[Mintwood-place] ANC likely to vote on the First Church of Christ Scientist hotel project this Wednesday

Mon Mar 5 08:22:00 EST 2012

Hi Cynthia & Mintwood List:  

You are correct in noting that the ANC is voting on a measure related to the First Church of Christ Scientist "Church-Hotel" at its upcoming meeting this Wednesday night, March 7, at 7 p.m. at Mary's Center.  But the ANC is voting on the design concept of the hotel, not whether it should be historically landmarked.  (The historic-landmarking issue is down the road a ways.)  

This upcoming ANC vote is very important, however, because if the ANC gives its nod to the "design" of the hotel--most notably its height and mass--this approval will carry weight when the church-hotel design-concept matter goes before the Historic Preservation Review Board later this month (on Thursday, March 22).  In fact, the question of the design of the hotel is a more important matter for the ANC to take a position on than whether the church deserve historic designation: The design of the hotel will change the residential, low-rise character of Champlain and Euclid streets forever, and it will be our several-member ANC helping make that decision on our behalf. 

There is great difference of opinion in the neighborhood about whether this hotel is a good idea for Adams Morgan.  But there is no question, design-wise, that the 10-story hotel will tower over everything else in its midst, and it will out-mass every other building in the Reed-Cooke section of Adams Morgan. 

Now the pro-hotel folks can go crazy with my comments on this listserv.  Have at it, everybody!  You can't change the fact that this is a giant building being squeezed into an intersection of two very narrow residential streets.  And you can't change the fact that this upcoming ANC meeting is very important, although you  know that the controversy tends to cause people to shut down and lose interest. 

Thanks, Cynthia, for letting the neighbors know about this upcoming ANC meeting on Wednesday night.  It's time for everybody to show up at Wednesday night, 

Mary Belcher 
1869 Mintwood  

----- Original Message -----

From: "Cynthia Pols" <polscm at aol.com> 
To: "mintwood place" <mintwood-place at lists.mutualaid.org> 
Sent: Monday, March 5, 2012 12:48:40 AM 
Subject: [Mintwood-place] ANC likely to vote on the First Church of Christ        Scientist hotel project this Wednesday 

Our advisory neighborhood commission, ANC 1C, is scheduled to meet this Wednesday (March 7) at 7PM in the Mary's Center building (the pink building) on 2355 Ontario Road. On the agenda is possible support of designation of the First Church of Christ Scientist church building as an historic landmark. People who have concerns about the proposed hotel project to be built in connection with the pending request for landmark status for the church should consider attending this meeting to voice those concerns and otherwise convey their concerns.   It is likely that the ANC will vote at this meeting on whether to support the developers' request for landmark designation for the church (as it is to be developed through the hotel project) and, in doing so, will be voting to approve (or disapprove) the developers' proposal as it currently stands, including the size and height of the proposed hotel building. 

The meeting begins at 7PM but it is probably o.k. to arrive a few minutes late as several other items are scheduled to precede the hotel discussion, including an update on the 18th Street construction project, and are likely to take up some time. 

The church item is listed on the agenda for the meeting as item VII.C.1 and entitled "Review by ANC 1C of First Church of Christ Scientists Application for Historic Designation before the Historic Planning Review Board (HPRB)." Here is a link to the agenda for the March 7 ANC meeting. 

http://www.anc1c.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=68&Itemid=77 

The hotel developers revised and updated their plans in late January in response to criticisms received at the November 15, 2011, meeting of the Zoning Commission (ZC). At that meeting, the ZC decided to "set down" the developers' "planned unit development" (PUD) application for redevelopment of the church and an adjacent property that presently contains the City Paper offices and several other offices. The ZC voted in favor of "setting down" the PUD application for consideration at the commission level in spite of negative recommendations made about the proposal by the District's Office of Planning. (The standard process is for PUD applications to be reviewed and revised at the staff level and then presented to the ZC for final approval in relatively polished form; in this case , there are many issues unresolved that would have to be dealt with in a less structured way at the commission level.) Among other things, the professional planners at the Office of Planning deemed the height of the proposed hotel to be excessive for the neighborhood and the application to be flawed in numerous other ways.  

Here is a link to a video of the Zoning Commission's Nov 15, 2011, discussion of the developers' PUD application and decision to "set down" the application for disposition: 

http://view.liveindexer.com/ViewIndexSessionSLMQ.aspx?indexPointSKU=SHCxj82tLP2HHyUmjLVbRw%3d%3d 

Go to this link to download and see the developers' latest plans: 

http://adamsmorganhistorichotel.com/index.php/home 

As you can see in the latest plans, the developers still plan to construct a large hotel just behind (and attached to) the church that will be significantly taller than the church building and will loom large over it and the immediate neighborhood. While the developers revised their plans following the Nov 15 ZC meeting, they elected not to reduce the height of the building in any meaningful way (it went from something like 96 feet to something like 94 feet in the latest plans even though several of the zoning commissioners made clear at the Nov 15 meeting that they expected the developers to revise the plans by reducing the height of the building by eliminating a floor or two. 

The hotel project is apparently on the March 22 agenda of DC's Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) for "conceptual review" for possible designation as an historic landmark based on the revised plans by the hotel developer for the building. Go to this website for the agenda for this meeting: 

http://planning.dc.gov/DC/Planning/Historic+Preservation/About+HPO+&+HPRB/Who+We+Are/Historic+Preservation+Review+Board/Agendas+and+Reports/HPRB,+March+22,+2012 

If you cannot attend Wednesday's ANC meeting and would like to convey your concerns to any and all ANC members, here is a link containing their names and contact info: 

http://www.anc1c.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=25&Itemid=62 

Like most community residents, I would like to see the church building preserved and used for new purposes that will enhance the neighborhood. I was initially attracted to the hotel and am not necessarily unalterably opposed to the idea of a hotel (if properly scaled and dimensioned and if more is done to preserve its interior) but believe that perhaps we are missing out on an opportunity to turn the church building into a much more valuable community asset such as a library/community center that would not depend on appending a large-sized hotel to the church.  

Please feel free to contact me if you would like additional information.  

Cynthia M. Pols 
1862 Mintwood Place, NW - # 304 
Washington, DC  20009 
202-328-0654 

_______________________________________________ 
Mintwood-place mailing list 
Mintwood-place at lists.mutualaid.org 
http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/mintwood-place 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.mutualaid.org/pipermail/mintwood-place/attachments/20120305/d14f2a8c/attachment.html>