Neighborhood Notes - Foxhall: 8 August 2001
Tom Sherwood’s Notebook last week asked: just where is the
cost-effective consortium that covers the interest of communities in campus plan
battles? That consortium is the Federation of Citizen Associations, which
represents all 16 of the community associations in D.C. impacted by campus
plans. The Federation meets on the
fourth Tuesday of each month at the historic Sumner School in downtown DC at 7
pm. (See http://www.dcwatch.com/federcit/)
Although it does not have the funding of the
Consortium of Universities, the Federation is an active supporter of the
appropriate use of taxpayer dollars to defend these issues, as is evidenced by
the careful staff work of the Office of Planning and now legal work by the
Corporation Counsel on the GWU lawsuit. Although Tom finds it a “confusing mix
of skirmishes that make sit hard for the media to get a grip on each one”, for
starters do the homework and read Prof. Shalit’s “Growth and Expansion of
Private Universities in D.C.” at http://www.foxhall.org/campus/Primer.htm
Even better, cover the next G.U. quarterly
BZA meeting which will be hosted by Foxhall Community on Sept 13 from 6:30 pm at Rock Creek Elementary School, corner of Q and 45th Streets. One
of the good things about BZA orders for universities is they use traditional
neighborhood boundaries, not political boundaries like ANC’s, so GU has FCCA
named as a Party to their Campus Plan. And no amount of redistricting
maneuvering by ward politicians can change that.
© Bob Andrew, Foxhall
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