Doing the right thing ain't easy

Earlier this week, the Examiner had an article about the redevelopment of a former problem commercial site at 15th and C Streets SE, "Condos replace loathed carry-out in Hill East." The site is on the corner of an otherwise residential block. The article reported that some residents appreciate the change but decry the condominium units that have been built in the above floors. (The ground floor unit is still reserved for retail.) From the article:

"You've created on this one block, condo alley," said Neil Glick, Hill East advisory neighborhood commissioner. "You've totally destroyed the character of a residential street of houses. I don't think it's progress at all."

Jim Myers, longtime Hill East activist, dubbed the redeveloped block "Condo Canyon."

This is odd.

While it happens that for a brief period in 1990 and 1991 I lived a block away at 14th and D Streets SE (and I remember a police helicopter, in search of criminals, landing on the grounds of the same Payne Elementary School mentioned in the story), it is insane to conflate one block of the Hill East neighborhood to all of Capitol Hill, or even to say that the block is completely changed by the addition of two condo buildings.

There is another condo building across the street and I do agree that the building isn't done very well, at least the top of the building (cornice area) is pretty damn ugly, but the overwhelming character of the block is single family attached rowhousing. How many condo units are on the block anyway, 25?


In any event, the block isn't destroyed and neither is the rowhouse character of the greater neighborhood. If the cornice/roof line of the building was decent, likely if I lived on the block the addition of this building wouldn't have bothered me.

Although I can't imagine this kind of neighborhood opposition bodes well for the eventual redevelopment of the Safeway supermarket site a couple blocks away. Unfortunately, I don't have easy access to complete building data ward-by-ward, this will have to suffice:

Census data, housing units, Ward 6, Washington DC, 2000 Census. This data does make clear that likely 1/2 of all housing units in Ward 6 are detached or semi-detached rowhouses. And probably as many as 3/4 of all residential buildings in Ward 6 are rowhouses.

(Disclosure 1: I know one of the principals in the firm doing the redevelopment. Disclosure 2: for a long time I've wanted to do an alley tour of that area, including Kings Court on the block across the street.)

It is true that this is change. But the way it is characterized reflects an incredibly strong parochialism, one that is pretty dismissive of providing a means for new housing to be added and different types of people to be accommodated within extant neighborhoods.

Basically what they are saying is that only people with the means to buy a single family house should be able to live in their neighborhood.