What’s Up with the Tenleytown Public/Private Project?

originally published in the November 2nd edition of dcwatch's The Mail

In Thursday’s Examiner, Ward 3 Councilmember Cheh claims “It’s finished.” But in Friday’s Washington Business Journal, Deputy Mayor Neil Albert and LCOR both say the project is “moving forward.” Loose Lips declares that it’s now “officially a pissing match.” For those who haven’t been following the story, Mayor Fenty pulled the plug on DCPL’s long-delayed reconstruction of the Tenley-Friendship branch library last July. At that point, DCPL had already spent a year (and about $1 million dollars) for demolition, design, and approvals and was on track (and within budget) to break ground in three months and reopen the library by early 2010.

So why did Fenty, essentially, yank the shovel out of Ginnie Cooper’s hands as she was finally ready to rebuild our library? To enter into exclusive negotiations with LCOR that would enable private residential development on the parcel of public land that houses both the branch library and Janney Elementary School.

Ostensibly/originally, the rationale for this project was that it would speed Janney’s modernization. It was always clear that there was nothing in the deal for the library, whose airy design will be riddled with columns to support the apartments above and whose reopening will most likely be delayed until 2013 (it was closed in 2004). Janney was supposed to get new and better facilities sooner, yet none of the proposals that emerged from the competitive bidding process were able to effect that outcome. At this point, it looks as if all that the LCOR proposal will do for Janney is take away some of its campus and delay its modernization. As a result, the Janney SIT (which includes the school’s principal) has called for an end to PPP discussions. And Councilmembers Cheh and Brown (Chair of the Council’s Committee on Economic Development) have written a letter asking the mayor to let the library reconstruction move forward independently of any public-private deal.

So what’s it going to be? Will Mayor Fenty sacrifice our public facilities’ needs to line developers’ pockets? Councilmember Cheh’s odds of reelection hinge on his decision. After all, if she can’t protect a fully-funded branch library project and an award-winning but severely overcrowded elementary school from Neil Albert’s depredations, what good is she to Ward 3 residents? Cheh may have proven prescient last spring when, after receiving an award from the Humane Society, she said “if cats and dogs could vote, I’d be in great shape.” Pets don’t vote, but taxpayers, library patrons, and the parents of schoolchildren do. And it’s not just Cheh’s future that’s at stake. If the rest of the council fails to back up Cheh and Brown in this fight, all of the councilmembers are likely to see their power reduced to that of glorified ANC commissioners (albeit with six-figure salaries!).

Already the pattern is establishing itself. Fenty listens to the council when its members tell him what he wants to hear. So Cheh and Brown’s first letter on this project, which endorsed putting this piece of public land on the auction block, was embraced. Their second letter, pointing out that none of the submissions received in response to the RFP was acceptable, was ignored. Fenty chose one of those proposals anyway. When they reiterated that LCOR’s proposal was unacceptable, Albert ignored them once again. And when they asked the mayor to pull the plug on the deal, Albert went to the media to trumpet his refusal.

Long story short, unless there’s a real backlash from the council, the moral of this story is that the council can and will be ignored with impunity. Thus far, the only prerogative I’ve seen this council stand up for is their baseball tickets. It’s time — way past time — for councilmembers to reclaim their role as stewards of public land.

CMs Cheh and Brown ask Mayor to abandon PPP

COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
1350 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, N.W.
WASHINGTON, DC 20004
MARY M. CHEH
Councilmember, Ward 3
Council Committee on Public Sercies and Consumer Affairs
Office: 202-7244-8062
Fax: 202-724-8413
mcheh@dccouncil.us

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty
Government of the District of Columbia
John A. Wilson Building
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20004

October 29, 2008

Dear Mayor Fenty:

Based upon all of the information presented to us and the views of the community, involved groups,, the developers, and District and ANC officials, we write to ask that you permit the Tenley Library to be build now and separate it from any possible mixed use, or public/private, development on the site.

