A special meeting of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 3D has been called by Chairman Tom Smith for Monday, April 25th at 7:00 pm in the Community Room of the new Sibley Hospital Medical Building. Community groups throughout the area – encompassing Tenleytown, Wesley Heights, and Spring Valley – are urging neighbors to turn out in force. The only item on the agenda is a resolution concerning American University’s proposed expansion plan. Neighbors have consistently called for rejection of the plan based on concern that unbridled university expansion will severely impact surrounding neighborhoods.
Taxpaying residents of the areas surrounding AU are expected to pack the meeting room Monday night to register their objections to the AU plan which include increased traffic gridlock along Nebraska Avenue, pedestrian safety issues at Ward Circle (the intersection of Massachusetts and Nebraska Avenues), access of emergency vehicles, parking issues, increased crime and safety issues, and inadequate buffer zones between student housing and residential neighborhoods.
Additionally, the AU plan seeks to expand its student population by about 30%, and does not include a cap against further expansion in the future. Other issues include the gobbling up of commercial properties by the university without regard to neighborhood needs, the unfair tax burden which the university has shifted to the community and the destruction of the quality of life via increased noise, pollution, trash and vandalism.
“We strongly urge the ANC to pass this resolution and repudiate the AU Plan until it is acceptable to the neighborhoods.” said Susan Farrell, President of the Westover Place Homeowners Association, and one of a coalition of neighborhood groups opposing the plan. “We have voiced our concerns and objections at every meeting for the past 19 months, and AU has simply stonewalled us. They refuse to even talk about it. Now they’re trying to steamroll right over the ANC and go on to the Zoning Commission. I hope the ANC won’t let them get away with it.”
Taxpaying residents of the areas surrounding AU are expected to pack the meeting room Monday night to register their objections to the AU plan which include increased traffic gridlock along Nebraska Avenue, pedestrian safety issues at Ward Circle (the intersection of Massachusetts and Nebraska Avenues), access of emergency vehicles, parking issues, increased crime and safety issues, and inadequate buffer zones between student housing and residential neighborhoods.
Additionally, the AU plan seeks to expand its student population by about 30%, and does not include a cap against further expansion in the future. Other issues include the gobbling up of commercial properties by the university without regard to neighborhood needs, the unfair tax burden which the university has shifted to the community and the destruction of the quality of life via increased noise, pollution, trash and vandalism.
“We strongly urge the ANC to pass this resolution and repudiate the AU Plan until it is acceptable to the neighborhoods.” said Susan Farrell, President of the Westover Place Homeowners Association, and one of a coalition of neighborhood groups opposing the plan. “We have voiced our concerns and objections at every meeting for the past 19 months, and AU has simply stonewalled us. They refuse to even talk about it. Now they’re trying to steamroll right over the ANC and go on to the Zoning Commission. I hope the ANC won’t let them get away with it.”
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