Brian Flahaven

The poor condition of the brick sidewalk on the 1600 block of G Street SE.

Over the past month, the city has been repairing sidewalks around the neighborhood to ensure that they comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act regulations. Most of the repair work has focused on installing new ramps at intersections, though crews did replace a significant amount of the brick sidewalks on the 300, 400 and 500 blocks of 15th Street SE and the 1500 block of E Street SE.

While I’m pleased that a significant amount of repair work has been completed, there are still a number of sidewalks that need to be replaced. One good example is the brick sidewalk on the southside of the 1600 block of G Street SE (pictured). Another example is concrete sidewalk on the 800 block of 17th Street SE.

This weekend, I plan to document the remaining sidewalks that need repair in my Single Member District. If your sidewalk is in need of repair, please post the location below. You can also e-mail me at brianf6b09@anc6b.org. I’ll submit the requests to the District Department of Transportation next week.

Two important meetings taking place in Hill East tonight (Thursday, April 5):

• DC Water is holding a Ward 6 Town Hall meeting from 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm at Watkins Elementary School (420 12th Street SE). DC Water General Manager George Hawkins and staff will be in attendance to discuss water rates, the Clean Rivers project and billing issues. Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells is co-hosting the event and will be in attendance.
• ANC 6B’s Hine Subcommittee will be discussing the Hine Jr. High School redevelopment at 7:00 pm at Mt. Moriah Baptist Church (1636 East Capitol Street NE). Stanton-East Banc, the developers for the site, will present the latest design plans and take questions from the subcommittee and public. If you have not had a chance to view plans for the development, this would be a great opportunity to do so. You can also stop by and view a 3-D model of the Hine project on display at the Hill Center (921 Pennsylvania Avenue SE). EMMCA Blog has photos of the model.

A couple of people e-mailed me about a story they heard on WAMU’s March 26 Morning Edition referencing congressional interest in Reservation 13. While the majority of the story focused  on how Congress has taken more control of tourist hotspots around the Capitol and the Mall, David Hawkings, editor of the CQ Roll Call Daily Briefings, ended the report with the following reference to Reservation 13:

“Congress deeded that land [Reservation 13] over for economic development. The city has some different ideas about that, maybe a new home for the Redskins, and Congress is raising its eyebrow forcefully on that one as well.”

You can listen to the clip on the WAMU website (comment re: Reservation 13 at 3:35).

While I don’t know the specifics of congressional concerns or who is raising them, I did look up the Federal and District of Columbia Government Real Property Act of 2006 (H.R. 3699), the law that transferred control of Reservation 13 and the Old Naval Hospital (now the Hill Center) to the DC government. The law sets out four specific conditions for conveyance of Reservation 13. Below is Section 101, subsection B in its entirety:

(b) CONDITIONS FOR CONVEYANCE OF RESERVATION 13.-As a condition for the conveyance of U.S. Reservation 13 to the District of Columbia under this section, the District of Columbia shall agree-

(1) to set aside a portion of the property for the extension of Massachusetts Avenue Southeast and the placement of a potential commemorative work to be established pursuant to chapter 89 of title 40, United States Code, at the terminus of Massachusetts Avenue Southeast (as so extended) at the Anacostia River;

(2) to convey all right, title, and interest of the District of Columbia in the portion set aside under paragraph (1) to the Secretary of the Interior (acting through the Director of the National Park Service) at such time as the Secretary may require, if a commemorative work is established in the manner described in paragraph (1);

(3) to permit the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia to continue to occupy a portion of the property consistent with the requirements of the District of Columbia Appropriations Act, 2002 (Public Law 107-96; 115 Stat. 931);

(4) to develop the property consistent with the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation’s Master Plan for Reservation 13 (also known as the Hill East Waterfront). (emphasis added by me)

The law clearly states that as a  condition for the transfer of Reservation 13 from the federal government, the District shall agree to develop the land consistent with the Reservation 13 master plan. And the law also outlines other features of the master plan,  such as the extension of Massachusetts Avenue SE to the river, the creation of “Monument Circle” and the requirement that property be set aside for CSOSA (currently housed in Karrick Hall).

As I’ve mentioned before, a Redskins training facility that takes up more than half of the 50-acres available for development on Reservation 13 is clearly not consistent with a master plan which calls for three distinct districts, retail, housing, healthcare and office uses. And from the legislative language above, a training facility also appears to violate the conditions of the federal land transfer.

Maybe that’s why Congress is “raising its eyebrow forcefully?”

Here’s a roundup of local media coverage of last Thursday’s  Reservation 13 community meeting with Mayor Gray.

