Meeting at the Foxhall Community Room Monday night, a coalition of neighborhood groups and associations, united in their opposition to American University’s Campus Expansion plan, voted to extend their thanks to City Council Chair Kwame Brown for his strong support of their position.
They also extended thanks for his April 7th letter to Anthony Hood, Chairman of the DC Zoning Commission, emphasizing the taxpaying residents’ concerns about the many objectionable conditions which would result from the Expansion Plan. Chairman Brown urged the Zoning Commission to NOT consider the American University Campus plan until the residents had been seriously heard and taken into account in the plan.
Chairman Brown himself paid a visit to Westover Place on March 30, 2011 and met with representatives from Tenleytown Neighbors, Tenley Campus Neighbors, Wesley Heights Civic Association, Tenleytown Historical Society, Foxhall and Westover Place Homeowners Association. He saw for himself how placing 770 students in several five storey dormitories on AU’s current Nebraska Avenue parking lot, just 40 feet away from the backs of existing homes, would greatly impact the taxpaying residents of those homes.
Arriving at the meeting late due to gridlock on Massachusetts Avenue, Chairman Brown also got to experience firsthand one of the major concerns of the neighbors -- increasing pedestrian and vehicular traffic feeding into Ward Circle, already a choke point to north-south Massachusetts traffic and east-west Nebraska Avenue traffic. The AU plans for development on both Nebraska and Tenley Circle will effectively encapsulate Nebraska Avenue. This will make Nebraska the main road through their campus, and virtually a pedestrian walkway during certain times of the day as hundreds of students cross over and back from the proposed dorms and food establishments, including those AU has allowed into commercial space on New Mexico Avenue.
Other objectionable conditions cited by the residents included density, crime, parking and quality of life issues.
Said David Fehrmann of Westover Place, one of those who met with Chairman Brown: “Over the past 18 months we have met with the DC Office of Planning, the Department of Transportation, the local ANC, Ward 3 Representative Mary Cheh, the candidates running for the Council-At-Large seat and with AU. The urgent concerns of the neighbors have been expressed at multiple joint meetings. So far AU has turned a deaf ear. Maybe this will help them to listen and act upon those concerns.”
They also extended thanks for his April 7th letter to Anthony Hood, Chairman of the DC Zoning Commission, emphasizing the taxpaying residents’ concerns about the many objectionable conditions which would result from the Expansion Plan. Chairman Brown urged the Zoning Commission to NOT consider the American University Campus plan until the residents had been seriously heard and taken into account in the plan.
Chairman Brown himself paid a visit to Westover Place on March 30, 2011 and met with representatives from Tenleytown Neighbors, Tenley Campus Neighbors, Wesley Heights Civic Association, Tenleytown Historical Society, Foxhall and Westover Place Homeowners Association. He saw for himself how placing 770 students in several five storey dormitories on AU’s current Nebraska Avenue parking lot, just 40 feet away from the backs of existing homes, would greatly impact the taxpaying residents of those homes.
Arriving at the meeting late due to gridlock on Massachusetts Avenue, Chairman Brown also got to experience firsthand one of the major concerns of the neighbors -- increasing pedestrian and vehicular traffic feeding into Ward Circle, already a choke point to north-south Massachusetts traffic and east-west Nebraska Avenue traffic. The AU plans for development on both Nebraska and Tenley Circle will effectively encapsulate Nebraska Avenue. This will make Nebraska the main road through their campus, and virtually a pedestrian walkway during certain times of the day as hundreds of students cross over and back from the proposed dorms and food establishments, including those AU has allowed into commercial space on New Mexico Avenue.
Other objectionable conditions cited by the residents included density, crime, parking and quality of life issues.
Said David Fehrmann of Westover Place, one of those who met with Chairman Brown: “Over the past 18 months we have met with the DC Office of Planning, the Department of Transportation, the local ANC, Ward 3 Representative Mary Cheh, the candidates running for the Council-At-Large seat and with AU. The urgent concerns of the neighbors have been expressed at multiple joint meetings. So far AU has turned a deaf ear. Maybe this will help them to listen and act upon those concerns.”
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