Efforts to Develop the Old Hebrew Home Property Moving Forward (Again)
On March 25th the old Hebrew Home property at 1125 was included in DMPED’s annual March Madness event. March Madness is DMPED’s pre-solicitation event to announce upcoming community development projects (see all the projects in this year’s event here).
Neighbors will be particularly interested in the announcement for 1125 Spring Road (see flyer below). Redeveloping the old Hebrew Home will not now be part of the Mayor’s OurRFP program, and a community meeting is scheduled for Saturday April 9th. This will be an important development for our community and I encourage everyone to attend.
Tags: Columbia Heights, Development, historic landmarks, housing
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Park View, D.C. 
March 29, 2016 at 9:40 am
Such a shame that the mayor missed the opportunity to do the same type of community engagement with the neighbors of the Bruce Monroe Community Park. her excuse that the Bruce Monroe decision was made under a previous administration just doesn’t hold water. If the goal is to involve communities in decisions that affect them directly, why not take the time to do that with other projects that are on the table.
https://www.facebook.com/savebrucemonroepark/
March 29, 2016 at 10:32 am
The funny thing is there really wasn’t any neighborhood engagement processed planned during the previous redevelopment attempt. The Department of General Services had decided to turn the building into low-income housing and called a perfunctory meeting to comply with legal requirements that they notify the community before turning the building over to the DC Housing Authority. The neighborhood didn’t take it too kindly and started pushing back hard. That is why there were multiple community meetings – it didn’t have anything to do with the mayor proactively reaching out to the community.
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Let’s hope that the new plan reflects the neighborhood’s desire for a mixed income development, with a 70/30 market/subsidized split. It’d be great to have a mixed income Hebrew Home rental building with for-sale rowhouses – similiar to what was built as part of the Morton Street Mews development – replacing the Paul Roberson school.
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Any development plan will have to figure out how to improve traffic flow on Spring Rd – it’s a very narrow two way street with an active school drop off/pick up zone during the morning rush hour.
March 29, 2016 at 11:11 am
Yes, sadly that “community engagement” piece seemed to be forced by neighbors and not at all in the original plan of the Hebrew Home development.
I don’t like the precedent of trying to slip public housing through without a substantive conversation. We all know affordable housing is in need but I’m getting concerned about Bowser and Nadeau’s continued push for concentration in this part of the city.
March 29, 2016 at 1:31 pm
Does anyone know what they actually mean by mixed income development?
I had thought they were holding “The Avenue” out as their example of mixed income development hearing repeatedly that about 20% of its units were Park Morton replacement units. It seemed like they were saying that the remaining 80% was market rate – I’ve now read that The Avenue is entirely affordable housing – no market rate units at all. Is that the design for the 8-story apartment buildings they want to put on Bruce Monroe? A giant building of affordable/public housing with no market rate units at all? Is the “mixed” development the developers putting all those market rate row houses up at the current Park Morton site? Is the city’s plan at all addressing the concentrated poverty issues with Park Morton or just moving it to Bruce Monroe?
March 29, 2016 at 1:45 pm
Hobart –
During the previous planning process DGS tried to spin a 100% below market building entirely dedicated to residents making 30 – 60% of the area median income as a “mixed income” development due to the fact that the set-asides were for different low-income groups. That usage flies in the face of how the term is normally understood, i.e. a mix of market-rate and non-market subsidized housing.
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A development without a substantial market-rate component can’t be considered a mixed-income development, at least not in the way the term is generally understood.