Author: Mari

Please note these are NOT OFFICIAL meeting notes. I am not a note taker, I’m an observer, who takes lousy notes.
I half covered the Joe Mamo proposal to construct 9 floors of condos on his property on the corner of North Capitol and Florida. That and the proposed car wash on the 1500 block of New Jersey Avenue were the big draws. I can’t say the presentation by Norman Glasgow (representing Jemal D.) to remove a parking covenant, which really wasn’t understood, brought anyone.
As mentioned this was Mr. Mamo’s 4th community presentation. If one takes it on face value Mr. Mamo really wants to move this project along and wants to get community support before investing anymore into the property so he’s meeting with Truxton folks, Eckington folks and the ANC so he can speed things along. Also showing up so often would counter any claim that this is a big surprise to residents. Well, it will be a big surprise to people who don’t bother keeping up with all these piddly little local meetings.
What Mr. Mamo is presenting is a condo (OWNERS) building of 90 to 100 one and two bedroom units (DENSITY). Two levels are to be underground parking, for 80 some cars, so the bad dirt from the old gas station will go bye-bye. Above ground there will be 8 floors facing North Capitol and 6 floors facing Florida Ave. The garage entrance would be on Florida. Mr. Mamo needs support to build as high as the 8 floors and claims that if the property were across the street it would be zoned for the height he desires to recoup the costs of this venture.
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Mr. Mamo did have a drawing but he wasn’t married to the initial drawings. When asked about the look he was aiming for he used the Ellington on U Street as an example. However to reflect the neighborhood he would favor a red brick look over the Ellington’s yellow brick. He seemed willing to entertain the idea of rounding off the corners so the building wouldn’t be a bunch of boxes like the not so pretty condo at 6th and Florida or the new project on S Street.
None of the condos will be really subsidized. Eighty-five percent of the units is proposed to be sold at market rate. Fifteen percent of the building will be set aside for people earning 80% of the AMI (Area Median Income). I’ve been looking at the HUD user site trying to find out what is the AMI for the DC area. According to their data set for determining Section 8 eligibility in DC for 2005, the MFI (Median Family Income) for the area is $89,300. A single person is 30% of the median at $18,750; very low income at 31,250; and low income below 40,600. Two person household is 30% of the median at 21,450; very low at $35,700; and low at $46,400. I’m not skilled at math but I gather 80% of the AMI is much higher than low income. A single person making $50K would be at 80% the AMI. Lower than that, you’re not middle class, you low income (aka po’). So still with the 15% you have to have a job, or some serious well paying investments to get one of the proposed condos.
On the first level, Mamo proposes retail. He’s taking suggestions from the community. Soul Day Spa has asked that no competing spas be included. One meeting attendee asked that the retail not include liquor stores. Personally, I’m against liquor stores but I would be open to a wine shop. Please for the love of whatever deity you worship don’t suggest Harris Teeter. Not enough space and the parking would be a nightmare.
The negatives, if they fall under that, brought up were the unaffordability of the condos and the extra traffic being a danger to neighborhood children. Monday I wrote at length about the affordablity issue, no need to rehash it here. The fellow who brought up the issue of children pointed out that the 1 & 2 bedroom condos would attract a certain population that would do a lot of coming and going. Damned single people with money! That coming and going would add more traffic to the surrounding roads that children cross to get to the Harry Thomas Center or to and from school.
Jim Berry, our singlemember ANC, supports the “concept” of the condos but is concerned. Mamo is asking for a lot of trust from the community without a lot of details and the ‘devil is in the details’. Jim would like to see something in writing.
After Mamo’s presentation attorney Norman Glasglow asked about removing the parking coventant from 60 Florida Avenue, NE. Some time was spent trying to figure out where and what he was talking about. Something, something about rose bushes that were supposed to be planted that weren’t. Then there was chatter about how lifting the covenant would impact parking. The gist was that it wouldn’t have much of an impact and the covenant should be lifted.
Art Slater spoke about the NY Avenue corridor study. The idea is that a tunnel may make the section of NY Ave where it meets NJ less of a ROAD OF DEATH. Yes, if the tunnel plan goes through, which it might not because there is no money for it, then it would make getting on 395 a bit more inconvenient for Truxton drivers. Tunnel: Great for Truxton pedestrians, not so great for Truxton drivers. Art stressed that we need people to read the study so the civic association will have people who would understand it.
There was some talk about Main Streets. I didn’t write anything down. I’ve had a good day or 2 to forget it, so anyone want to fill this space in the comments section knock yourself out.
People had already headed out by the time the New Jersey car wash came up. Here’s the short of it, that block is not zoned for that type of business. It is zoned R4 and they would need a variance to legally put a car detailing business there. Yet still Jim Berry needs you to contact him if you are opposed to the business.
Regarding the RFP relating to the firehouse on North Capitol, something about the city being behind schedule. If I understood Jim correctly, the city has been paralyzed by all the suggestions and trying to synthize them into something has been difficult.
Nothing new on Amstrong.
Meeting broke up.