At the same time, however, we ask that the Library's design be amended to include the structural supports necessary to permit development on top of the Library at a future date. That development could be residential, mixed-use, or even an increase in the size of the library. Our preliminary assessment is that such a modification would not be difficult and, although it will involve additional cost, that cost should be modest and manageable. In any event, the cost should be viewed as an investment in the future.

This approach will allow the library to move forward now, on its own timetable, with its design intact, and with monies already allocated.

As for the current LCOR proposal, we believe that it is fatally flawed; we cannot and will not support it. There are many reasons why we have reached this unsatisfactory place, but our lack of support relates to the LCOR proposal alone.

We still believe, as we have throughout, that the public interest lies in the comprehensive development of this site. There is an urgent need to have vibrant, mixed-use development along our main corridors and the Tenley site, which is located across the street from the subway, ought to be a key part of such development. We need energy and life along our corridors, and we need to make transit oriented development a priority.

Please let us know by next Friday, November 7, 2008, of your decision on allowing the library to go forward now, as modified with appropriate structural supports for future development. Thank you.

Best regards,

Mary M. Cheh
Councilmember, Ward 3

Kwame Brown
Councilmember, At-Large

cc: Neil Albert, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development
Ginnie Cooper, Chief Libraries for the District of Columbia Public Library
LCOR
ANC 3E Commissioners
Kirk Rankin, Janney Elementary School SIT Chair
Dr. Karen Crews, Janney Elemenary School Principal
John Hill, DC Board of Library Trustees President


A signed copy of their October 29th letter is available at http://www.marycheh.com/Press%20Releases/Tenley-Janney.pdf

Community Groups Urge Cheh/Mayor to Pull the Plug on the PPDP and Stop Delaying the Reconstruction of the Tenley-Friendship Library

ANC 3E Chair Amy McVey sent the following letter to CM Cheh, Mayor Fenty, and DM Albert yesterday:

ADVISORY NEIGHBORHOOD COMMISSION 3E
TENLEYTOWN AMERICAN UNIVERSITY PARK FRIENDSHIP HEIGHTS
c/o Lisner Home 5425 Western Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20015

October 2, 2008

We, the undersigned, heartily endorse the following statements:

Since the Janney SIT/LSRT has written to the Mayor rescinding all support for a development project, there is now a consensus among community stakeholders, for the Janney Elementary School and the Tenley-Friendship Neighborhood Library that the public/private development project should be abandoned and that the reconstruction of the Tenley-Friendship Neighborhood Library should proceed immediately. Furthermore, due to the severe overcrowding of the school and an anticipated population expansion to 550 students, Janney Elementary School's modernization/expansion should be moved as far forward as possible in the new Master Facilities Plan.

We strongly urge all decision makers in the District of Columbia government to cease negotiations with all developers intending to build private residences on the library and/or school land. The District of Columbia Public Library system should be directed to go ahead immediately with plans to rebuild the Tenley-Friendship Neighborhood Library, and we urge Allen Lew of the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization to move Janney Elementary School in the modernization queue to allow for its expansion/modernization to begin as soon as possible.

Respectfully submitted,

Amy McVey, ANC3E01
Carolyn Sherman, ANC 3E03
Lucy Eldridge, ANC3E04
Anne Sullivan, ANC3E05
Friends of the Tenley-Friendship Library Executive Board
Board of Directors, Tenleytown Neighbors Association
Board of Directors, Friendship Neighborhood Association
Board of Directors, Tenleytown Historical Society
Board of Directors, CSTO
Marvin Tievsky, Friendship-Tenleytown Citizen’s Association
Dorothy Maloney, The Heights Foundation Inc.
Tenley Campus Neighbors

An Announcement from Janney Elementary School Improvement Team (SIT)

Last night, the Janney SIT announced its categorical opposition to a public-private redevelopment project involving the school's land in the following email sent to Janney parents:

An Update on the PPP and DCPS' Modernization and Expansion Plans for Janney

September 17, 2008

To the Janney Community -

The School Improvement Team (SIT) would like to update you on several important developments regarding the City's public-private partnership (PPP) plans and the District of Columbia Public Schools' (DCPS) modernization and expansion plans for Janney.

