Why Janney Shouldn't Have to Give Up ANY of its Land for Private Use

Originally, the logic behind the public-private project (PPP) was that Janney Elementary School would receive more and better public facilities sooner if it partnered with a private developer and DCPL to redevelop the Wisconsin and Albemarle site. But as the RFP submissions indicated, the outcome is more likely to be fewer facilities later -- not only for the library, but for the school as well. In response to those submissions, the Janney LSRT (aka SIT) has attempted to draw a line in the sand -- it does not want to see more than 12,000 SF of Janney's land (the size of the teachers' parking lot) devoted to private development. But that position cedes too much.

1. The objective in undertaking this project shouldn't be "preservation of green space" but "provision of facilities." Just as Janney needs to double its interior instructional space to relieve overcrowding, so, too, does it need to expand its exterior programmatic space (PE field and playgrounds) to meet the need of its students as defined by DCPS's own educational specifications. Obviously, current specifications didn't exist when Janney was originally built, but DCPS's policy is to build to these specifications, where possible, whenever an older campus undergoes modernization. "Where possible" is the crucial qualifier here -- if a part of the campus is dedicated to another use (e.g. private residential development) prior to this renovation, "what's possible" changes. DCPS will work with whatever land is left over rather than the whole campus.

Even without a residential building in the mix, it will take careful planning to find a way to fit all of the requisite facilities on Janney's campus. Janney's entire lot is 3.29 acres and the exterior programmatic spaces called for in the ed specs would consume about 2 acres of land (not including buffers and passageways). The main school building is historic and it's set back from the street. This will probably mean that we can't raise the roof and we may not be able to build out toward Albemarle either. So the design challenge is to figure out how to put another building, approximately the size of the current one, on campus and still have 2 acres of usable land left over. To achieve this, existing land will have to be used more efficiently (e.g. the teacher's parking lot would not remain in its current form). Decrease the amount of land available (by devoting it to non-educational uses), and it will be physically impossible to provide all such facilities.

2. It doesn't make sense to compare what exists now to what a PPP will provide -- or to assume that the un- or under-utilized land on Janney's campus is surplus. It's land currently available (and necessary) for providing educational facilities. The relevant benchmark for assessing whether Janney is better off with a PPP is a DCPS renovation/expansion that uses the entire existing campus to meet current educational specifications.

3. Janney already has less land per student than 2/3 of all DCPS elementary schools. And that's before the school's capacity is increased to 550 students (approximately 65 more kids than are currently enrolled). It makes no sense to shrink the campus while expanding the student body.

4. Certainly, there are some DCPS elementary schools that are already worse off than Janney would be post-PPP. Most were built in the 19th century in already densely-populated areas like Capitol Hill, Dupont Circle, or downtown at a time when land was scarce and schools consisted primarily of large classrooms and desks. Do we want to turn back the clock or move forward?

5. There is, of course, one quite recent example of a land-starved DCPS elementary school campus. That's Oyster -- the product of a public-private partnership (with LCOR, in fact). The school lost over an acre of its land to an apartment building and, as a result, now has a tiny playground and no field or green space. What's more, Oyster was seriously overcrowded within two years of its reconstruction. Don't assume that DCPS won't enter into a PPP without ensuring that the project will meet the school's immediate and long-term facilities needs. History tells us otherwise and, thus far, DCPS has been only minimally engaged in this PPP process.

6. While Oyster was, arguably, the product of a desperate time that called for desperate measures, DCPS now has a dedicated funding source for school modernizations and a separate Office of Public Education Facilities Management, headed by Allen Lew who has an excellent track record on other facilities projects and who, in less than a year working with DCPS, has already achieved dramatic results. The city has the resources -- both financial and organizational -- to get this project done without sacrificing public land to private development.

7. Nor has DCPS demanded that other schools sacrifice land in order to merit remodernization. Key Elementary, in Palisades, was expanded and remodernized in 2003, at a time when it had only 200 students (vs. 485) on a campus that was almost as large as Janney's (3.17 acres) but the full campus was devoted to the school. Stoddert Elementary has twice as much land as Janney and half the students. Yet its excess land won't be devoted to apartments or condos -- instead, the city is using to build a rec center that will provide sports, arts, and performance space for the school as well as the community. Other successful schools in affluent parts of DC with more available land have not been required to give up part of their campus in order to secure the educational facilities to which they are entitled.

