2407. PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT PRIORITIES

2407 PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT PRIORITIES 2407.1 This section summarizes the opportunities and challenges residents and stakeholders prioritized during the 2006 Comprehensive Plan revision. During large community workshops, residents shared their feedback on District-wide and neighborhood specific issues. Since the 2006 community workshops, however, some of the challenges and opportunities facing the community have evolved. The following summary does not reflect new community priorities or feedback from either amendment cycle but summarizes the most important issues during the 2006 Comprehensive Plan revision. 2407.2 Workshops over the course of the Comprehensive Plan Revision provided an opportunity for residents of Upper Northeast to share their views on important planning issues. Input from these workshops was supplemented with feedback from Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners (ANCs), community groups, and individual residents. Many other meetings were held on long-range planning issues in the Upper Northeast Planning area, including workshops for the Northeast Gateway Small Area Plan; Ward 5 summits on transportation and economic development; transportation meetings on the Rhode Island Avenue, New York Avenue, and South Dakota Avenue corridors; and meetings on specific development proposals. 2407.3 Several important messages and priorities were expressed at these meetings: Upper Northeast neighborhoods take pride as middle-income, family-oriented communities. Although the community’s population declined by 20 percent during the 1980s and 1990s, there is still a strong sense of identity and civic pride in places like Arboretum, North Michigan Park, and Woodridge. Conservation of the existing housing stock is a high priority although there are differences of opinion on the best way to achieve this. Neighborhoods such as Brookland, where about two-thirds of the homes pre-date World War II, have debated the possibility of historic district designation, but have yet to reach a consensus on the best way to preserve the historic character of the community. Residents of Upper Northeast are feeling the pressure of escalating housing costs. Displacement is a concern in neighborhoods like Ivy City and Trinidad, where one-quarter of the residents live below the poverty line and home prices have tripled in the last five years. Upper Northeast includes many lower-income households, residents on public assistance, and hard working people trapped in low wage jobs. There is anxiety about expiring federal housing subsidies, and the future of large public housing complexes like Langston Dwellings. Residents want assurance that they will not be dislocated if and when these complexes are renovated or replaced. The recent redevelopment of Montana Terrace provides a good example of meeting affordable housing needs while creating opportunities for home ownership for existing residents. Residents are concerned that they are the location of choice for unwanted municipal land uses, such as trash transfer stations, bus garages, youth detention centers, vehicle maintenance facilities, and halfway houses. While there is an appreciation for the importance of these uses to the District, there are concerns about their continued concentration in Upper Northeast simply because the area has a large supply of industrially zoned land. Upper Northeast neighborhoods have lived with the heavy truck traffic, noise, and unappealing views that comes with industrial land uses for decades. This is particularly true in Ivy City, Langdon, Brentwood, and the 7th-8th Street NE area southwest of the Brookland Metro station. Residents are especially concerned about large trucks, vibration, dust, air pollution, and the transport of hazardous materials on the railroads. There is also a desire to clean up brownfield sites in the community and return them to productive use. These sites provide an opportunity to apply green development principles, turning environmental liabilities into environmental assets. Retail choices in Upper Northeast need to be expanded. For 20 years, Hechinger Mall was the only large shopping center in the area. Options have improved with the opening of Home Depot/Giant, and will get better still with a planned new shopping center at Fort Lincoln, but these centers are auto-oriented and are not convenient to everyone in the community. Many of the commercial areas in Upper Northeast are dominated by used car lots, carry-outs, liquor stores, automotive uses, and other activities that are not conducive to neighborhood shopping. More retail districts like Brookland’s 12th Street are desired to meet the day-to-day needs of residents. Rhode Island Avenue, Benning Road, Florida Avenue, Bladensburg Road, and the areas around the Metro stations have the potential to become pedestrian-oriented shopping districts. The Florida Market also has the potential to become a more vital shopping district, serving not only as a wholesale venue but also as a retail center for Ivy City, Trinidad, Eckington, and nearby neighborhoods. Although seminaries, cemeteries, and institutions provide much greenery, and the community is ringed by the National Arboretum, the Anacostia River, and the Fort Circle Parks, much of Upper Northeast is starved for public parkland. More active recreational areas, playgrounds, athletic fields, and traditional neighborhood parks are needed. Better connections to the Arboretum and Anacostia River are needed. There are also concerns that the large institutional open spaces—particularly the great lawns and wooded glades of the area’s religious orders—may someday be lost to development. These properties are important to the health of the community and should be considered as opportunities for new neighborhood and community parks (as well as housing) if they become available. They