Park View, D.C.

Last night the Park Morton Development Team presented the updated Park Morton Master Plan to members of the community. The new master plan incorporates comments and feedback gathered between the first Park Morton Steering Committee meeting on October 15, 2015 and the December 12, 2015, planning workshop. The result is a plan that contains a mix of housing types over the current Park Morton and Bruce Monroe sites while creating and preserving park space at both.

The meeting was composed of two parts. The first part was an overall presentation recapping the process and then presenting the new plan and how community feedback had been incorporated into the plan. The second part was made up of three breakout groups where community members could make additional comments and suggestions and ask more in depth questions.

At the Park Morton site, the master plan extends Morton Street to the east connecting it to Warder Street. A new north-south street is also proposed connecting Morton Street to Park Road. At its core is a new park. The building types along Morton Street would resemble rowhouses, though many would contain more than one living unit. The area along Park Road would contain a large apartment building that is 4-stories along Park Road and rises to 5-stories towards the rear.

Below is the basic plan:

And below is a rendering of what this would look like on Morton Street, looking east toward the new park:

At the Bruce Monroe site, a large building would be constructed along Irving Street with the tallest section being on Georgia Avenue. The property would be split with the southern half remaining park space. A new road would be cut in to the rear and a few rowhouses would be constructed in the southwest corner along Columbia Road. One reason for dividing the property along an east-west axis was in response to community concerns over how the buildings would cast shade on the park and surrounding community.

A general idea of what the Bruce Monroe site would look like is below:

And below is a rendering of what this would look like from the intersection of Georgia and Columbia Rd looking nw toward the park:

Overall, the number of housing units would break down into roughly 200 at the Park Morton site and 275 at the Bruce Monroe site. While some questioned why the building at the Bruce Monroe site couldn’t be shorter and the buildings at Park Morton couldn’t be taller, overall the building types and density as presented are correct when considering zoning and D.C.’s Comprehensive Plan. Other aspects touched upon during the presentation included providing adequate parking by including parking garages under the large buildings and parking pads or garages for the towhouse structures; and an interest in including senior housing as part of the mix.

During the breakout session, some of the suggestions that were offered included incorporating public art at both sites, using the new Morton Street connection with Warder to create better east-west bike lanes; and a desire for a dog park.