But while we're reveling in Mr. Rich's mea culpa, a more astonishing quote from a City officials needs to be dissected.
A commenter yesterday provided us with a story from the Alexandria Times citing Planning & Zoning Director Faroll Hamer:
"There are warehouses around the Braddock Road Metro station that are perhaps not the best plan for uses around a Metro station,” Hamer said. “We need to maximize the advantages that come with our Metro stations and are certainly looking at more density where that is appropriate."
Land Bay L, for example, in Potomac Yard, was approved with that in mind. "If you take away the roads, it is one of the densest areas in the City," Hamer said. "People don’t realize that because the FAR was calculated with the roads included."
Whoa, is there a problem with the quote or with Ms. Hamer's math?
Click here to view the City's own PowerPoint presentation on Potomac Yard and go to page 21 to see the map breaking down the proposed development of Potomac Yard landbay by landbay. Alternatively, you can click here to view the map the Growler published some months ago comparing the development in southern Potomac Yard with that proposed for Braddock Road.
Measured in terms of dwelling unit per acre or d.u., the projected residential density of Landbay L is about 21 units per acre (358 residential units on 17 acres of land).
By contrast, in our neighborhood alone the Prescott is 63.9 d.u. (64 units on roughly an acre), Colecroft Station is 71.71 d.u. (156 units on approximately 2.17 acres), the Monarch is 83.95 d.u. (169 units on about two acres), and the Potomac Club II high rise rental apartments is a whopping 191.10 d.u. (297 units on 1.5 acres).
And these are Planning & Zonings own numbers from its March 2006 Housing Inventory (click on a number to see the details for each project around the City).
So Growler, you ask, what about the office space and retail that are planned for Landbay L? Won't they bulk the site up?
OK, let's do the math. For comparison purposes, Braddock Place with four buildings and 386,927 sf of office space occupies 3.5 acres. So let's assume the office and retail space proposed for Landbay L will occupy some 4 acres. And let's not forget that Landbay L also has half an acre set aside as open space.
Subtract 4.5 acres from 17 acres — the size of the Landbay L parcel — and you are left with 12.5 acres that will be purely residential. Even in this more conservative scenario, the recalculation of dwelling units per acre is 28.8. That's nothing compared to what we already have on the eastern side of the railroad tracks and certainly much less than what we will be getting.
Why is this density so low? The Growler understands that these dwellings will be townhouses. By contrast, we are getting stacked condos.
Landbay L is flanked by Landbays K and M, which are to be preserved as parks. That's a nice mitigation of density.
Bad quote or bad math? It's your call, readers.
9 comments:
Using high density development to combat urban sprawl was something that just didn’t occur to me back in 1991," said Rich. "It was counterintuitive — at least it was counterintuitive to me."
It still is....
How is jamming people into Potomac Yard or Braddock Metro going to stop urban sprawl??? Only planned parenthood will do that! Hasn't he ever seen "An Inconvenient Truth"?
The result of over-building and higher Density in this city will be G-R-I-D-L-O-C-K, which will only encourage people to want to move to Woodbridge or Manassas, thus exascerbating transportation costs to yet again move more people farther distances. This insanity has got to STOP NOW!
Didn't we hear the consultant at the transportation meeting on Tuesday night say the only way to deal with saturation of traffic capacity is to spread it out over a longer duration during the day??? So you see, the bell curve of peak congestion just gets spread wider over more time, it can't get any higher to exceed present capacity. And as a previous posting stated, "I for one am tired of being a lab animal for Euille the Stoolie to conduct his social engineering experiments on."
I'm glad Rich is now out of the decision-making process....
This city can't afford piling mistake upon mistake in a hopeless attempt to balance the city budget, without attempting to ever cut back on anything....
except logic.
Keep up the good work, Growler!
If it's "impossible" to lower our density limits (at least spread them out over a larger area) in the Braddock Area Plan, maybe it's time to RAISE the density limits in Potomac Yard....Can't wait to see what the city council would have to say about THAT !!!
"... maybe it's time to RAISE the density limits in Potomac Yard..."