I was going to post this for Tuesday, and remembered, hey I’m not posting on Tuesdays anymore…
Hi folks from the Truxton Circle Dispatch! These are not the meeting minutes or full notes, come back Wednesday for those.
Well I got out of the Special BACA meeting tonight, I may post my notes on Wednesday. Maybe. Dunno.
Anyway the big draw was the 4th presentation by Joe Mamo (bald black guy in black shirt w/ olive jacket standing in fuzzy picture) who wants to construct a condo building at the corner of North Cap and Florida and needs a zoning variance and community approval. Attendees had lots of questions and concerns and the statements brought me back to the whole “every silver lining has a cloud” post. We say we want development, but quake in fear about the extra traffic and the greater un-affordability of the neighborhood, that development brings.
According to Mamo and his development posse (fuzzy white guy and other fuzzy black man) 85% of the proposed condo will be market rate and 15% of would be affordable (80% of the Area Median Income). This started some chatter about the adult children of area residents not being able to afford to move back into the neighborhood. The lawyer (white fuzzy) said he had kids too and they have the same issues, but that is the way the market is. Jim our gracious leader later came back to that saying that the flippant ‘that’s the way the market is’ is not the kind of answer that citizens deserve. Yet, for me the answer is that’s the way of the DC housing market. One would do better to convince a neighbor to sell to your family members for a below market price than a for profit developer.
You know if Mamo said he was going to make it 100% affordable housing at 80% AMI, people would be up in arms. Don’t believe me, talk up the Slater Langston School as senior housing ’cause that got a cool reception.
No pleasing us BACA people. If it is affordable we’re afraid of it being overrun by Section 8’ers. If it is luxury, then it makes the whole neighborhood unaffordable. If it is affordable old people housing, then it doesn’t attract hip cool business and we become a senior dumping ground. Oh yeah, and we really want a Harris Teeter and a Starbucks, but we don’t want the incomes and the density needed to attract those businesses. Because the incomes will make the neighborhood unaffordable for the long time residents and their offspring and the density will take away the precious parking. PRECIOUS (channeling Golum).
Once again, and I’m typing this with feeling, figure out what you want and acknowledge the negative that comes with it. Don’t pretend that you can become just like that other neighborhood X without the headaches that come with it. To get the cool stores and businesses means we need density with money. Density means big tall buildings. Density means more traffic. More traffic means it’s harder to jaywalk. Density with money will attract that damned Starbucks everyone keeps coveting, but it raises the cost of living in the area. Starbucks coffee ain’t cheap and they aren’t going to give you a pre-gentrification discount.
Believing that you can bring in development that improves the neighborhood, cleans up crime, brings in high scale shops, “nice” restaurants, and the cache of some of the tonier neighborhoods without endangering your street parking, the density and scale of buildings, or the abilty for your kids and friends to buy in is an urban fairy tale.
It’s late and obviously I’m grouchy and in a foul mood. I should stop typing now.

PRREEEE-CIOOOOUS

Jim announced the special BACA meeting regarding land use and whatnot is tonight. See the main InShaw site for info.

via Jim
Neighbors,

This is a gentle reminder of tonight’s meeting. The issues related to
the two presentations will be the subjects of consideration and a vote of
ANC 5C in the near future. If possible, please come out and find out what is
being proposed, first-hand.

Hope to see you there!

Best,

Jim Berry
ANC 5C
########################
SPECIAL MEETING
Involving Land Use, Planning and Economic Development Issues
Agenda for the Evening Includes:
(1) A Presentation by Developer Joe Mamo re. A Proposal to Construct
Nine
Floors of Condominiums, with Commercial Property on the First Floor, on
the
Vacant Lot Located at the Northwest Corner of North Capitol Street and
Florida Avenue, N.W.
(2) A Presentation by Attorney Norman Glasgow re. A Proposal before
the
Zoning Commission to Remove a Parking Covenant from No. 60 Florida
Avenue,
N.E.
At the conclusion of these presentations, Land Use, Planning and
Economic
Development Committee business will be taken up. Among the topics to
be
considered, time permitting, are:
Land Use, Planning and Economic Development Committee Structure,
Distribution of Tasks, Areas of Interest —
* Small Area Planning Visioning Session
* New York Avenue Corridor Study
* Discussion of reStoreDC/Main Streets and BACA’s role in it:
* Briefing on Economic Restructuring Seminar
* What is the “Main Street Four Point Approach” to Neighborhood Business District Revitalization?
* Design
* Organization
* Promotion
* Economic Restructuring
* Enhanced Business Information Center (e-BIC) Classes
* Car Detailing Shop proposed for the 1500th Block of New Jersey Avenue, NW
* Review of Proposed RFPs (Requests for Proposals) made on
area properties
* Armstrong School New Charter School Progress Update
* Developer Brian Brown and the Anna J. Cooper House
* The Ramifications of Numerous Photo Enforcement Traffic
Cameras in the Area
Monday, August 8, 2005
Mount Sinai Baptist Church
3rd and Q Streets, N.W.
Rooms 1 and 2
7:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m.

