City Council Chair Candidates Forum Today

This Italianate commercial building on the 400 block of H Street NE dates from the 1870s or 1880s and has been vacant for at least 20 years.

From various e-lists:

The DC Preservation League, Historic Districts Coalition, and Committee of 100 of the Federal City will sponsor a public forum on Monday, August 7, from 4-6 p.m. (doors open at 3:30) at the Historic Sixth & I Synagogue (6th & I Streets, NW). Moderator Mark Segraves, investigative reporter for WTOP, will pose questions to Council Chair candidates Vincent Gray and Kathleen Patterson regarding preservation, planning, and land use issues within the District. Public attendance and participation is welcome.
______
CM Patterson stinks on historic preservation; I don't know where CM Gray stands on it, but I am not big on various positions he has either. CM Patterson has pandered to her constituents both on the Tenleytown Fire Station debacle (a problem of faulty contracting and construction management by the Fire Department, instead historic preservation was blamed) as well as on the Jesse Baltimore House issue, which the Department of Parks and Recreation wants to tear down in favor of a nicer entrance to a park.

Granted I understand why neighbors would rather just be rid of the house. They figure if the city continues to own and "manage" it, it will be more problem than it is worth--because you can't trust the city to do the job (cf. the Tenleytown Fire Station debacle). The alternative is to sell the house, which makes the most sense to me, converting it into a lived-in house, paying property taxes.

I know that CM Gray would like to have a Main Street program in the Deanwood area, which is a plus for preservation. But he is great friends with Herb Miller, a leader of the pro-development forces...
_______
Some of my thoughts on these issues of preservation, planning, and land use:

1. The city's competitive advantages are centered upon architecture, urban design, and history (along with great mass transit and the job engine of the federal government).
Preservation, planning, and land use policies and practices of the city government should be based on this fact.
See:
-- Speech by Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley.

2. It's not just land use, it's urban design and planning in concert with transportation.
As the blog header states: A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic. Make every city building regulation, zoning statute, and economic development policy recognize this.

3. Slow down the Comprehensive Plan revision approval process.
The plan isn't ready. It's not ready. And it should be made excellent before it becomes law. (See (1).)

4. Better funding for the Office of Planning.
Here is a city with more than $12 billion in development in the past 7 years; $6 billion more under construction; probably $6 billion in process--and they don't fund adequate oversight. No wonder so much produced is crap (more about that later).

5. Better funding for the Historic Preservation Office within the Office of Planning.
Here is a city with more than 20,000 historic buildings and more than 25 historic districts, and maybe 50,000 buildings eligible for designation. (Who knows how many buildings are eligible?, the city has never conducted a Comprehensive Survey of eligible properties...)

6. Making the Office of Planning the true "planning" office for the District Government.
All planning efforts, such as for libraries, parks and recreation, schools, hospital and health care, etc., should come under this office. Until it does so, it is more an Office of Land Use, rather than an Office of Planning.
See:
--Who can you turn to when the most active, aggressive destroyers of the city's livable places are DC Government agencies?

7. If a Planning Commission is created (a.) see (6) above and (b.) make the members of the Commission publicly elected.
Otherwise, it's likely to fall under the control of development forces.

8. And speaking of cultural resources, which includes historic preservation, DC lacks a thorough and comprehensive cultural assets management and development program for the city
In June, I was in Louisiana for a conference. They have a state department of "Culture, Recreation, and Tourism" which manages:
-- state parks, historic sites, and the state arboretum
-- state museums (5 in New Orleans, 1 in Baton Rouge, and 3 others)
-- state library and archives
-- historic preservation management including archeology
-- other cultural programs
-- tourism development.
Similarly the State of Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission operates the State Museum, the State Archives, 25 other museums around the State, and the State Historic Preservation Office.

DC funds similar activities to a great extent, but in an almost completely ad-hoc, dis-coordinated fashion. And most tourism tax revenues go to the Washington Convention Center Authority and the Washington Convention and Tourism Corporation. This revenue stream could be used more expansively to support cultural heritage and related activities, that would be attractive to tourists, but also to our own residents.
See:
--Today's Library hearing testimony.

9. Related to this is my idea of combining certain central library functions with a city museum, visitor/cultural heritage tourism services, and archival functions.
See:
-- Central Library Planning efforts and the City Museum, how about some learning from Augusta, Maine ... and Baltimore?
-- Today's Library hearing testimony.

10. And speaking of funding and support, commit to funding the DC Main Streets program, which is the only substantive "historic preservation" program at the grassroots that is supported by the city.
But get rid of the programs and/or board members not committed to historic preservation and community participation and direction. Extend the training capacity of the program.
See:
-- Yesterday's testimony on the DC Main Streets program;
-- Getting results: making sure implementation is at the heart of revitalization planning;
-- H Street Main Street: My Opinion;
-- I hope New Orleans('s urban Main Street program) can learn from DC.

10. Mandatory design review across the board, whether a neighborhood is designated or not. Including urban design standards.

11. Same goes for sign guidelines. They should be mandatory. Everywhere in the city.
There is too much junky signage blighting our streets, from carryouts to some of the biggest companies in the United States, such as the Residence Inn (a Marriott division) on 14th Street NW at Thomas Circle.
See:
-- Signs, Signs, and the necessity of design review;
-- Signs, Signs

12. And demolition restrictions on buildings in neighborhoods eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, whether or not the neighborhoods are designated.
See:
-- Blaming the building in Baltimore -- when your tool is a gun, you think only about shooting (this includes excerpts from previous testimonies to City Council from years past).

13. Create a receivership statute that allows for the problems of habitual nuisance properties to be cured in a proactive fashion by neighborhood or city-wide preservation groups.
Note: it should be nonprofits that do this, not the city. The city's own property management practices should deem it unfit for such an award. For the most part, the same goes for community development corporations.
See:
-- Blaming the building in Baltimore -- when your tool is a gun, you think only about shooting.

14. Change the property tax assessment methodology as it relates to neighborhood commercial districts.
Properties are valued as if they could become office buildings. This leads to the displacement of local businesses, and encourages property owners to think demolition. It makes no sense given the real ceiling put on the profitability of the building because of its size.
See:
-- Forcing Displacement by the disconnection of tax assessment models from public policy goals;
-- Testimony -- Historic Neighborhood Retail Business Property Tax Relief Act;
-- (and this shorter sum up) Globalization of the DC real estate market catches neighborhood commercial districts up in the wake.

15. Create a capacity building and information development infrastructure that supports citizen planning efforts.
The dominant planning and development paradigm in the United States is oriented to suburban land use practices of segregated use, low and deconcentrated density, connected by the car. Too often, this paradigm is inappropriately applied to urban issues in the City of Washington.

Most ANC commissioners know little about the issues that come before them. The same goes for neighborhood organizations. The Main Streets program has a training infrastructure that could be expanded along these lines. Other communities have best practices models, ranging from the State of Massachusetts Citizen Planner Training program to the Urban Information Center at the Dallas Public Library. There is no excuse for the lack of a similar community building and capacity infrastructure here.

Index Keywords: historic-preservation