Another reason commercial district revitalization is so difficult in DC

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Update: The Post wrote about this issue in today's article, "NE Restaurant Wins Permit Fight." And I wrote this on a neighborhood e-list discussing the issue:

1. by the ANC getting involved, Cluck U and Birdland changed their retail offer in ways significant enough to avoid being considered "fast food" establishments in the context of the zoning regulations.
2. That is a step forward and the ANC should be commended, not criticized, for their stepping up in this arena. From my perspective, at this point, the most significant and substantive commercial district revitalization organization working for quality in the H Street corridor is ANC6A.
3. That most people are still willing to accept almost anything instead of advocating "by any means necessary" for quality. I would argue this is reflected in the quotes in the below cited article.

As I say, "when you ask for nothing, that's what you get. When you ask for the world, you don't get it, but you get a lot more than nothing."

...Hmm, the National Main Street Conference. I wonder how many people from the H Street neighborhood went? To the premier technical assistance-development conference in the field of commercial district revitalization.... I haven't seen anybody from H Street Main Street at the conference--Dupont, Barracks Row, and Shaw, and I guess I count for Brookland. Although these days, I suppose I don't know what most of the people who are involved even look like...
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After the creation of the Main Street program in DC, I wrote a long testimony, in either 2002 or 2003, about the Department of Housing and Community Development and how it uses Community Development Block Grant monies and whether or not they have substantive impact on commercial district revitalization in the city.

I said, pretty much not.

That testimony is not on this computer.

But one of the things I wrote is that all District Government agencies need to work in concert to assure that revitalization objectives are achieved. (I had more specific policy suggestions, six in all. I'll dig them up when I come back to DC.)

For example, the City of Cleveland has what is called a Business Revitalization District Overlay to review projects in areas receiving high amounts of government investment, because of the concern that investments are not wasted (which seems not to be too great of a concern in the City of Washington), and that injudicious investments and decisions by others can be deleterious and unsupportive of and counter to public policy and investment.

So I don't know if I should laugh or cry when I read this (recognize that I am still angry about the FMF presentation from a few hours ago):

In a reader sent in her absence, D.C. Zoning Commission Chair Carol Mitten touched on an aspect of the case board members chose to set aside. She wrote that Cluck-U is precisely what H Street needs for revitalization. And she suggested that in the future the neighborhood commission work with the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs on enforcement instead of questioning the zoning administrator's decisions.

This is from the article, "BZA Says Cluck-U is a Restaurant," from the Voice of the Hill, about the turn-down of the ANC6A appeal of a certificate of occupancy for a fast-food restaurant in a C2A zoning district.

I think the ANC was right to appeal the the Certificate of Occupancy, although the way the regulation is written is overly vague. I'm not sure how I myself would have ruled if I were in the position.

But there is no question that Carol Mitten is wrong.

One of the presentations that I am going to have to buy is the presentation from the East Carson Main Street program in Pittsburgh. It is one of the first urban Main Street programs, from a pilot program in 1985, and arguably it is the most successful--20 blocks, virtually no ground floor vacancies, successful, thriving businesses, improvements in residential building stock, etc.

One of the things he said is that after some initial success (not that I would argue that H Street NE shows much of that) is that you can't backslide, that you have to continue to demand quality in all that you do. Letting people put up substandard signs, or vinyl windows, or other reductions in quality reduces the overall integrity and quality of the commercial district.

I had an "argument" last week at the Ward 6 Democratic Straw Poll, with a couple people (I won't identify them because I don't have the energy to be nice) and I said that it was never acceptable to accept a sub-par business just to fill a building.

Better than nothing is never acceptable. My joke is that after 38 years of serious disinvestment, having a building be empty for another year is no big deal.

Again, speaking of presentations, the Detroit Shoreway CDC (Cleveland has decent CDCs in large part because they have a funding accountability mechanism--CDCs are evaluated annually and their funding allocations are based on their success--accountability, what an unusual concept...) made a great presentation about how they are developing the "Gordon Square Arts District," and how they will not lease space to any old tenant.

He said something that I have been writing since 2002, that marginal businesses that close reflect poorly on the image of our commercial districts, that people ascribe business failure and turnover not to poor quality businesses, but to a "poor quality" commercial district, and that we cannot afford to build such negative perceptions of our commercial districts. (For more on this, see the great article by Kennedy Smith "Main Street at 15.")

Afterwards, I went up to him and suggested that they create "RFEIs", "requests for expressions of interest" and define what businesses they are looking for and why. Anyway, there are lots of things we can do to ensure quality.

But first we have to understand what quality is.

Even though I think that Cluck U changed their procedures enough to meet the requirements of the Zoning regulations, it's questionable whether they substantively contribute to commercial district revitalization on H Street NE.

If Carol Mitten thinks it does, clearly she needs to do some Main Street trainings, and maybe we can open up a Walgreens for her on 17th Street NW, maybe below the CVS?

Index Keywords: retail