Because foot washing is sooooo 1st century
As I was riding back home on my bike yesterday after church I spotted an odd sight over at the house owned by the Korean church. On the sidewalk I saw an Asian woman cutting the hair of a black man sitting in a chair. The chair could have been a barber’s chair because of its height and angle. I guess haircuts are charitable. If your talent is cutting hair, then I gather you can cut hair for the Lord.
The Korean Church that owns the house does some sometimes odd things ‘for’ the community. At times I have spotted them singing at the park on 1st where the bums hang out. I have spotted a gang of Asian teenagers posting signs of some little event or another on the light posts. And every year, they have a Easter flower give away. I just find it odd how this suburban Korean church does it’s missionary work. To each their own….

also on the topic of religious organizations…..

This is not Islamic Idol
If you are within a block of the mosque on the 1500 block of 4th Street you can sometimes hear the call to prayer that is broadcast over the loudspeakers. Sunday night, around 8:15PM, whoever was doing the call seemed like he was trying to hold every single note for as long as he humanly could. I was also trying to determine what style of singing it was too. I do listen to the different styles each man brings to his call. One time, one fellow seemed to try to belt it out like an old time R&B song. As a non-Muslim, my own personal preference is not before 5:30AM and a straight unadorned call.

Comment policy-
INITIAL YOUR POSTS!!
I’m getting more unidentified comments and I don’t like it. Let’s just say I’m in a delete-happy mood today.

From “The First Day”:
“When in answer to her question, my mother tells her that we live at 1227 New Jersey Avenue, the woman first seems to be picturing in her head where we live.”

When author Edward P. Jones writes about the places in Lost in the City, a collection of short stories, one does try to picture in your head where the characters live.
In “The Night Rhonda Ferguson Was Killed,” the main character Cassandra drives her friends all over the city and takes a trip out to Anacostia. Before crossing the river Cassandra and her crew do stop in Shaw.

“The birds in their trees continued to make a racket as they turned off 11th on to P Street. Just before 9th, they passes a group moving boxes and furniture into an apartment building across from Shiloh Baptist.
At the light at 9th, Gladys, looking back, asked if Cassandra could back up. “I think thas [sic] Joyce and Pearl,” she said.”

Joyce reappears in “His Mother’s House” which is somewhere near the intersection of 10th and O Streets.

“”Come back here!” The woman was nearing O Street. “Sweet Jesus,” Joyce said to herself. Had she not been in her bathrobe she would have run after the woman…”

There are stories like the “First Day” where exact addresses are given. In the title story “Lost in the City” there is an apartment at 457 Ridge Street. A husband kills his wife at 427 M Street in “The Sunday Following Mother’s Day.” Most other times intersections, “The Store” located at the corner of 5th and O. Finding a parking spot at 10th and S Street in “Gospel.” And there are landmarks, in “Lost In The City” the main character has the cab go up New Jersey Ave. then turns right on Rhode Island and notes passing by Frazier’s Funeral Home. In “Gospel” the singing group decides to stop over at the Florida Avenue Grill.
Jones, as you can tell makes great use of geography. Place matters.
From “The Store”:

“The next week I took the G2 bus all the way down P Street, crossing 16th Street into the land of white people…..Sometimes, blocks before my stop on my way home from Georgetown in the evening, I would get off the G2 at 5th Street. I would walk up to O and sit on the low stone wall of the apartment building across the street from what had been Al’s and Penny’s Groceries.”

I gotta clean out my favorites file of old gentrification links. I’m starting with this one.
Everyso often wandering around parts of Shaw I may see a faded or not so faded spray painted graffiti saying “Stop Gentrification.” Oh, yeah, I’m inspired to….. what? Leave? Heck no. I bought my house, fixed it, and redid the lawn, I ain’t leaving.
Simple message with no answer. I could spend a good 2 paragraphs belittling the type of person I think puts this sort of thing up, but I won’t.
As I wrote, simple message, no simple answer. In Gentrification and the Paradox of Affordable Housing by Andres Duany (unpublished as of 2000) you can read about the problem of the answer to stopping (or trying to) gentrification. For one, gentrification is not a controllable artificial thing of the city’s doing. The city might put something in that may spark gentrification, but that spark may not catch fire and if there is fire, it may not be up to the city how hot, how long, and how much it burns. Right now I’m thinking the proposed Nats stadium. It my be a catalyst but I don’t think it will produce the wild results the city and everyone else wants, bringing gentrification to that part of SE.
Second, affordable housing is hard to retain. Affordable housing is needed but its hard to maintain and protect a section of the city where the poor live. The “old neighborhood” of Chinatown or what have you (Duany uses NYC as an example) cannot be protected from gentrification. He says:

