Month: November 2005

Right now I and my Shiloh attending family members are playing a game of Thanksgiving chicken as none of us have stepped up to host Turkey Day at our houses so there hasn’t been a lot of communication. If there has been communication, it has been very brief.
What has gotten through the shorter than normal phone calls was that Shiloh believes that it has won in it’s battle against Queen of Sheba in the liquor license fight. I was told that the congregation was told that because Queen of Sheba is less than 400 feet away from the school it cannot serve liquor so Shiloh’s work is done.
That announcement has been rattling around in my head for a few days and it doesn’t make sense as there is a liquor store…. ah, never mind.

From Jim
Neighbors,

1. Mondie Proposal: As we strategized on last Wednesday, Mr. Mondie saw the wisdom of deferring his plans to proceed with the Board of Zoning Adjustment hearing on December 13, 2005; hence, we withdrew his request for support from ANC 5C at tonight’s meeting. I believe that Mr. Mondie wants to develop a plan for the properties on Richardson Place, NW that is acceptable to his neighbors. As soon as possible, he wants to meet with community residents to present his revised plans for the properties and from the plans he showed me tonight, I could see several of the recommendations made to him at the BACA meeting reflected in this work.

Unfortunately, I will be on travel (for my real job, i.e., the one that enables me to pay my mortgage) from 11/16/2005 until 11/23/2005. So, I will be back in touch when I return to set up the follow-up meeting with Mr. Mondie and his representative.

2. Group Home Initiative: The next meeting of those who are interested in working on this initiative is tomorrow night, i.e., Wednesday, November 16, 2005, from 7:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m., at Ben’s Chili Bowl, 13th and U Streets, NW, in the rear of the building. The agenda will include an update on the status of the new group homes that are rumored for our area, as well as a report on the feedback that was received from Council Member Fenty in response to a letter that was written to him about these rumored facilities.

As we begin to grapple with this problem, we are conducting an inventory of all group homes, boarding houses, nuisance properties, vacant properties, that presently exist within our area. Therefore, any one who is aware of or strongly suspects that there is a group home, a boarding house, a nuisance property or a vacant property on his/her block, please email that specific address to me as soon as possible. Once we get an accurate sense of what we actually have out there, then we can develop an effective strategy to deal with those that are currently presenting problems to us, as well as defend against new, unwanted facilities that might be contemplated for our neighborhood.

3. Citizen Summit IV: While a competing professional obligation will not allow me to be with you on Saturday, I strongly encourage every resident of the community who is able, to be present. This is the ideal opportunity to get our public safety, zoning, alcoholic beverage control, sanitation, recreation and other major concerns on the proverbial table of policy-makers from the DC Government. As you well know, our needs are many and if we are to get them attended to or adequately met in the near future, we must show up and participate in forums of this kind in large numbers. This will be the first summit that I have missed and I really feel bad about it. Nevertheless, I know that there are those among you who will take good notes and will fill me in on the details when I return.

Best,

Jim Berry
ANC 5C

Anyway we talked for a long time about today’s WP article where my very respected co-worker played devil’s advocate. He hasn’t read yesterday’s first part of the article, which is more of the same. Holy Rollers go bye-bye for $10 mill. Personally, I’d go bye-bye for $5 million, but then again I don’t own a warehouse building along a commerical strip.
ANCs did not sit well with him. Said they were as bad as HOAs. No ANCs are not as bad, cause I can paint my house lime green and put on a purple door and set out a flock of pink flamingos and gnomes in my front yard and there isn’t a dang thing no ANC or council person or anyone can do about it. I got purple paint. I got 4 flamingos. I could do it.

Anyone want to recommend or advise that I stay clear of any companies? I’m thinking of going to DSL after many many years of doing dial-up.

