you attended Council hearings in person you tuned in to our televised proceedings on channel 13 now you have the chance to listen to us on the radio as we demystify our work and the people who do it this is not a counsel this is hearing the council with your host Josh Gibson thank you deep voice person with a funky BackBeat indeed this is not a council here this is hearing the council you can't have a government without a council so you can't have a government radio station without a council show this is it I'm Josh Gibson director of communications for the council you may also know me as our voice on social media at Council ofdc and uh we are once uh again honored to have Ward one council member uh uh brand do our most frequent uh customer with us here um I pied one of those stamp Punch Cards you get at the bagel place you know and when you like hit a certain number of interviews you get a free thing and I have to figure out what you get uh because you certainly a dedicated a dedicated customer yeah I'd like to redeem please yeah yeah I'm super honored and I need to think of that real fast um maybe a t-shirt thing like that um dig into the council's uh merch closet and get you some sort of Insignia mug or wait wait wait we have a merch closet we do have a mer I probably am going to get in huge trouble for disclosing that but but yes and also vintage merch like discontinued stuff like you know I love eBay and like I would just go to town if I could just you know clear out the merch closet with uh vintage vintage items uh but anyway I'll reflect on that and I will I'll will let you know what um what what prize you get from the prize Shelf at chuckecheese for for being such a dedicated uh interviewee uh so anyway we're here uh we have a little bit of a potential grab bag of topics we'll see how we do on the first couple topics to see how many topics we hit uh but the first topic we're going to talk about is the famed long uh planned potential Redevelopment of the police and fire stations um right at the intersection of where uh Adams Morgan UST Street and Dupont Circle come together and as an Adams Morgan resident I've been following this uh particularly closely and I'm super curious so why don't you fill folks in on the history how we got here uh and we'll go from there sounds great so right there in the corner of 17th and u and v we have our aging and police stations and it's time to renovate them and give them a another long life at that location but when we redevelop government property we have a huge opportunity to do more than what's there right now so the goal the vision is to build housing over top and possibly even some Library Services which would fill in a gap in the Adams Morgan UST Street Dupont area as well so the journey started a couple years ago when the council worked on the comprehensive plan which is like the blueprint for the city and I passed an amendment that allows us to build taller more densely on that site so that we can get the most out of it and um so the mayor's office moved that forward and they applied to the zoning commission to be able to to build something there and the zoning commission it just voted few days ago to allow it to happen this is really exciting there is no project yet um there's just an opportunity now to actually build that housing what's really cool about building on public land is the law that the council passed a few years ago requires that a third of all the housing that's built on it has to be affordable there may be more than than a third that ends up being affordable it sort of depends but with this project because we also have to find the funding for renovating the fire and police stations funds are going to be tight so the good thing is that that law is in place we have to follow that law to get that onethird but there's going to be hundreds of units of housing there from zero to hundreds of units so that's really exciting for our community I believe and um the next steps is that the mayor gets to begin the public process for input on what goes to that site and a request for proposals for developers to be our partner and it's very exciting um I've never redeveloped a fire police station before so that part's new to me and obviously there will be a lot of Sation with e Fire EMS and MPD about what their needs are for that site and some of those have already happened but there's sort of a similar project in fogy bottom where the West End Library is um there's a library fire station and housing above so if anybody is sort of having trouble picturing it that would be a good example of what what might go here it's pretty pretty exciting yeah and and like God bless the developer that that takes that project on because we also have a police station obviously like you said and that same thing so it will be quite a um quite a remarkable uh development and and uh a lot of moving pieces but like a real um tribute to the neighborhood and to the city um for putting together a project like that um because it is it's odd when you walk by the police and the fire station that it's like a feels kind of like a missing tooth um you know it's the the super flat buildings and I I think there issues even with the garage I'm not even sure the garage gets fully used it seems like the police cars are parked more on the grass than in the garage and you just look at that Primo Primo location where three of our best neighborhoods uh come together uh and it at least to me it seems like it's a missed opportunity that that will finally be um maximized right and it's such a great location as you mentioned right there on Street buding Adams Morgan it's it's great access to bus to amenities you know people want to live in that area and so creating opportunities for affordable housing in particular at that location will be really important because you know our community is getting more expensive and ensuring that affordability exists is is part of one of the it's one of the things we value in word one all the anc's supported the project which was really exciting and um well I shouldn't say project there's no project yet but all the anc's supported the zoning process and I know they'll be heavily involved in the um the actual project as well and I introduced legislation that um sort of reminds the deputy mayor the importance of