These inner city neighborhoods however, are not permanent as they were usually built originally for the middle-class and it is their quality that eventually attracts subsequent gentrification. They are, in fact, only recovering their intrinsic value; they are reverting to their origins, not just being “taken away” from the poor.

Another part of the affordable housing equation is free will. You can’t tell white people they can’t move into a black neighborhood. You can’t tell a lower middle class/ blue collar black family they can’t sell their house for top dollar. Duany nor I am talking about apartment buildings, we are talking individual houses and properties where it is wrong to impose restrictions on homeowners to keep affordable housing stock.
Duany’s answer to stopping gentrification is bad design. Bad design will keep the gentrifiers out. Well, from my own house and some of the open houses I’ve been to around Shaw, that won’t work either. Theoretically, Duany says that mediocre design will make the gentry seek other housing. In practice, crackhead design in Shaw has done little to hold back gentrification except keep an overpriced house on the market longer. Duany blames modernist designs. I don’t know about modernism, but I know crackhead when I see it.
Another suggestion Duany makes to stop gentrification is to allow the poor to build their own houses in “code free” zones. Yeah, it’s called building without a permit. You can do it in places where the neighbors won’t report you to the city.
No simple answer.

You can’t both run a liquor store and do band practice.
I know I said I wasn’t going to walk into the closest liquor store on 4th, but I was way too lazy to cross Florida Ave to get to Bloomingdale Liquors on 1st. I did struggle with getting on the bike and dragging my butt over to Bloomingdale or checking out Modern Liquors. All so I can try to make a mojito. ‘Cause I got all this dang mint growing in the yard and I’m getting sick of mint tea. I got mint, but no light rum. So that meant a trip to the liquor store.
All I needed was a little light rum. Any liquor store, no matter how ghetto or run down or shot up should have light rum. So I went to the store on 4th.
Before I railed against stores that are nothing but a foyer and bulletproof glass. I see I was right for another reason. I walk in and there is no one behind the glass.
Hello?
No one.
Then I hear the clicking of drum sticks and a drum. A rock/funk/? band starts playing somewhere in a back room. I decide it is not worth it and head back home. I’ll go out and get rum when I’m up to going over to 14th or 9th.
I guess if everything is behind glass, there is nothing to steal, so you can ignore the store. And if you can ignore the store then you can have band practice.

Today’s optional posting
Instead of going to the BACA meeting I went to dinner. But I did ask what did I miss and the following is a extremely brief description of the meeting:
The daytime shootings were addressed and it apparently was an emotional exchange. A good portion of the meeting was on public safety issues. There will be a separate meeting, with no date as of yet to deal with public safety in the area.
Art Slater talked about developments planned to go up in the area. One of interest is the old Exxon gas station which is a plot of land at the corner of Florida and North Capitol. He also talked about the proposed car wash that is headed for the corner of New Jersey and Islamic Way (1500 block of New Jersey). If you didn’t get the flyer, several neighbors are up in arms about it and don’t want it. Jim Berry (our ANC) is looking into what can be done. And Art talked about the billboards at P and 4th. There will be a meeting next week, I don’t know the time, to address the development in the area.
Mary Ann Wilmer talked up the Flower Power Garden Tour. THERE WILL BE A POLICE PRESENCE FOR THE TOUR! We all still have tickets. I still have tickets.
That was it.

Last year I began posting about 5 days a week and kept up the posting pace for a year. Now, I’m finding it a tad bit harder to come up with things to write on a near daily basis and there are some other projects I would like to devote my time to. So I’m going to reduce my postings to 3 times a week, particularly Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I might post Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I’m going to treat them like my Saturdays and Sundays, where I post when I really, really, have something to say.
Last year in August I had an average of 42 visits a day using up 31MG a month, this July it was an average of 450 daily visits using 701MG. At 1 gig my server starts charging me $5 more. I like you guys but I don’t make any money from this and as I’ve said many times, I’m cheap. So posting 3x a week is also a internet traffic calming/reducing strategy.
Fear not, I’m not going anywhere. Neither are the crackheads, the dealers, the bad section 8’ers, and horrid suburbanites who come in to trash the hood. As long as there are those folks, as well as the slow changes of a gentrifying neighborhood, I’ll write about them.

Thanks & Pax,
Mari/e
Webmistress