I’ve been making a list in my head of why I dislike Mondie’s project. Then there other people’s rehabs I dislike too because both they and the Mondie proposal do not seem to respect space.
Townhouses and rowhouses in my section of Shaw are tiny. Less than 2,000 square feet with many in the 1,000 sq. ft. range divided into two or three floors. Compared to some single family homes I’ve seen up for sale out in the inner ring burbs being 3,000-6,000 square feet, city homes are much smaller.
That smaller space has to be taken in account. In my house don’t even dream of trying to get a king sized (or even queen or double) box spring upstairs. If it don’t bend, it isn’t going to get around the bend. Futons rule. People and people’s stuff have to get through the house and just reducing the space from some larger place’s specs just won’t work. I keep thinking of this one thin (so not ADA compliant) hallway I saw in one open house. It led to a bedroom. The room was big enough to house a large bed but there was no way to get a box frame or any large furniture in the room because of the hallway. Whatever had to go into the room needed to disassemble or bend.
When a house is shrunk you have to take into account where are the walls and other things that do not move. I have my horror story of trying to get a fridge in the house, past the portion where it pinches a bit where there edge of the stair and the living room wall come close. If I had 1 or 2 more feet, the pinch, which I’m sure on paper looks fine, would not be a problem. I’m sure the stair would not have ruined Nora’s dress because it was a tight squeeze. But it did.
Living in a small space, not only do you need to make sure stuff can get through the door and down the hall, it shouldn’t overwhelm a room. Big fridges and ovens and other things that would look fine in a regular American home can make a city kitchen look painfully tiny. Big couches with the sectionals and things that fill the suburban sized living room, crowd the city living room.
So just don’t think you can take an 18 foot design and lop off 4 feet to squeeze in another house without having to deal with the consequences.

On one level I just gotta say WOOT! When seeing in today’s Post what I believe I had been seeing and wondering about…. the crazy crack fueled real estate market is cooling down.
You may ask, why would I rejoice at such a thing? For one selfish reason, I don’t want to see my real estate assessment continue on an insane rise. Since buying, I have seen the first number in the assessment figure change almost every friggin year. $100K, then $200K then $300K. Crazy. Second, maybe just maybe now my single friends can buy their own homes when the market ceases to be overvalued.
Yes, there is the downside. The engine that fuels the redevelopment going on here may slow down as well. I don’t believe the market will go bust. But I wondered if there was this continuous supply of people willing to spend a lot and take a chance on Shaw. My fear in a slowdown or a balancing out of the market is that investors and developers who have come in and have started work thinking they’d get desperate buyers throwing money at them will change plans and try for rentals and the ever reliable section 8 program when the buyers are not as desperate.
Maybe instead of “luxury” condos, maybe we’ll get plain old condos that plain old professionals can afford to buy. Hopefully the developers and investors can build for them.

From Art

Dear 5D Community Members:

Because Thanksgiving this month falls on the fourth Thursday, which is the traditional day of the Fifth District Citizens’ Advisory Council meeting, we will be holding our monthly meeting on the third Thursday, November 17, 2005 at MPD 5D Headquarters, 1805 Bladensburg Rd, NE at 7:00 pm.

At this meeting we will hear the Commander’s Report, conduct some Old Business, hear any pressing community concerns and then bring in some good old pre-holiday cheer.

Refreshments will be provided but if you can’t resist preparing a favorite dish or a dessert, please feel free.

We’re also partnering with 5D for the annual Fall Food Basket Drive, so consider bringing a non-perishable food item to this gathering. We also invite you to volunteer to help us prepare and wrap food baskets on November 22, 2005 at 5D Headquarters to bring holiday cheer to 5D families. For more information, please
call (202) 698-0111.

And once again, I’d like to thank the honorees and all of you who supported and contributed to the success of the recent 2005 5D CAC Awards Dinner.

Sincerely,

Art Slater
Chair, Fifth District Citizens’ Advisory Council (5D CAC)

Read today’s Truxton Circle daily dispatch! There is a meeting tonight at Mt. Sinai at 7 regarding Mr. Mondie’s development on Richardson Place. John added a few more concerns, sadly he won’t be able to make the meeting.
I share John’s concerns. Mondie’s plan looks like a poor one and needs to go back to the drawing board.

Another thing, semi-related. I’d love to see a DC architecture blog covering residential and commercial architecture of buildings in the District and how they relate to surrounding buildings and why some buildings are so ugly make you wanna slap the builder. The problem with the Mondie proposal is that the buildings have the wrong look for the area but the community lacks the vocabulary for expressing why such and such is ugly or wrong. We need real pictures of buildings not computer line drawings. Anyway, if there is a blog like that out there, tell me about it.

