rashida Brown, Cheryl Cort, and Diane Barnes.

Did I list all the supporters of VMP, or are they stacking some public hearing with more "community support" organized and paid for by Jaimie Fontaine PR firm of Baltimore Maryland?

Questions for the VMP supporters to answer.

1-Why didn't the Army corps of Engineers re-open McMillan Park and "The Olmsted Promenade" at the Filtration site, after the threat of Axis sabotage ended in 1945? As per the overwhelming documentation of civic use open access and recreation enjoyed n this space pre WW11.
2-Did the fact that McMillan was the only integrated park in a segregated city influence that decision?
3-Does social justice have any importance in history or in the present day?
4-Why did the District refuse the Federal offer to accept The Sand Filtration Site for free if kept as green/park space?
5-Would any civic minded govt. refuse such an offer?
6-How do you justify wasting the greenspace, fencing out the public another 28 years (total "theft of puiblic enjoyment" is 70 years), and flushing $9.3 million down the toilet for 28 years, and instead of serving the public, all of the public, spend , I believe $250,000 a year for Spectrum Management to "maintain" the empty 25 acres, at $1000 a day?
7-Would the District Government have warehoused this park space since 1987, had it been in a white upper income area?
8-How does any DC official, some of whom have been in office almost as long ago as 1987, have the arrogance to talk about the "fence has been up since I used to drive by" (quote corpratist Bowser) and use this as a reason to pave it, collude in it's theft by VMP, and act as if this corpratist agenda can masquarade as civic responsibility, while paving every single open lot surrounding this park for miles, with over 5000 more housing units, 20,000 plus cars a day, and the attendant pollution and disease.
9-Where we going from here?

Nate said...

Yes Daniel, you listed EVERY supporter. I'm clearly paid off and not just a resident who happens to live nearby wants wants to see it utilized this century.

This place would be much better as a vertical fish farm. Hey at least I'm not the one hijacking a eulogy post to criticize the person who just passed with your copy/paste canned responses.

Nate said...

Where are we going from here - we are getting a development and park in Bloomingdale. Not sure what you're getting over in Brookland.

Daniel in brookland said...

I guess some people don't mind being played by the corruption of their own government, and played and played, and played. Do nyou listen to the stuff mcDuffie, bowser and VMP put out? Nate, please Nate and the overwhelming majority community supporters of VMP/Fontaine/EYA/Trammel Crow/Bowser/Baranes/Byrd/Lessard/DMPED, please just answer the questions I'm asking. Find out the answers and support "The Monstrosity on Michigan Avenue", and the 87 acres AFRH is developing to the North, and the 5000 more units being developed surrounding your McPark at the McMillan TownnCenter. And explain to me how the urban heat island effect is reduced, and our carbon emissions are absorbed? But at least support it by doing some homework.