the public engagement process they have a public engagement process they will kick off um and they've done they did some of that before they did the zoning application as well they had um at least one but I think more than one public meeting but uh my legislation just would ensure that those occur so just sort of just a little extra Assurance for members of the community that are concerned their voices won't be heard yeah I mean this project goes back so far uh I was on thec uh personally I was an NC commissioner uh from 2000 to 2005 and while I can find no proof of it I distinctly remember us suggesting to DC public libraries that a redeveloped uh police and fire station would be a great spot for if they couldn't add an additional full library branch at least a satellite branch or a partial Branch because it's one of the biggest library uh deserts in the city and it's it's such a high density spot where key neighborhoods come together um and damn it I wish I could find proof of that because I remember it distinctly but uh well I believe it and I remember when you were on the school Improvement team for Marie Reed that you raised that issue a lot too just the library desert um there's a a study going this year DC public libraries is doing uh partially with funding that I put in the budget to do more of an assessment of need now there assessment of need before Co absolutely clearly said these three Neighbors neigh hoods need Library services but the ways in which people are using libraries has changed a lot and so they just want to make sure it's a good investment but it has something it's a it's something that I have been talking about whenever I can with DC public libraries with residents because everybody loves the library I can't imagine anyone saying I don't want a library in my neighborhood it hasn't happened yet in the 10 years I've been on the council or the four years I was on thec so we'll see um but I I'm eager to get the results of that study they're doing I think it's important to be data oriented and make sure that we're using government resources wisely and also Library services are awesome so we should get some absolutely and as we know from the uh the t-shirts and the tote bag so nothing is more Punk than the public library for a period of time we had had the Fab Lab on UST Street do you remember that yeah I do I do that that's uh calling back memories yeah it was in the re Center and now it's um now it's in its own permanent spot but it was people love the Fab Lab go there and tinker and make things 3D print so so based on the data so it's nothing's a sure thing because like you're saying it's not a project there's for now there's just the up Zone but it seems like there is a strong likelihood that if the data reflects a need for Library Services there that there will be some kind of a library DC Public Library uh foothold potentially in an eventual project is that fair to say I think it it would then be wholly dependent on the funding identified because we will be pushing for a long-term lease not a a sale of the land and so whoever works with us on it is going to have to figure out how to make it profitable for them because developers or business people they need to at least not go broke doing the project um and so we will be looking at what's the value of the land how does that you know in a 99e lease what value can someone get out of that I mean there's there's people in the back room that do this kind of math that are not me but um the concept is the phrase is making the deal pencil making it pencil out so we know that we have to find funds to do the police fire and then it would be Library um so it's really a it's the goal is let's get the library services in the requests for proposals that the deputy mayor puts out let's see what people come up with and then figure out how much it'll cost you and uh we'll go from there I can't think of a a meeting I've had with the deputy mayor's office in the past five years where I haven't mentioned the library so yeah I think they've gotten the message but there has been some turnover there so it's always a good it's always a good time to check in absolutely um and I'm guessing because of the example of the West End and then Al wasn't there also a collocation fire station location in Ward six um I feel like yeah there is on Florida Avenue maybe I don't I don't remember which one it is but I feel like that hopefully they figured out because that collocating with a living above a fire station uh you know there's there's potential for noise issues and things like that but I'm assuming they've worked those out because you don't you don't hear about people complaining about that in the well you have a fire station on your block how is it it's glorious it's surprisingly glorious um you know I mean a it's it's glorious to have the resource but it is surprisingly uh low impact um from a quality of life standpoint that basically they don't put the siren on unless they get to the end of the block and need it to get people to move so they can get going um and I'm guessing something similar you know obviously if the siren needs to go on the siren needs to go on and the residents will will understand but just a couple little ticks you can make to adjust things and make it easier and it's I think it's surprisingly easy to yeah close proximity in my office I think I get more complaints from people who are whose block is getting visit from ambulances and fire trucks rather than ones that have them on their block because of course if they're visiting your block then they really probably have the lights and sirens on so but we have um we have one we have the fire station on UST Street there are people that live next door we have fire station on Sherman Avenue and there's people that live next door and then we have the one on 14th Street which has a lot of people living near it in addition to the one on L near by you I don't think I'm missing one hopefully not this is always it's always a risk when you start listing things that you might forget one the same here your academy award speech you you always want be care who you're thanking because you know you'll forget someone um what is I haven't heard a lot of talk about the plan for where the fire and I know this obviously hasn't been decided but it's clearly