• (Almost) Nothing is Happening at Reservation 13, Lydia DePillis, Washington City Paper
• Mayor Gray Fails a Neighborhood, Michael Hoffman, The Hill is Home
• The Morning After: Your Tweets from the Reservation 13 Meeting, Tim Ebner, The Hill is Home
• D.C. Wants Final Bids for Hill East Redevelopment, Michael Neibauer, Washington Business Journal
• Redskins Talk Gets Cold Reception in Hill East, Mike DeBonis, Washington Post
• Redskins Training Facility Talk of Hill East, Tom Sherwood, NBC4
• DC Trying to Woo Redskins Back, Maureen Umeh, Fox 5
• Gray Offers Few Specifics on Redskins Training Facility, Martin Austermuehle, DCist
• Mayor, D.C. Officials Pitch Redskins Plan to Skeptical Hill Residents, Michael Grass, The Huffington Post
• DC Mayor Vincent Gray, Councilmembers Urge Redskins to Move Facilities to SE D.C., Tom Roussey, ABC 7

We had a great turnout of Ward 6 and Ward 7 residents for Thursday night’s Reservation 13 Community Meeting with Mayor Gray at the DC Armory. The Mayor, along with Councilmembers Jack Evans (Ward 2), Michael Brown (At-Large) and Yvette Alexander (Ward 7) shared their thoughts and answered questions for about 2 hours. Allen Lew, City Administrator and Victor Hoskins, Deputy Mayor for Planning Economic Development, also participated in the meeting. The Mayor’s main message – there is no “plan” for a training facility at Reservation 13 but the city is still exploring options.

Here were my takeaways:

• Mayor Gray said he was directing Deputy Mayor Hoskins to immediately seek best and final offers  from the two developers that expressed interest in parcels F1 and G1 in 2010 (Reservation 13 site map (pdf)). This would normally be good news. While the “parcel by parcel” approach is not ideal, it at least gets development at Reservation 13 off the ground, particularly on the parcels around the Stadium-Armory Metro station. Unfortunately, the problem is once again…the training facility. Mayor Gray and Councilmembers Evans and Brown were unwilling to state that parcels F1 and G1 were off-limits for a proposed training facility. So, the city will basically be asking the developers to put time, money and effort into submitting plans for two parcels that could be suddenly pulled off the table if a training facility deal is made. Are we really going to get best and final offers with all of this uncertainty?
• Most disappointing moment? Mayor Gray and Councilmember Jack Evans continuing to insist there is a baseball stadium in the Reservation 13 master plan. As almost everyone by now knows, the master plan does not include a baseball stadium. Why is this important? Mayor Gray and Councilmember Evans are using the faulty baseball stadium argument as a way to say the master plan is outdated.  As I’ve said before, if you believe a training facility is the best use for the site, make your case on the merits, not by obscuring the facts and diminishing the work of the community.
•  “We can do both the training facility and mixed-use development” was said a number of times by the Mayor and Councilmembers Evans and Brown. Sounds great, but the reality is that a training facility would take up 30+ acres of the 50 acres available for development. Add in the landmarked Anne Archbold Hall and the recently renovated Karrick Hall and you have even less land left for mixed-use development. Given the land available, it is impossible to both implement the master plan and build a training facility on Reservation 13.  In a recent blog post, the Washington Post’s Mike DeBonis does a great job of explaining the limitations of the site.
• I was confused by Mayor Gray’s answers to questions on the training facility’s impact on potential housing and affordable housing. The Mayor was asked a number of times how he could support building a training facility over a master plan that calls for significant affordable housing. His answer was essentially that affordable housing is a big problem and housing on Reservation 13 is not going to solve it. I don’t think anybody is arguing that development on Reservation 13 is going to by itself solve the city’s affordable housing problem. But the city does not have a lot of undeveloped land near Metro stations left, and choosing to build a training facility over significant affordable housing on such land would be a lost opportunity.
• While it was off topic, I did appreciate Mayor Gray talking about the Eastern Branch Building, the city-owned vacant building at 17th and C Streets SE. ANC 6B’s Hill East Task Force has been talking a lot about the future of the  building and we hope to organize a community tour later this spring. After the meeting, I told the Mayor we are eager to work with his office on future plans for Eastern Branch.
• Apparently, Councilmember Evans did read my primer on the Reservation 13 master plan. He asked me about it prior to start of the meeting.

I do want to thank Mayor Gray for his willingness to participate in the meeting and take some tough questions. While we may not have liked or agreed with all the answers, the Mayor deserves credit for engaging the community in the discussion.

And thanks to the ANC commissioners who signed the invitation to Mayor Gray and also helped organize the meeting – Nick Alberti (6A04), Francis Campbell (6B10), Sheila Carson-Carr (7A01), Jared Critchfield (6B06), Neil Glick (6B08), Carol Green (6B07), David Holmes (6A03), Villareal Johnson (6A07), Brian Pate (6B05), Lia Veenendaal-Selck (6A08) and Lisa White (7D01).  This was a total team effort, and a great example of cross-commission, cross-ward collaboration.  A special thanks to  ANC 7A Commissioner Villareal Johnson, who co-moderated the event with me.

What were some of your takeaways from last night’s meeting? Please post below.