Last night ANC 5B held a special meeting to discuss and vote on Thursday's zoning hearing regarding the Gateway Market Residences. The ten of twelve commissioners were present with one arriving after the vote, so nine of us voted. Our options were, support completely, support with certain conditions required, or oppose. The idea of supporting with certain conditions [conditional approval] was what I proposed. My proposed conditions appear below. The idea of giving conditional approval was rejected, so we only voted on support, or don't support [basically the same thing as oppose]. Here's the final breakdown of votes-
5B01 William Shelton [Chair]-
support5B02 Patricia Brown-Daniels- absent
5B03 Raymond Chandler- absent
5B04 Rayseen Woodland- arrived too late to vote
5B05 Rosetta Davis-
abstain
5B06 Wilhelmina Lawson-
support5B07 David Hooper-
support5B08 Elise Bernard-
oppose [against supporting]
5B09 Jacqueline Manning-
support5B10 India Henderson-
support5B11 William Myers-
support5B12 Maude Ababio-
support
So the final vote was 7/9 to support unconditionally.
Some other interesting things about the meeting-
The developer's lobbyist [John Ray] sent one of his employees [Ms. Ang] to the meeting to answer questions, but she couldn't answer everything, including questions previously raised at the zoning hearing [she was there], or ANC 6C meeting. She planned to give no presentation, and came unprepared to make one. I asked her about this prior to the meeting and she informed me that no presentation was necessary because we were only here to vote. Consequently, she made no presentation. She did very briefly talk about the project, but this was only after I asked Ms. Ang a question, and people in the audience chimed in saying that they didn't have any information about the project.
I'd like to point out that when John Ray's group recently attended the ANC6C meeting they had a different, and well informed presenter who not only gave a thorough presentation, but was able to answer questions. While it is true that this group has appeared before our ANC before [but only once in the past year and a half], I think it was a bit of the slap in the face that they didn't give another presentation immediately prior to the vote. Such a presentation would have been important for three reasons-
1. the constituents present did not feel they had sufficient information about the project. It is, after all, the ANC's job to respresent the interests of its constituents.
2. there have been modifications to the project since the last hearing before the Zoning Commission. Ms. Ang was unable to explain what any of those modifications might be.
3. We had a new commissioner present who has not received any of the mailed materials on the project, or seen a presentation on it, so she had no familiarity with the project, and simply voted blindly.
Here is soe information about the conditions I wanted inserted into our letter of approval-
1.
Follow the Small Area Plan- ANC 5B orginally requested that the Office of Planning undertake the Small Area Plan. According to the Office of Planning's wesite [this is not directly quoted], The puropose of the Small Area Plan is to create a conceptual land use program. It aims to determine the viability of the wholesale functions and determine the best and highest use of the Market site. The goal is to provide a vision and strategic development framework for future development of the Market and adjacent properties. The Small Area Plan will provide recommendations for height, use, massing, density, zoning, and functionality. The Small Area Plan is important because it provides a forum for thoughtful community input. A series of meetings have been held as a part of the Small Area Plan. The Small Area Plan was paused at the request of this developer, who now claims that they need to bypass the Small Area Plan because it is taking too long. The Small Area Plan is scheduled for completion in September, and would have already been completed had it not been paused. During the meeting Ms. Ang said the Office of Planning had said this building was “not inconsistent with the Small Area Plan.” As part of the Small Area Plan the Office of Planning recommended not constructing residential units next to industrial uses, which is exactly what this developer is doing.
2.
Change Retail from inward facing to outward facing- current plans call for floor to ceiling exterior windows, so as the Office of Planning pointed out, inward facing retail would result in the view from the street of the back of business' storage rooms. That's hardly a very inviting view for those on the street. This was an issue raised at both the last zoning hearing, and the ANC 6C meeting, but Ms. Ang was unable to tell me whether there had been any change to the plan.
3.
The developer agree to not go to the City Council on other projects in the Market without ANC approval of community benefits packages.4.
The developer not pursue Project Labor Agreements on other projects in the Market- the deal here is that these agreements result in requirements that workers be union members. The vast majority of DC contractors and laborers in the construction field are non-union workers. This is especially true when you look at minority contractors in DC. When you enter into agreements like this you effectively lock out most otherwise eligible DC workers.
5.
Increase the diversity of the affordable units- right now the twenty percent of affordable condo units are all affordable for people earning 80 percent of the Area Median Income. Many other developments stagger this with some units being affordable to people making considerably less that 80 percent of the AMI.
Other important considerations that I mentioned-
1. This is a condo development. right now the condo market in DC is not good. Even Senate Square, a project in a more desirable location, and built by an experienced developer [the developer behind the Gateway Market Residences has NO development experience], has been forced to go apartment and now sits largely empty. The NoMA area is a site of heavy condo construction. An economist hired by the Office of Planning stated that he felt that residential units on that site were not viable economically.
Our ANC will send a separate non-binding letter addressing the concerns that I raised at the meeting. Our attorney will draft the letter.
I'd like to address something our Chair said last night that I thought was very misleading. He strongly implied that ANC 6C had wrongly gotten involved in this project and that such involvement from a neighboring ANC was, as he put it, unheard of. That isn't at all true. As the Zoning Commission noted at the last hearing, talking to, and seeking approval from neighboring ANCs is standard for such projects when they abut the other ANC. Our Chair also implied that ANC 6C was taking things away from Trinidad. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have a copy of ANC 6C's conditional letter of support and it doesn't quest a single amenity for ANC 6C. It only talks about the building, preserving desirable aspects of the Market, the retail plan, support of small local businesses who are tenants in the building, and diversity in the AMI for the affordable units.
We had a decent crowd last night. I'd be interested in hearing from those in the audience.
The zoning hearing is tomorrow night. Here are the details-
The Zoning Commission Hearing-
When: 7:30pm Thursday July 24th
Where: Office of Zoning Hearing Room
441 4th Street NW Suite 220-south
Anyone can attend. Anyone wishing to testify for three minutes can sign up at the hearing.
You can read more about the Gateway Market Residences and the New Town project [with which the Residences are strongly linked]
here.