are the lungs of the neighborhood. The area’s major thoroughfares need to be improved. New York Avenue is the gateway to the nation’s capital for over 100,000 vehicles a day and provides the first impression of Upper Northeast (and the District) for many residents, commuters, and visitors. Its motels and fast food joints, used car lots, chop shops, strip clubs, salvage yards, and warehouses do not project a positive image. Moreover, the street is often clogged with traffic, especially around its interchanges with South Dakota Avenue and Florida Avenue. The same is true of Bladensburg Road, and some of the other arterial streets in the area. The community wishes to see these corridors upgraded, without diverting traffic to other thoroughfares and residential streets nearby. Upper Northeast did not experience the kind of large-scale development experienced elsewhere in Washington, DC between 2000 and 2005, but that is likely to change in the next few years. Proposals to redevelop the Capital City Market as a “new town are being discussed, and a large mixed-use development is also under consideration at the Bladensburg/New York Avenue intersection. Residents are also very interested in proposals for the McMillan Reservoir Sand Filtration Site and the Armed Forces Retirement Home, as development on these sites would challenge the roads, infrastructure, and public services in Upper Northeast. Growth and development should be carefully managed to avoid negative impacts, and should be leveraged to provide benefits for the community. There is general—though not universal—agreement that the Rhode Island Avenue, Brookland/CUA, and Fort Totten Metrorail stations are logical locations for future development. The stations are currently adjoined by parking lots and industrial uses that do not take advantage of their proximity to Metro. These areas may provide opportunities for apartments, condominiums, townhomes, and other types of moderate and medium-density housing, provided that measures are taken to buffer adjacent lower-density neighborhoods, address parking and traffic issues, and mitigate other community concerns. There are differences of opinion as to the appropriate density of development and the precise mix of uses at each station. Small Area Plans are needed for each area to continue the community dialogue on their future. More should be done to connect Upper Northeast residents with jobs in the Planning Area. Right now, only 10 percent of those who live in Upper Northeast actually work in Upper Northeast. With 40,000 jobs in the community, that figure should be much higher. The area’s nine percent unemployment rate is high. Trade schools, vocational schools, and apprenticeship programs are needed to strengthen labor force skills and provide more pathways to employment for local residents. Schools and other public facilities in Upper Northeast should be retained in public ownership, even if they are closed due to under enrollment. Residents attending Comprehensive Plan meetings felt strongly that these facilities should not be sold for development, but should be kept in public ownership and used for the delivery of other community services, such as health care and care for older adults. The need for services for older adults is particularly high, given the high percentage of older adults (over 25 percent of the population in neighborhoods like Woodridge and North Michigan Park). Many of the schools, libraries, recreation centers, and other public facilities in the area are in need of modernization. Crummell School is an example. The modernization of Noyes Elementary and Luke Moore Academy are promising, but there is much more to accomplish. SOURCE: District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Act of 1984, effective April 10, 1984 (D.C. Law 5-76; 31 DCR 1049 (March 9, 1984)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Act of 1984 Land Use Element Amendment Act of 1984, effective March 16, 1985 (D.C. Law 5-187; 32 DCR 873 (February 15, 1985)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Amendments Act of 1989, effective May 23, 1990 (D.C. Law 8-129; 37 DCR 55 (January 5, 1990)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Amendments Act of 1989 NCPC-Recommended Amendments, and Closing of Public Alleys in Square 669, S.O. 88-452, Act of 1990, effective May 23, 1990 (D.C. Law 8-132; 37 DCR 2213 (April 6, 1990)); as amended by District Government Land Use Temporary Amendment Act of 1994, effective October 1, 1994 (D.C. Law 10-190; 41 DCR 5360 (August 12, 1994)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendments Act of 1994, effective October 6, 1994 (D.C. Law 10-193; 41 DCR 5536 (August 19, 1994)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Act of 1984 Land Use Amendment Act of 1994, effective March 21, 1995 (D.C. Law 10-235; 42 DCR 30 (January 6, 1995)); as amended by Technical Amendments Act of 1996, effective April 18, 1996 (D.C. Law 11-110; 43 DCR 530 (February 9, 1996)); as amended by Second Technical Amendments Act of 1996, effective April 9, 1997 (D.C. Law 11-255; 44 DCR 1271 (March 7, 1997)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 1998, effective April 27, 1999 (D.C. Law 12-275; 46 DCR 1441 (February 19, 1999)); as amended by Technical Amendments Act of 1999, effective April 12, 2000 (D.C. Law 13-91; 47 DCR 520 (January 28, 2000)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 2006, effective March 8, 2007 (D.C. Law 16-300; 54 DCR 924 (February 2, 2007)); as amended by Technical Amendments Act of 2008, effective March 25, 2009 (D.C. Law 17-353; 56 DCR 1117 (February 6, 2009)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 2010, effective April 8, 2011 (D.C. Law 18-361; 58 DCR 908 (February 4, 2011)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 2021, effective August 21, 2021 (D.C. Law 24-20; 68 DCR 006918 (July 16, 2021)). District of Columbia Municipal Regulations Comprehensive Plan 10-A DCMR § 2407