8. Those of you familiar with Lafayette Elementary's campus might also be reminded that, for some schools, campus size tells only part of the story. Adjacent location of recreational centers expands the sports and playground facilities available to the school. Our community's recreational facilities (at Fort Reno and Turtle Park) are too far away from Janney to serve as a resource for the school. That's why adequate playground and field space on campus is so important.

9. Janney's exterior facilities serve not only the school, but the community. In previous closures (e.g. of the old Hardy campus in Palisades), fields and playgrounds remained in the public domain even when the school building itself was leased and they remain in constant use by neighbors, sports clubs, other schools, etc. It would be ironic if the Council decided that the playground and sports facilities of underutilized schools now being closed could not be sold off but must revert to community use while simultaneously authorizing the sale or lease of land devoted to the same use at an overcrowded school. Yet that's where we're headed with this PPP.

10. Note that all of the comparisons made thus far have been to other DCPS elementary schools and to DCPS's own facilities standards. Thus the claim that people who want to preserve Janney's existing campus for educational use are unrealistic about what's possible in the city and/or have a suburban mentality is bunk. Janney's campus is just over 3 acres. When Montgomery County sets out to build a new elementary school, it looks for a 12 acre site. Even an older, close-in MoCo school like Bethesda Elementary has a 7.5 acre campus and serves 100 fewer students than Janney will post-expansion.

The argument that the site's proximity to a Metrorail station requires that it be devoted to high-density mixed-use development is equally disingenuous. First, the development adjacent to the Tenleytown station is already mixed-use -- residential, retail, office, and institutional uses are all represented in the immediate vicinity. And the block that houses Janney Elementary is already high-density -- there are 800 students and teachers there each weekday and 1000 parishioners each weekend. But, more importantly, if the policy objective is to decrease automobile-dependency by encouraging more people to live near public transit, then depriving Metro-accessible schools (and neighborhoods) of sports facilities and playgrounds is counterproductive. It tells families that the best way to ensure that their childrens' schools will have decent athletic and recreational facilities is to move away from transit hubs.

I've included a few google maps to illustrate what's at stake here. They're all set to the same scale for ease of comparison, but you can zoom in or out to study the sites.

Stoddert:


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Lafayette:


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Janney:

Remember that the Janney campus doesn't include the library building (upper right hand corner) and that the southern edge of the campus is sort of a lopsided V. To find the property line, start at the the driveway that runs between St. Ann's and the library and follow it down past the teachers' parking lot and then up again along the backyards of the neighboring houses on 42nd St.


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Oyster:

(The school is the square at the bottom left of the image; its playspace is along the top edge. The larger rectangle to its right was formerly campus land, but now belongs to a privately-owned corporate-suites type apartment building whose owners will soon enjoy a 20+ year property tax break because their PILOT was tied to the cost of repaying the school's construction bond rather than to the value of their own building.)


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Doug Wonderlic's "Viewpoint" piece on the RFP

Tenley library project shouldn’t be slowed

THE NORTHWEST CURRENT
WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 2008; page 11
by Doug Wonderlic

I urge library patrons and Janney Elementary School parents — both current and prospective — to insist on the immediate suspension of the public-private partnership effort for Tenley-Friendship Neighborhood Library and Janney. As reported by Advisory Neighborhood Commission 3E at its May 8 meeting, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development is moving quickly to select a developer. After initially removing the library from the development mix, the deputy mayor’s office has now changed its mind and added the library back in.

Without a public-private partnership, the D.C. Public Library system has produced a library design praised by the Commission of Fine Arts as “a very strong concept,” “a building the whole neighborhood will be proud of” and “an extremely intelligent and wonderful design.” This creative design was achieved through true competition. More than two dozen library design architects submitted their qualifications for this project. The design competition was open to all of the best library architects in the country, not to development teams that could offer the best deal.

If the deputy mayor’s office does not interfere, construction of the new library will also involve true competition. This project will be put out to bid in the next few months based on 100 percent construction documents and will likely attract a large number of interested contractors, all bidding on exactly the same detailed design. The community has benefited and will continue to benefit from clarity and competition throughout planning, design and construction. As a result, the entire library process will inspire community confidence.

The library system has met all of its deadlines for planning and design, and it is on track to produce a beautiful and distinctive library by March 2010. Any delays now will add significant costs to construction and once again defer the day when our community enjoys its new library. The library site is small, but in the hands of its creative design team it can accommodate a library building that aesthetically and practically will become a symbol of Tenleytown and its love of learning. Library patrons and the Tenleytown community should not settle for anything less.

