Neighborhood planning

As I write from time to time, we don't really have neighborhood plans in DC. There were Ward Plans in the old Comprehensive Plan. Now there are geographically larger districts called Area Elements in the new Comprehensive Plan.

While receiving great press in the trade, the Strategic Neighborhood Action Plans (SNAPs) weren't really comprehensive neighborhood plans, if you consider a plan to be an evaluation and setting of priorities in a rigorous way. The way SNAP plans worked, if people mentioned stuff in your neighborhood then it might make it into the report, if they didn't it definitely wouldn't end up in the report. And there was no substantive evaluation of quality of life factors, public assets present or desired, and a process for setting priorities and a way to achieve at least some of them.

Another problem that I have with "neighborhood" planning is that broader objectives aren't usually considered simultaneously, and assessed.

Yet another problem is that people expect every property to accomplish every wish that they might have. For example, every neighborhood planning process seems to bring people out of the woodwork to advocate for open space on the property, even though an objective and synthetic analysis wouldn't necessarily make that case.

Anyway, the Foggy Bottom/West End neighborhood is involved in a planning process involving the deaccessioning and/or reuse and adaptation of a number of public assets in their community. This process was touched off by a late night sale of some of the property to the Eastbanc development group, which was later rescinded.

I helped "facilitate" a planning process that focused on looking at the various public assets in the neighborhood in a more comprehensive fashion, producing a report along with the conveners of the process, representing both the Foggy Bottom Association and the Dupont Circle Citizens Association (Dupont Circle residents make up a large portion of the patronage of the West End Library, which was the site of the original focus/protest). (The local ANCs were also supportive of and sponsors of that planning exercise.)


It's being used to shape the current planning process there with regard to the future of the West End Library site as well as other public assets in the West End.

While I wouldn't call this a full-fledged neighborhood plan, it does raise important points, of both a "macro" and a "micro" nature, although not necessarily considering broader "city-wide" concerns. It certainly lays out a comprehensive framework, and most neighborhoods lack such frameworks when considering broader development/zoning matters as well as community benefits and public assets issues.

(There is a meeting tonight at 6:30pm at the St. Stevens Church at 25th and Pennsylvania Ave. NW)