An Email

I know posting has been sparse recently as I have been busy with a new job and overwhelmed by selling my suburban house while preparing for a series of temporary work-related relocations. But recently I received an email regarding municipal land use policy that I wanted to open up to a wider debate. Please leave any constructive comments you might have regarding the issue.

S 

do you think it is a good idea, bad idea, or value neutral idea for a small town to amend their ordinance protecting "open spaces" in order to allow for the refurbishing of an existing building to be transformed to affordable senior housing.
(I don't know if "open spaces" is a standard term, but in this case it means land zoned for institutional use and includes areas that have a lot of property such as schools, churches, library etc)

I watched a LONG debate/discussion at a city council meeting and found I'm kind of in the minority in my opinion and wondered what a less biased person with actual knowledge of city plan would have to say.

-s

Dave Murphy 

"Open space" is a very sketchy term. Gigantic empty lawns that nobody uses for anything are often considered "open space". On the one hand, if they can be used for something more meaningful, I'm all for it. If a building or set of buildings reinvigorates the town, absolutely it is a better use of the land, regardless of its use.

A great example in my opinion would be Four Corners, an area we both know and love... When they tore down the Kay Tract to build Blair High School, they demolished acres and acres of "green space". That area was a haven for homeless people and drug activity. It was unpatrolled, unregulated, secluded, and crime-ridden.

But when they tore out all those trees, what arose was a school already too small for its student body despite the fact that it was spread out over twice the real estate of the old school. The main feature that interacted with the rest of the "town" (if one were to consider Four Corners its own town) was not the main facade of the school, not the grand entrance, walkways, side buildings, or even athletic fields; it is the driveways and parking lots that front the school.

It secluded the student body, who for the most parts are residents of Four Corners and downtown Silver Spring, from the rest of the town. Was it a better municipal use of land than a bunch of trees with trash and homeless people? Absolutely. But does it contribute more to the townliness of Four Corners? Barely.

A good side effect was the pedestrian improvements that came along with a 3,200 student school, and Four Corners desperately needed those pedestrian improvements. But despite the fact that it is the most heavily traveled intersection in Eastern Montgomery County (for PEOPLE, not cars... more people move through that intersection than even Georgia and Colesville) no major mass transit improvements came with the school save for maybe a bus shelter or two.

Now consider the lawns providing the setback for St. Bernadette's. That is open space. It is green space. Is it serving the people of Four Corners? Does it serve St. Bernadette's other than to isolate it from the high speed traffic of University Boulevard or the "public school kids" that as a universal community of faith we ought to be reaching out to and embracing? The only thing I've ever used those fields for is stretching out a football team before a game at St. Bernadette's. And in 5 years of coaching and two years of playing, I can count the number of times I've done that on two hands.

Now consider something like this:
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=3922

Erik Bootsma, the architect that authored this article, is a Beaux Arts architect and a Catholic. He writes about religious structures often. Here's his website, it's great:

http://beatusest.blogspot.com/

But back to the suburban church being retrofitted... American churches are often gigantic, isolated structures that are monuments to themselves. Whereas in Europe, Cathedrals are the centerpieces of the towns, in America you have junk like the Mormon tabernacle, which only interacts with people driving down the Beltway and in no other way serves as a structural outreach to the community. For all their questionable doctrine, this is actually my number 1 gripe with the Mormon church. They structurally isolate themselves from their surroundings, even in Salt Lake City. But nowadays, every church does that. They move from central locations to wherever they can have the biggest parking lot, assuring that few will walk to their services and ostensibly turning away anyone that does not drive a car.

If St. Bernadette's was to take the lawns in front of the parish and do something useful such as what Bootsma proposed there in Arlington, it would create a community directly affected by the parish rather than isolated from it. And for a religious institution, what better way to attract members than to make the primary structure (the church) the focal point of a community? And as far as traffic on University Boulevard goes, building frontage could slow traffic down, and a more permeable street network could actually relieve congestion there. A train line running up Columbia Pike would be nice also.

As for your case, affordable senior housing is never a bad thing in theory. But what are they building? Garden style apartments with ample parking that will eventually mock seniors who lose the ability to drive? Or a community of well designed buildings that will allow seniors to partake in society without forcing them to drive? In my opinion, the latter serves more use than an open lawn that nobody uses.

I may not have to imagine much longer...

As scenic and wonderful as Laurel has been the past seven years, it looks like I'll finally be making my way back into the District. My humble abode will be going on the market this month.

