Sounds like to me there are three issues:
1) Disconnect between the Federal Agency and the City where the rules governing the disposition of this house is concerned;
2) The NPS/District stewardship of the property;
3) Tension between the preservationist residents versus the residents who saw an eyesore and see potential in the restored green space.
Looks like the whole mess could have been avoided if the city had maintained the property and used it as a community center. I cannot imagine why this would not have been a valuble result.
It's but another instance of what I call blaming the building. In this case, the building was blamed by residents for the poor stewardship of the city. The solution wasn't demolition, but elimination of the poor stewardship. Selling the property likely would have been a better option than adding a house lot's worth of green space to the entrance.
"green" or open space in the city = suburban sprawl on the outskirts.
DC already had way more than enough "green space"- we call them "parks" and it was planned to be this way.
to attract more taxpayers and residents we desperately need to re-establish the pre- WW2 density that was lost over the years.
Oh well- the elitists in the Pallisades now have more surface parking if they want to deem it such.
It was apparent from the RFP's limited timeline and the elaborate technical requirements that the RFP was - let's say - pro forma only. Pity - the house could have made for some nice additional programming space for the park and the community. I'd always rather liked how the park had a somewhat constrained entrance: it made it feel all the more like a neighborhood park.
Commenting by HaloScan