been thought about where the fire and police services will go during construction right uh I think we're still a little ways away from there that moment in time which is why it hasn't been figured out um the department of General Services which is our real estate division and our Building Division and our property management division will be the ones that help figure out where to put them um obviously we want to make sure we don't create a gap in service in particular for fire Services the police can beat anywhere because that's just their office that's not where they're deploying from when they receive a call from 911 so um you know they're we want them to be out and about not sitting at a desk so I think that's that could be in a few other places and the Third District itself is pretty expansive um so they could probably be even in a regular office building as long as the public can walk in so yeah we'll see and I mean it's you know the the DC is all about swing space like I feel like that's like our second state motto uh you know that constantly everything's getting renovated and there's churn and the school you know school kids are getting moved I think most often but you know fire station to your point uh swing space is a little more complicated because the access and um big trucks and and that kind of thing but if they can do it on the near place uh they they can do it pretty much anywhere state bird is right oh okay I thought it was the Twitter bird but uh it shows what I know it's a crin get it no I do okay you didn't need that you didn't need the hand motions you got the joke godp speed it whatever works for you works for me um this is audio right yeah um so so speak about the affordable housing component because I think that's critical that you know that that there's never going to be enough affordable housing we need to do everything in our power to get there and we have a unique opportunity on public land to like you said about the the law in place 30% to to uh over in a way over provide on the spaces where we really can show how important it is to us as a priority um so talk a bit about that and about the the income thresholds so this is a this is interesting so originally the mayor's office of planning went to the zoning commission and asked for enough density to potentially build more than 500 units of housing total a third of those would have been affordable recently they went back to the zoning commission and said we're going to tweak our application in a way that I would describe as negotiating against themselves uh and so they reduced their request by about 175 viewer housing units overall and about you know if you do the math there that'd be about 52 fewer affordable units and this was my main criticism of the decision by the zoning commission um you know they heard a lot of testimony from folks who didn't want a tall building there which happens every time this is not something that we're um not used to in the district of Colombia um the council had already said in the comprehensive plan there should be a setback you know on B Street you have smaller houses you don't want to towering building we do this all the time architecturally but unfortunately this is sort of cast the die to reduce the number of housing altogether which is really disappointing um but there's still going to be a lot of housing there and it's a little dangerous to sort of play around and predict how many number of units will be because one thing that we don't know yet is what size units they'll be so will they be Studios one bedrooms two bedrooms three bedrooms you know and obviously the size can is a determining factor in the number of units because you know they have to go somewhere so we'll see um but it's hundreds it's not 50 it's hundreds and a third of those will be affordable so that is exciting now when it comes to the income level that is also to be determined um it has to be generally below 80% of the median family income which is median family income and DC is a little over $100,000 for a family of four so 80% of that would be making less than $80,000 but we usually do deeper affordability than that in these projects either it's 60% of the median family income or 50% um sometimes we do 30% or below of median family income but usually that's a project with additional subsidy like a partnership with the Housing Authority Etc almost all of this will depend on you know how many tax credits are available to the district at that time what is the bond cap from um the Housing Finance Agency and what is our borrowing capacity um at that time and I will say um some of that may be impacted by who's President um and some of that will be impacted by the overall health of the district's um finances because our borrowing capacity is very much tied to that so that is one of the reasons we work really hard at the council to ensure that we are budgeting responsibly and uh not running a foul of of the guidelines that that are out there on you know debt debts the debt cap and debt to income ratios and things like that so all of that is highly technical stuff that'll be worked out by the mayor's team but those are the factors that go into how much housing will there be what type of housing will it be as well as how much subsidy is available after the fact because once the building is built someone has to operate it in an environment um where the cost of running a building is very expensive and if incomes are not all market rate typically some sub subsidy is applied to help with those operating expenses so it all goes together yeah it's just it's so complicated I mean it's I guess in a mic microcosm of any uh decision you have to make on government policy that everything interacts everything everything's interrelated you know there's a push to generate as much housing as possible as many units of housing as possible but there's an extreme shortage of larger units so if you check the larger units box then you're providing less units of housing which is hurting your other goal but if you just try to hit your uh total housing goal and your total affordable housing goal you end up with a ton of affordable Studios which are not useful to a ton of people and a ton of families yeah not as useful to families I mean still very helpful for you know aging seniors um you know