At the recent Council retreat, Rich encouraged City Council members to encourage the developer to pay for part — if not all — the expense of a new Potomac Yard Metro station. If the city needs to kick in money, Rich said, council members should be willing to use their bonding authority or carve a special tax district to make it happen.
Now, I'm all for this idea. I would LOVE to buy some tax-free municipal bonds to help pay for it, especially now that the Fed has made Treasurys a poor income investment.
"If it's "impossible" to lower our density limits (at least spread them out over a larger area) in the Braddock Area Plan,..."
Agreed - Hamer's plan needs some balancing.
After looking at her Landbay L proposal, it's clear she needs to move some of her much-loved density from Braddock East over to Braddock West.
And move some of all that open space from Braddock West to Braddock East.
"At the recent Council retreat, Rich encouraged City Council members to encourage the developer to pay for part — if not all — the expense of a new Potomac Yard Metro station. If the city needs to kick in money, Rich said, council members should be willing to use their bonding authority or carve a special tax district to make it happen."
Ooooooh, funny you should mention bonds. One of our local activists over in Rosemont sent the Growler an E-mail earlier this week discussing the history of Potomac Yard, and noted that after Commonwealth Atlantic bought the property in 1996 and was angling to bring PTO to the site, there was a plan to build a Metro station financed by Community Development Bonds. "The city would have been the guarantor of the bonds, the debt paid for by a special tax district on the future occupants of the Yard. Not at all a plan for the developer to pay for the Metro."
According to this individual, at a Council Work Session on the bonds, Vola Lawson told her "We're doing everything we can against those bonds." The bonds were nixed.
So it appears the community lost a Metro station again, this time through its own cheapness at a time when revenue was starting to flow in from rising property values.
What a pipe dream, this Metro illusion is. The City expects to get something for nothing.
But the net result is that they are prepared to ravage our neighborhood to make up for their earlier bad decisions.
"or carve a special tax district to make it happen."
Rich continues to compound the problem by asking us to endorse a special tax district so we can pay for his earlier mistakes. Yikes!
"What a pipe dream, this Metro illusion is. The City expects to get something for nothing.
But the net result is that they are prepared to ravage our neighborhood to make up for their earlier bad decisions.
"
thank god you said it...I have noticed this in Peppers ratnings...she wants Metro to build her a station, as if the City deserves and has to do or add nothing to the process. I am sure WMATA notices, though, what Alexandria has at its closest current airport station (not one hotel and a quarter of the area covered by public housing). So frankly, its not just the past mistakes but the loss of credibility thats killing this city.
"So it appears the community lost a Metro station again, this time through its own cheapness at a time when revenue was starting to flow in from rising property values."
Not cheapness - politics, as Lonnie Rich admitted.
City would guarantee, yes, but that isn't the same as paying the bonds off with no money coming in. City would have been a conduit, and nothing more. (Presumably, the developer was much more solvent than today's ARHA.)
Money to pay the bondholders would have come from the future owners and tenants of a FULLY and PROPERLY developed Potomac Yard.
Potomac Yard would have been within the boundaries of the proposed special tax district. Potomac Yard owners and tenants would have paid a special tax to the City that would have been used to pay the cost of the Potomac Yard Metro.
But the City gutted the developer's proposal, allowing only a third of the density proposed. (Compare current Potomac Yard to the buildings just north of it.) No wonder the developer didn't go along with it.
The City refused to permit the development that would have paid for a metro.
Although it isn't too late to put the density where it belongs.
"No wonder the developer didn't go along with it.
The City refused to permit the development that would have paid for a metro.
Although it isn't too late to put the density where it belongs."
Oh, absolutely! Potomac Yard is not yet completely built - just drive by and see all that vacant land.
Current Council needs to make sure that that area is developed to its highest and best use. And it has much greater potential value now than in 1991. Plus, there's a shopping center, a Harris Teeter, soon to be a new fire station, great restaurants... all the amenities someone would want to live near and walk to. Just look at Arlington's response, with its new condo communities so close by.
Ka-ching!
"Not cheapness - politics, as Lonnie Rich admitted."
Rich prostituted himself for votes-so few people vote-now he prostitutes himself for the Chamber types. At some point good sense must prevail as Rich is still playing politics.
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