UPDATE
Well the meeting was held and Mondie claimed to Jim (not Berry) that he didn’t know anything about the meeting. Jim Berry had spoken to Mondie’s lawyer who was aware but could not make the meeting. Is it my faulty memory or didn’t these two ask for meeting between the BACA meeting and the ANC meeting?
I had created a lovely Power Point presentation for Mr. Mondie. I am saddened that he did not show. It’s not that anyone is against something going on the land on Richardson, it’s just that what Mondie is proposing is horrid. My little PP thing was a suggestion of something less horrid. But he wasn’t there. Yet, I did learn something valuable, while gathering pictures for the PP I discovered if you ride around like a crazy woman on a bike randomly taking pictures and then biking off and taking more pictures, you freak out the drug dealers. You can also freak out the drug dealers by running full force down the sidewalk in loud clompy heels. Anyway, I digress.
A point was made that at the BACA meeting Mondie failed to state why his proposal is so unique that he needs a zoning variance. He did not state why he cannot work within the rules that currently exist. He could build 2 18-20ft wide 3 level houses. Yet he wanted three 14 ft wide houses. C. informed us that in 1958 the city changed the rules regarding housing width because of the problem of overcrowding. If Mondie is allowed to build as he wishes, which no one is sure of what his wishes are since he doesn’t seem to be sure about what the heck he wants, he undermines what the District is trying to prevent, density that is more than what the space can bear.
Even if Mondie is able to one of the two three things he was proposing to do he’s going to loose money. After a few of us skipped out as the meeting turned to the matters of group houses, those closer to the action floated numbers that Mondie is going to pay for the land (it is unclear if he actually owns the land) and the amount is way too much. Couple that will all the potential problems of interest rates going up, which will slow down the Real Estate boom, and the fact that this is still a transitional area makes hints that he’s not going to get the kind of money he may be aiming for. When the market slows down, condos are the first to suffer. Also I read somewhere that a way to keep gentrification at bay was bad or poor design. Mondie’s proposal is a lovely example of bad design and will live itself out as affordable housing because people with choices will not pick the ugly poorly designed cramped house.

I just posted my notes on the BACA meeting on the main InShaw site and well the forces against affordable housing and group housing for the mentally ill are loud. Strangely, people who are for affordable housing and the people who detest affordable housing don’t show up at the same meetings. One brave woman (not me) spoke up for the cause of diversity.
On one neighborhood listserv there is much chatter about a planned affordable housing project that is to go up just on the other side of North Cap. Personally, my interest in it is minimal because a- it’s on the other side of North Cap and b- it is spearheaded and hopefully will be managed by the Holy Roman Catholic Church. I believe the Catholic Church also runs Immaculate Conception a low income apartment over near the Convention Center. Yet there are fears that it will be like some of the worst examples of affordable housing and will actually stunt the growth and development many want.
So my friends who are champions for affordable housing you are going to have to make a case to your neighbors to allow and support affordable housing. You will have to make a case that your neighbors will not suffer because of affordable housing. Your neighbors have suffered through bad section 8’ers and seedy boarding houses so no amount of guilt tripping will get them to support affordable housing. The argument that the city needs affordable housing just rings hollow. You need to appeal to their better angels but hold accountable those who manage so the neighbors to these projects will not be martyrs.

For the meeting of Nov 7 2005.
Sgt. Mitchell of 5D spoke. Don’t buy a Chrysler. Or if you have a Chrysler buy a Club or something because these cars are easy to break into and steal. I say get a stick shift, those things are a b!cth to drive. Something about the Partnerships for Problem Solving, they are looking at the methadone clinic, which is run by a private group. Also they will try talking to SOME. Something about residential parking and tracking parking violations.
Art Slater of the Land Use, Planning and Economic Development Committee spoke.
John has his notes on the BZA Case No. 17404 for 410-416 Richardson Pl on the Truxton Circle’s Daily Dispatch.
There was much chatter about unregistered group homes on the unit block of Bates. Of course the conversation seemed to confuse group homes with halfway houses it seemed. Anita Bonds, injected a little voice of reason for the cause of keeping the neighborhood diverse. The voices against group homes also got on a perceivable anti-renter vibe.
Other quick notes, Mary Ann is looking into wreaths for Bates Street and possibly surrounding areas.
We need to get house numbers on our back doors or back fences because we will be fined. Methinks people won’t bother until their neighbors start getting fines.