I have a lot of history in the region here. I was born in Foggy Bottom. I grew up inside the Beltway in Silver Spring. I went to grade school just outside the Beltway, and high school in Wheaton. I attended Montgomery College, and I even lived in Rockville for a year. I joined the Army at 21 (pre-9/11, but just barely, if you were wondering) and resettled here after my basic and advanced training. I joined the Army to see the world, but they stationed me back in Maryland.

I purchased a house in Laurel in 2003 when I was 23 years old. I was a Specialist (E-4) in the Army at the time, making about $1,800 a month plus a housing allowance. It took a lot of scraping to stay in this house, but a couple of war zone deployments helped me pay the mortgage as my taxes skyrocketed during an unprecedented housing boom. After I got out of the Army, I languished in unemployment for about six months, during which I picked up odd jobs and took extreme measures to afford the mortgage until I managed to crack into a government job with an entry level wage suitable for allowing me to live somewhat comfortably while keeping my house.

I've come a long way since then, and so has the housing market, not to mention the city of Laurel and the DC Metro area. I know I am very fortunate to have survived the housing boom-and-bust and still have made money on my house. It was part determination, part luck, and part having smart people around me.

But as it goes, my current job sends me all over the DC area quite regularly and Laurel is no longer a suitable staging point. I'm moving back into the city of my birth, to a yet-to-be-determined neighborhood. Having grown up in the shadow of the Capitol and lived just about my entire life here and being a person who loves cities, it is a powerful notion for me to be moving back into a city that has overcome so much strife. In my youth, the mass exodus from DC was taking place. By the time I was in the sixth grade, DC was the murder capital of the US. While I was in high school, my mother fought with me every time I wanted to go to RFK or the 9:30 Club, citing my safety. And even as recently as 2004, the Army forbade me from going into the parts of the city where I am currently looking to purchase my next home.

But in November 2008, Election Day, I saw a celebration at 14th and U, an intersection that for the past forty years had been overcoming scars left by race riots, neglect, and construction of the Metro. It was a historic day for many reasons as Obama became the first African-American president in a critical period for the nation, but for me it was different, something that had nothing to do with politics. All kinds of people celebrated in the streets of a fully rejuvenated neighborhood. Washington had returned to being a great American city. It made me want to go back. And now it looks like I can finally do that.

So I'll be posting about that experience, schedule permitting. And if anyone is looking for a spot halfway between DC and Baltimore, I know of a cute little bungalow off of Route 1.

Depressing Places

This weekend, my job had me going to a site up in Columbia Gateway, a sprawling, depressing office colony in Howard County. It is an intimidatingly isolated, desolate, oppressing void of a place. I grew furious trying to figure out which anonymous LeCorbuseurian complex housed the site where I was meeting my colleagues. It was a very depressing landscape, and I couldn't wait to leave.

Then it dawned on me that thousands of people work here every day.

Columbia Gateway. Photo by Howard County

I find my self oppressed by the traffic-choked pedestrian-hazardous landscape of Laurel Lakes, and I am doing everything in my power to move. But push comes to shove, I can walk to the store. If someone is causing problems in my neighborhood, it will be noticed and police will be called. Those police shouldn't have too much problem finding the suspects. It is Lower Manhattan compared to Columbia Gateway (except they have the skyscrapers up there).

Perhaps I am ruminating on the concept too much. I may be reading too much James Howard Kuntsler. But then CNN illustrated human's desire for beautiful and memorable settings. The visual stimulation of the beautiful planet in the hit film Avatar is striking people on such a level that going back to the cul-de-sacs, drive-thru fast food joints, and office parks of reality has caused them depression.

I have not seen Avatar yet, but I plan to do so soon after reading the CNN article. I know the symptoms. I was a little depressed when I returned from my two months in Europe, having seen such awe-inspiring places as the Abbey at Fauntevrault, the American Cemetary in Luxembourg, Heidelburg Castle, Chateau Vianden, the Ardennes Forest, Die Bergstrasse, the Amsterdam canals, and Chateau d'Angers and then returning home to the billboard littered landscapes of Route 1 in Laurel. Fortunately, I go to downtown Silver Spring, Clarendon, H Street, Hyattsville, Chinatown, or one of the DC area's many other great places, and I get over it. They may not be on par with the beauty and sense of places as the Abbey at Fauntevrault, but they are memorable places designed for enjoyment of people.

Perhaps the visual magnificence of Avatar is so otherworldly beautiful and James Cameron has accomplished something truly profound. I'll let you know after I watch it. But perhaps many Americans are already depressed by their lack of access to truly beautiful places, and Avatar simply defined that their need for such places that was already festering inside them.