For the last year, and as recently as July of this year, the Janney SIT has offered conditional support for the concept of a PPP with the goal of securing a modernized and expanded Janney facility within a short time horizon. After careful consideration of the needs of the school and the sentiments of the Janney community, the SIT is withdrawing previously stated conditional support for this initiative. We are optimistic that the necessary modernization and urgently needed expansion of Janney can be completed through an effective Master Facilities Plan process without ceding land to a private developer. The SIT will advocate for timely modernization and expansion through this process.

The SIT appreciates the feedback we have received from the community so far and we welcome your questions and input going forward. A detailed Q&A regarding the current situation is located at the end of this letter, along with information on how to contact your SIT representatives. We are communicating with the City early next week, so if you have comments, please let us know as soon as possible.

The following factors have led us to this conclusion:

-- On September 10, 2008, DCPS issued an official draft of the Master Facilities Plan (MFP). According to the MFP, Janney is slated to begin modernization in 2013 and construction of an addition in 2014. Based on our current understanding, the modernization and addition are scheduled to occur at this time, regardless of whether the PPP moves forward. To view the official draft of the Master Facilities Plan, please go to http://opefm.dc.gov/pdf/DC_Master_Plan_2008.pdf.

-- None of the plans submitted by the City's selected lead private developer (LCOR), nor by any other developer, have thus far met the set of conditions stated by the SIT. We are skeptical that there will ever be an acceptable proposal given that the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (DMPED) has failed to engage in meaningful discussion with Janney. The City's PPP process has been opaque. We doubt both the City's intent and their ability to satisfy our basic conditions including green space preservation and an earlier time schedule for modernization and expansion. To read a history of the issue and previous letters issued by the SIT, please go to http://www.janneyschool.org/PTASITPPP/Library%20development/librarydevelopment.htm.

In light of repeated unacceptable plans from LCOR and the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, the failure of the City to engage Janney in meaningful dialogue, and confidence that Janney's modernization and expansion plans can be completed in a timely manner by DCPS without a loss of Janney land, the SIT believes that the Janney community should no longer offer to cede part of its campus to advance a PPP.

We encourage you to review the Q&A that follows. If you'd like to contact us, we'd be happy to talk with you:

a. "Office Hours" -SIT members will be available in front of the school on Friday, September 19 at these times: 8:20 - 9:00am; 3:00 - 3:30pm

b. Comment Card - Stop by the SIT table at the times listed above, grab a comment card, fill it out, and drop it in the comments box that will be located at the SIT table. Comment cards will also be available in the Janney office.

c. Email and Phone - Shoot us an email or give us a call.

Please see the attached document for a Q&A regarding the current situation.

Best regards,

Janney SIT

Just when you thought the deal couldn't get worse...

It's been a big "news" week for this project and, as usual, most of the information came our way as the result of FOIA requests and conversations with the developer rather than from direct communication between DC officials and the community. The short version is (a) Janney has been kicked back to the end of the school modernization queue, (b) LCOR won't be building or renovating the school, and (c) we can thank Mary Cheh and Allison Feeney for both of these developments.

As the following timeline indicates, the continued pursuit of a public-private “partnership” for the Janney/Tenley-Friendship library site is delaying not only the construction of the library, but the school’s modernization project as well.

October 31 – The Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (DMPED) issues a “Solicitation of Offers” for a public-private development project that would involve rebuilding the Tenley-Friendship Library and modernizing/expanding Janney Elementary, while adding a residential building to the site. Private developers are offered public funds to build both the library and the school.

February 28 – All three developers who submitted proposals are given the opportunity to present them to the public. LCOR’s presentation includes a detailed site plan for Janney’s expansion and modernization.

