Idea of the (yester)day #2: Takoma commercial district area planning

Because of my writings about the recent "preservation" "debacle" in Mt. Pleasant, I was clued into another hullaballoo in the DC section of Takoma, where Historic Takoma is challenging the City on the summary granting of building permits for the replacement of 100 windows on four buildings owned by a Church.

For the most part, except for architecturally significant buildings, window changes get only a cursory review--except for the general issue of no vinyl. Historic Takoma raises an important issues that windows are a significant architectural feature of houses generally, and in Takoma (and Takoma Park) specifically, and that more than a cursory "desk" review can and should be required.

See Preservation Brief 9: The Repair of Historic Wooden Windows for more information on this general topic.

But this has raised a stink on a local e-list. (I've rec'd a couple of the digests.) Something else that people have been discussing on that list is crime in the area.

Skimming, not reading thoroughly, these entries particularly the ones about crime, it's interesting that someone writes "oddly enough, more people in a place makes it safer..." (paraphrase) referring to Columbia Heights.

People engaged in positive activity make places safer. This is basic Jane Jacobs, eyes on the street kind of stuff.

While Historic Preservation isn't exactly always about directly promoting Jacobs, it's definitely in concert. There is a great piece in a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal about how New Delhi is starting to regulate zoning regulations written in the 1950s but never enforced against mixed use.

In "Delhi Dilemma" (A16, 12/19/2006), Shikka Dalmia writes:

Jacobs...argued that businesses don't just wither without their neighborhoods--neighborhoods wither without their businesses too. She traced nearly every familiar urban malaise--high crime, social isolation, disintegrating communities--to the loss of business diversity caused by laws banning mixed land use. The very presence of local shops, restaurants, and merchants deters crime...vastly reducing the need for formal policing. Furthermore, they draw people out of their homes and onto the streets, creating countless opportunities for social interactions, none of which are meaningful in their own right but together inject what Indians would term raunaq--life and color--into neighborhoods.

I was in Baltimore on Saturday with some friends and took them to Hampden and Fells Point among other places, and Hampden is really coming along. Its commercial district is better than any neighborhood commercial district in DC, and it's not even the premier neighborhood CD in that city (Federal Hill is #1, and Fells Point also, though more touristy in a way more like Georgetown compared to DC, but with an entertainment focus more like Adams-Morgan).

Hampden had far much more retail, and more interesting stuff than Takoma. But that's because it has some agglomeration/concentration, about 4 blocks worth, on both sides. Plus, I am sure that it doesn't suffer from that DC bugaboo--high rents. Last time I checked, prevailing rents in Hampden were not much more than $20/s.f. There is newer development on Falls Road, trying to benefit from the increasing success of the district, and it looks like there is more commercial activity developing on Roland Ave. just south of 36th Street, but because I had people with me, I wasn't able to check it out.

But Hampden wouldn't be interesting if it looked like the CVS building on Carroll Ave.... (in DC), although they have one building like that, a 7-11, parking fronted, at Falls Road, and a new building on one corner with a Royal Farms (a regional convenience store).

The best way to reduce crime is to make Takoma's center/commercial district great.

It would be unprecedented, but perhaps there needs to be a small area plan process that encompasses both the commercial district in Takoma Park, Maryland, with the part in DC, going over as far as the Takoma Theater.

I touched on this a bit, but barely I see now, in my submitted letter to WMATA about building housing on the WMATA land at the Metro Center.

Adding residents is a piece of this. So is strengthening the already very good transportation there (but enhancing the RideOn piece for Marylanders). But the commercial district and the need for connection between the MD and DC sides is paramount. Now, there isn't enough there to attract people to come from outside the area, and there aren't enough residents in the retail trade area to support a thriving more neighborhood oriented commercial district. IMO anyway.

Index Keywords: urban-revitalization