How Will NoMA Developments Affect Capitol Hill? March 14, 2006

CHRS and the Stanton Park Neighborhood Association are sponsoring a meeting to explore how large-scale commercial and condo developments planned for the NoMA (north of Massachusetts Avenue) area will affect residents, particularly those in threatened row house districts immediate adjacent to the planned developments. The speaker will be Patricia Zingsheim, D.C.'s principal planner for the NoMA area.

As reported recently in the Washington Post, the CHRS newsletter, and in public meetings, development in the larger NoMA area (which includes Shaw and Mount Vernon Square) also will have a major impact on some areas immediately adjacent to the Capitol Hill Historic District. A number of development proposals include PUDs (planned unit developments) involving large commercial and condo developments just north of the massive and already-built SEC building and immediately adjacent to row houses in the area around 2nd, 3rd, and G Streets, N.E. Developers plan to raze some historic row houses; others will be overshadowed. Additional PUD condo developments are planned in nearby areas north of H Street, N.E. All told, thousands of one and two bedroom condo units are planned for the area.

This "planning by PUD" approach has residents rightly concerned about how to preserve the fabric of their historic row house neighborhoods. Under the Ward 6 Plan, these affected neighborhoods were proposed for inclusion in an expanded Historic District, but the boundaries were drawn back to F Street, N.E. to accommodate concerns of the H Street Community Development Corporation. Development pressures in the neighborhood have generated new interest among some residents in looking again at an expansion of the Historic District.
For more information on this or other CHRS meetings, call 543-0435 or e-mail [email protected].