Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Serving Chevy Chase, Colonial Village, Shepherd Park, Brightwood, Crestwood, Petworth & 16th Street Heights
INS
Vol. XLVI, No. 38
The NorThwesT CurreNT
Design tweaks sought for two playgrounds
■ Parking: Program won’t
expand citywide after all
Current Staff Writer
By ELIZABETH WIENER Current Staff Writer
Jumping into the fray about visitor parking passes, the D.C. Council yesterday unanimously rejected a D.C. Department of Transportation plan to offer the precious — and free — placards to all households in residential permit parking zones. Members adopted an emergency bill from Ward 4 member Muriel Bowser to “preserve the status
Bill Petros/The Current
Mayor Vincent Gray and other city officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday to mark the opening of the newly renovated Hamilton Payground in Ward 4.
Current Staff Writer
— Page 3
LE
STA TE
quo”: visitor passes distributed to neighborhoods on a case-by-case basis. The Transportation Department had announced its intent to put a citywide system in place Oct. 1, allowing all residents who live in permit parking zones to request a pass online. The proposal spurred widespread protests, from advisory neighborhood commissions, civic associations and other council members, who fear a proliferation of visitor passes would lead to more cars clogging streets and, perhaps, to residents selling the free passes to the highest bidder. See Parking/Page 2
Bill Petros/Current file photo
The expansion will address space constraints on the main campus.
students out of cramped, aging quarters on a single floor of the school’s main building. “We’re in desperate need of more space and upgraded space,” head of school Katherine Schantz said in a
Visitation edges St. John’s in early field hockey matchup — Page 13
project on hold since June By ELIZABETH WIENER Current Staff Writer
site tour before the meeting. Schantz and other school officials showed neighbors small classrooms — former dormitories — that must each hold up to a dozen high schoolers, which administrators consider an optimal class size for their students. “Can you imagine putting a bunch of high school seniors in here and trying to teach them Spanish and Latin?” she asked, ushering visitors into one particularly tight room. The Lab School now enrolls 275 students at the campus located at the corner of Reservoir Road and Whitehaven Parkway, comfortably within its cap of 330. Students range from age 10 to high school seniors; the high school enrollment is about 120. See School/Page 7
SPOR TS
DC Water provides new details about planned sewer work
REA
■ Development: Expansion
By BRADY HOLT
NEWS
FAL L
Permit delays leave home half-built in Spring Valley
Lab School plans to add high school wing The Lab School of Washington is proposing to build a new high school wing along Whitehaven Parkway as part of its Palisades campus. Connected to the school’s existing gymnasium, the new brick building would be four levels high — one partially below grade — replacing two single-family homes the school owns and uses as support facilities. The Lab School is not seeking to increase its caps on numbers for its students or faculty and staff, administrators said at last Wednesday’s Palisades/Foxhall advisory neighborhood commission meeting. Rather, the goal is to shift the high school
:
Council nixes agency plan for visitor passes
RIBBON-CuTTING
By KAT LuCERO Nearing the final stages of gathering community input, the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation presented updated plans for playgrounds in Georgetown and Forest Hills at separate meetings last week. Both projects are allocated $1 million, with renovations expected to begin in spring 2014 and finish that summer. The playgrounds are among the 32 that were promised city funding for comprehensive overhauls last year as part of the “Play DC” initiative. On some of the projects, including these two in Northwest, the parks department has partnered with two entities — landscape architect firm Smith and Murray Studios, and The Trust for Public Land, a national organizations that works on conservation issues for parks. Residents at both meetings last week shared concerns about safety and making the playgrounds intergenerational spaces for both adults and children can enjoy. In Georgetown, the designs received a more See Playgrounds/Page 41
IDE
Since June, a half-built 4,200-square-foot house has sat untouched — clad in Tyvek and sporting violation notices from the District, with weeds growing ever taller in the torn-up yard — on a street of relatively modest homes in affluent Spring Valley. Some neighbors are upset by the sheer size of the new structure, which is replacing a modest stone and frame house at 3816 49th St. But they’re even more upset at the lack of progress, and ensuing disorder, since the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs served a stop-work order on developer Morris-Day, a McLean, Va.-based builder of high-end homes. “It’s an eyesore certainly, it’s dangerous, and way out of scale,” said Stephen Graham, who lives next door. “The back is wide open, accessible from the alley. Ditches and craters are not covered at all, and kids could wander in.
Bill Petros/The Current
The property has been cited for debris and overgrown vegetation. “And there doesn’t seem to be any movement,” said Graham. “We’re kind of scratching our head — how could this be OK?” Rob Morris, president of the development firm, said the project — technically an expansion of the existing house — meets applicable zoning requirements. But work stopped dead, he said, after he made slight design tweaks to his plans and the changes restarted the city’s building permit review process for the entire project. Morris-Day received its original permits in April 2012. The first big delay came after a neighbor protestSee Construction/Page 2
INDEX
NEWS
D.C. Council doesn’t override Gray veto on living wage bill — Page 5
Calendar/42 Classifieds/53 District Digest/4 Exhibits/47 In Your Neighborhood/8 Opinion/10
Police Report/6 Real Estate/Pullout School Dispatches/15 Service Directory/50 Sports/13 Theater/47
Tips? Contact us at newsdesk@currentnewspapers.com