Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds

Klav 3
Originally uploaded by inked78.

A proposed new building on the south side of the 600 block of H Street NE. Photo by David Klavitter.

This is one of the things I've been involved in lately. Most neighbors are supportive of mixed use on that site, but not the design. There is some difference of opinion on how to deal with parking, ingress and egress, bulk, and other issues.

In any case, this project is particularly important because it is the first to come under the requirements of the H Street Design Guidelines, which were enacted as part of the Neighborhood Commercial Zoning Overlay for this district.

Because all the other Neighborhood Commercial Zoning Overlay districts are in historic districts, they have a procedure for design review. H Street doesn't.

And it doesn't help that the project referenced here, as proposed for the most part, ignores 9 and 2/3 pages of the 10 page design guidelines document.

But there are always people who think that new development is better than no development at all, so someone sent an email out about how to write and where to send letters of support.

I was kind enough to provide some suggested language for people so minded...
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For those of you equally inspired by the project on the 600 block of H Street and want to write a letter of support to the BZA, I offer you some language free of charge.
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I support this effort because it is consistent with the fundamentally anti-urban car-oriented, anti-historical new construction that has typified the neighborhood since 1974.

I think that the poor sense of city- and neighborhood- self-worth as depicted in the renderings of this cynically designed and misrepresented project is consistent with backward looking neighborhood development trends.

Furthermore, the poor design, while out of character with the high quality design typical of neighborhood residential and commercial construction dating from the 1870s to the 1920s, is perfectly consistent with the value engineered "products" produced as a result of the H Street Urban Renewal Plan.

Merely compare this project as rendered in designs submitted as part of this application for zoning relief to the results of the H Street Urban Renewal Plan:

1. Delta Towers
2. Quadrangle Apartments
3. Hechinger Mall
4. the bridge over H Street
5. H Street Connection
6. Capitol Towers
7. the two office buildings on the south side of the 600 block of H St. NE

and you can't help but notice the congruence.

But of course, don't ask the question whether or not the millions of dollars of federal (alleged) investment in the neighborhood as a result of this plan have contributed substantively to urban revitalization generally, and to revitalization of this neighborhood specifically.

Because the 1960s urban renewal architecture quality of the design as currently put forward is consistent with all the other bad architecture constructed in the greater neighborhood since that time, and because "consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" and I am small minded, I fervently support this equally execrable development.

Thank you for your consideration and support of mediocrity.

Sincerely,


Insert your name here

Delta Towers, 1400 block of Florida Ave. NE.

H Street Connection, photo from Rappaport Companies. Capitol Towers in the Background.

Index Keywords: urban-design-placemaking