I recommend that Janney parents adopt the successful library model and insist on the same clarity and competition in producing school improvements. Only then will there be community confidence. To date, we have seen only a vague process. The city’s request-for-proposals process was intentionally vague and has become even murkier with constant changes in the requirements. The lack of clarity in the public-private partnership procedure has produced minimal competition in attracting developers. Compared to the process used by library officials, proposals from the three developers show little evidence that robust competition will be achieved in either the design or construction of school improvements, and little evidence that any of the developers will be able to complete their obligations in a timely manner.

Now is the time to stop the public-private partnership fiasco and allow Janney to proceed with proper planning. Currently, officials are pushing a hurried deal to take Janney’s land before Janney determines its students’ future needs. Proper planning involves an objective assessment of both facility and openspace needs for the school, determined through a formal educational specifications report. Such planning can lead to true competition in both the design and construction of school improvements

In conclusion, the Tenley-Friendship Neighborhood Library should be a stand-alone building, enabling it to serve as a much-needed visual symbol for the Tenleytown community. The costly and time-consuming public-private partnership effort should be suspended. The city should provide Janney Elementary with funds to prepare an educational specifications report. Then Janney should decide its own future without the pressure of an unnecessary and artificial deadline.

Doug Wonderlic is a retired facilities planner and a Tenleytown resident.

WBJ Article on DCPL's opposition to PPP

Libraries held up by D.C.'s smart-growth ambitions
Washington Business Journal
Friday, May 2, 2008
by Jonathan O'Connell, Staff Reporter

In many respects, the Tenleytown and Benning neighborhoods couldn't be farther apart. The former is in wealthy upper Northwest, while the latter is in the second-poorest part of town in Northeast.

But the two communities have this in common: Neither has a permanent library. Libraries in both neighborhoods closed in December 2004 and were later demolished, replaced only by temporary facilities. Both also had their rebuilding plans delayed by ideas to leverage their prime locations near Metro stations and commercial corridors, plans intended to bring more vibrancy to those neighborhoods than libraries alone could.

In Tenleytown, the library has been moved in and out -- and now back in again -- to a larger project that would bring housing and a rebuilt Janney Elementary School to Wisconsin Avenue. On Benning Road, a private developer and a D.C. Council member say they think the library would make sense as part of a redeveloped shopping center.

Both suggestions threaten to further delay construction of the new 20,000-square-foot libraries, said John Hill, president of the D.C. Libraries Board of Trustees. The library system planned to break ground on both projects in July, but is just beginning to procure construction contracts, threatening a proposed March 2010 reopening date.

Those communities have been made to wait too long for new library services, Hill said, and the delays absorb money intended for other renovations. "If these projects get delayed significantly then it affects our capacity to begin other projects," he said.

The Tenley and Benning libraries are among four set to be rebuilt, along with branches in Anacostia and Shaw. All four are fully funded, at between $14.7 million and $16.1 million per branch, and $18 million has been set aside for the Georgetown library, which fell to fire in April 2007.

But Tenley and Benning have been caught up in the movement to build mixed-use projects at underutilized Metro stations. That ought be a priority, Hill acknowledged, which is why Neil Albert, deputy mayor for economic development, included the Tenley library in soliciting bids for a 3.6-acre parcel across from the street from the Tenleytown-American University Metro station. After three teams made proposals, Albert altered the solicitation to allow for an independently built library, but reversed course again recently in seeking final offers that include the library. No team has been chosen, although Albert had planned to make a selection in February. "I do understand the urgency, but I want to make sure we maximize that particular site," said Eric Scott, project manager.

On Benning Road, developer D.C.-based City Interests LLC has proposed adding 10,000 square feet to the new library and moving it into a redeveloped East River Park shopping center -- a plan that Councilwoman Yvette Alexander, D-Ward 7, said she likes, even though it would probably further delay that library for another six months. "My preference would be to optimize the design of the library by incorporating it with the development," Alexander said.

Hill, also president of the Federal City Council, and Ginnie Cooper, chief librarian, want shovels in the ground. Hill said the library board will look at building its Tenley library in a way that allows housing to be added on top later, once the deputy mayor selects a development plan. Otherwise, he said the delays mean the project "is going to take much, much longer."

"We're not going to stop moving because an individual council member tells us we should slow down or we should stop," Hill said. "That's not any kind of due process."

"We're on a pretty good site now," Cooper said of the library's Benning parcel. "It's an attractive site, and we are hoping to stay there."

E-mail: joconnell@bizjournals.com Phone: 703/258-0835

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