Neighborhood Notes - Foxhall: 31 January 2001

Apart from a facilitated consensus on the Campus Plan for the Mount Vernon Campus of GWU, all the other campus plans since have been subject to unresolved disputes. The BZA to date have issued rulings on a couple, which leave much to be desired in either consistency or clarity. Remaining plans will now be settled by the Zoning Commission.

Handing campus planning over to the Zoning Commission involves more than getting it away from a BZA burdened down by routine zoning exceptions. The Office of Planning, working with the Federation of Citizens Associations and the DC Consortium of Universities, is drafting new regulatory language. This can help distinguish campus facilities located in residential areas from those in non-residential, ensure that University-owned properties outside the contiguous campus are comprehended in the planning process, including use changes for those currently approved.

While detail text is yet to emerge from the Office of Planning and obligatory public hearing to be held before language is finalized for Council approval, it is encouraging that both the Executive and Legislative branch of DC Government recognizes the present campus plan process is broken.

Meanwhile, MVC is having it’s own difficulty with officialdom. DCRA cost them 4 months in permit delay, essentially by ducking for cover after the unrelated Tenleytown tower fiasco. As a direct consequence, many more truckloads of frozen dirt needed to be hauled out and replaced with costly rock before concrete could be poured, also prolonging dump trucks on Foxhall.

More seriously, DDOT seem to have lost track of the promise to design and install a traffic light at Whitehaven and Foxhall, which needs to be in operation for safe co-existence of MVC traffic and St Patrick’s carpool - last Friday a student bus and car collided.

© Bob Andrew, Foxhall