March 31 – Janney is placed at #8 in queue in a draft Master Facilities Plan (MFP) submitted to DCPS officials by their consultants, FHAI. Both the budget and the timeline for Janney in this plan are totally inconsistent with the budget and timeline for the school that was laid out in DMPED’s Solicitation of Offers, suggesting that, thus far, there has been no coordination between DCPS and DMPED regarding the Janney modernization project.

April 28 – DMPED officials Neil Albert and Eric Scott insist that Janney is number 100-something in the MFP queue; at this point, they are unaware of DCPS’s March 31st draft MFP.

July 10 – The Mayor announces that he has decided to pursue the public–private option and has chosen to negotiate exclusively with LCOR. LCOR’s press release that day says “LCOR will develop the school and library while developing the nearby apartments.”

July 12 – CM Cheh urges Neil Albert to “co-ordinate with those responsible” to act on Allison Feeney’s suggestions that the way to engender community support for the PPP is to shut down the possibility that Janney could be near the front of the modernization queue without a PPP and to put Allen Lew’s shop in total control of Janney’s modernization project.

Sept 10 – DCPS makes its new MFP public and Janney has now been moved back to the end of the modernization queue. LCOR VP Tim Smith tells ANC special committee members Anne Sullivan and Sue Hemberger that his company will not be designing or building any of Janney’s facilities; that will be a DCPS project under Lew’s direction. The only thing DCPS is deciding with respect to the LCOR deal is how many parking spots it wants to buy in the underground garage.

The assertion that Janney was moved up in the queue only because of the PPP flies in the face of all of the evidence. If it were true, we’d expect Janney to move forward rather than backward after the Mayor’s July 10th announcement, but the opposite happened. Janney’s scheduled completion date went from 2012 (March/pre-PPP draft) to 2014 (September/post-PPP draft).

A paradigm shift in DCPS’s approach to school modernizations is what lead to Janney's move to the front of the queue in March. Right-sizing is the new priority and that meant relieving overcrowding (and increasing capacity at successful schools) as well as shutting down low-performing schools to eliminate excess capacity in the system. On this model, Janney belongs near the front whereas on the older model, where the priority was fixing the facilities in the worst condition first, Janney had been near the end.

And the fact that the current anticipated completion date (2014) is earlier than the anticipated completion date under the older pre-takeover Master Facilities Plan (2015) has absolutely nothing to do with the PPP. It’s an artifact of the new regime’s decision to modernize at a much faster pace, and move through the whole queue in the next 5 years. Under the new draft MFP, no school modernizations are scheduled for completion after 2014. And, incidentally, the start dates in both the pre-takeover MFP and the current version are the same -- 2013. The claim that Janney’s modernization schedule has been hastened as a result of this PPP is pure fabrication and, as Allison’s email suggests, it’s a fabrication whose circulation is urged by those whose primary motive at this point is to promote a PPP rather than to get better facilities for the school sooner.

In addition to Cheh's advice to Neil Albert, there's another reason why the prospect of a public-private partnership would argue for postponing Janney's modernization. Odds are, Allen Lew has reached the point where he now assumes that the PPP is a done deal and he is planning accordingly. It woudl be a real nightmare to stick with the consultants' proposed 2011/12 Janney modernization if LCOR were working on the adjacent site simultaneously. So in his position, the rational thing for Lew to do would be wait to start the Janney project until after LCOR is basically done and gone. The other option would be to modernize Janney before LCOR is even ready to break ground but, in the absence of any site planning/campus design efforts or even a binding decision about how much land Janney will lose to the deal, that's just not feasible.

Currently, no one is engaged in site-planning for Janney. LCOR will plan its apartment/library building (in conjunction with DCPL) and acquire Janney land to build that structure. Janney’s modernization/expansion will be planned only after its campus shrinks.

This is precisely the outcome that the ANC special committee has been arguing against for over a year now. It should not be the case, when public land is at issue, that private developers have their needs met first, while the school is forced to make do with the land left over. It’s a perversion of priorities and an evasion of the law. The right approach is first to figure out how to best meet our facilities needs, reserve the land that’s required to do so, and, then, if there’s land left over, consider whether, how much, and what kind of private development makes sense for the site.

Janney will end up with less -- not more -- as a result of this deal and it’s not even a “we’ll take less to get it sooner” scenario any more. Maybe DCPS gets some revenue (but not much – which is why DC government forbade the developers from information about the financial structure of their proposal during public presentations) from this deal, but it’s not revenue that is needed for school modernizations which already have an ample and dedicated funding source. And, of course, it’s always the case that DCPS could raise money by selling off schools or the land under them. But DCPS’s function is to provide schools not make real estate deals. We’re not getting something for nothing or something extra here. We’re liquidating irreplaceable assets in an area -- and on a campus -- slated for growth. It’s a short-sighted decision that will be detrimental to both the school and the neighborhood.

By any means necessary?

The following email, obtained through a FOIA request, shows Councilmember Mary Cheh passing on Janney SIT Member Allison Feeney's recommendations as to how to engender support for the PPP. Cheh endorses Feeney's suggestions and urges Neil Albert to implement them. Interestingly, a crucial compoenet of this strategy is to preclude the option that the community wants most -- speedier modernization of Janney without a private development on its campus.


From: Cheh, Mary (COUNCIL) [MCheh@DCCOUNCIL.US]
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2008 11:37 AM
To: Albert, Neil (EOM)
Subject: Fw: Support for the Tenley PPP

These are all very good suggestions which I hope you will co-ordinate with those responsible and pursue. And, in general, there is a need for as much communication as possible to counter the misinformation being spread out there. Thanks Mary.

Mary M. Cheh
Councilmember for Ward 3
Council of the District of Columbia
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Suite 108
Washington, DC 20004
Tel (202) 724-8062
mcheh@dccouncil.us
www.marycheh.com
-Sent using BlackBerry


-----Original Message ----
From: allisonfeeney@starpower.net
To: Cheh, Mary (COUNCIL)
Sent: Sat Jul 12 1 l:07:06 2008
Subject: Support for the Tenley PPP

Council Member -Council Office Mary Cheh
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20004-3003

Dear Council Member -Council Office Cheh,

Thank you for moving ahead with the Tenley Library private
public partnership. This decision for a mixed use project
demonstrates the forward thinking that we celebrate for our
neighborhood.

I believe that there are a couple of statements that the city
could issue that might help the community come together in
support of the project:

I was told by Eric Scott that Allen Lew's shop will be
completely responsible for Janney's modernization, that LCOR
will not be responsible for determining the design and program.
If this is true, and this fact was made public, I'm sure that
would ease the concem of many in the community.

To quell the concern that economic factors are driving this
process, it would be beneficial for the Mayor to announce that
the Deputy Mayor for Education will be as involved in the
process as the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic
bevelopment. Reinoso is well trusted in Ward 3 and that would
help assure the community that the school's needs will be well
represented in the process.

ANC3E is selectively leaking out a 3/31/08 draft of the MFP that
shows Janney as #8 for modemization. They interpret this
document to mean that Janney was being moved up anyway or has
already been moved up and will necessarily stay moved up. You
certainly must realize that if the community could kill the PPP
and have Janney remain in the #8 spot, most in the community
would choose that option! I believe that this is another case
where the ODMPED or Mayor has to come out and state (if true)
that Janney will only move up if the PPP happens. Now that this
document has been circulated, it is no longer good enough to say
it the other way round.

I thank you for moving forward on this Partnership, and I certainly
hope to hear increased and improved communication from the DC
Government as the project evolves.

Sincerely,

Allison Bamard Feeney
4519 Chesapeake Street NW
Washington. DC 20016

Two flyers -- click to enlarge