younger people maybe people aging out of their parents house that are residents here in the district that lived here their whole lives things like that so you know we need all of it but um it has been important to focus on family-sized units as well those don't always get built in tall buildings you know sometimes those are Town Homes um or houses themselves you know just thinking about family size and not wanting folks to be living on top of each other in a you know in a three-bedroom apartment Etc but we get to do a lot more of that when we're partnering with the Housing Authority because they do a one forone replacement of their units and so for for example Park Morton a project over in Parkview where I live um we're building fives and sixes because that's what the need is for the families and um those are great but those tend to be town homes or um a different layout one thing that that I recently came across that I thought was really exciting is okay so um the district is divided up into planning areas and we live in mid city where it's mid City Planning area is W one plus Bloomingdale and eckington and W five so it's mostly W one um we have more affordable housing production since 2019 of any other planning area west of the river which is very cool yeah that is that is impressive we're number two um far Southwest Southeast is number one and mostly Wy but we are the number one west of the river which is it says something I mean you were on the ANC I was on this A&C you know how important anc's are to ensuring housing gets built because the projects come before them more projects come to thec than ever come to the council because we only have jurisdiction over the public development and um I think we've really seen a movement of people running for office as ancs because they want more housing and more affordable housing and they want their communities to remain diverse and you can only do that by making them affordable so we haven't solved it that's not mission accomplished but I think we should be proud that we really are leading in many ways in W one on building housing and in particular building affordable housing and we have so many more projects on the pipeline coming along the work that we did on the comprehensive plan which I mentioned right at the top of this interview it wasn't just for that site it's for the reev center it was for the Housing Finance Agency over at 9th in Florida it was for a number of smaller Parcels scattered throughout ones owned by Churches or nonprofits or private owners but giving people the opportunity to build more housing on a site that they already own or if they want to sell it whatever but that's called infill um you know working we don't have a lot of open space but we do have opportunities to build more housing on the space that we do have so it's been very strategic and it was a big priority of mine um and I'm really glad to see that um just that's the last five years yeah I mean and it seems like density is is the Cornerstone of that because when you're in such a small Ward um you know I live in a small apartment and when you live in a small apartment everything goes in its place and there's no unused space and if you can use a space for three things instead of one thing you do it and you need to you mean like a police fire and housing uh exactly yeah you know it's our coffee table like opens up and it's full of old DVDs and VCR tapes and you know it's like everything probably get rid of those yeah I know I do have a player so I I do watch them periodically but yes but you you it just proves that you can do all the things you need to do even in a small tight Ward but you just need to be creative and thoughtful and how many things can you collocate and stack in in a reasonable you know quality of life standpoint um and persistent but I mean it is it is tribute that that we've gotten there in a tough word to do it I agree and you really do have to be persistent about it because um people don't like change and people don't trust the government and those are two pitfalls to building more housing and um all I can say is that hopefully people who don't believe the government actually cares about building affordable housing will see that data and understand that we are doing it you don't have to trust us you can just see our work and know that this is largely a concerted effort um let let's talk for a minute because I think we have to about the the dialogue about the project I I remember there being more dialogue and more heated playful interesting satirical you know I I started the Adams Morgan lerve and it is very much an uncontrolled space it is the opposite of the Cleveland Park list serve which is very useful and and carefully moderated the Adams Morgan Alys serve for better or worse is like the wild west is um we we just let it go because it's thank you for your contribution to our society well it's it doesn't always feel like that but some days it does uh but talk a bit just about the dialogue I mean we've seen everything in the dialogue about this project um it's very W oneish I think to see the amount of historical references and uh just the richness of the dialogue in the com oh sure I mean it's it's an interesting conversation um you know my constituents and I don't always agree and I always just try to be respectful when that's the case and that's not always reciprocated but that's part of the job so you know there were some folks who live in the historic district just down the street who wanted to um assert historic preservation rules on this site which is not how it works um there were some folks that were concerned there just hasn't been enough dialogue for the neighbors or even churches that are five blocks away haven't had the chance to weigh in for example they're isn't much to weigh in on yet um but there was a lot of engagement at the zone Z in commission and there were many many many many many hours of testimony and hearings on this particular site um know there are some people that said some not so nice things about me uh which happens and you know there's been like uh massive foer requests about the process Etc so from a government perspective from my perspective I don't actually find this to be super different from any of the other projects we've worked on on public land where we are adding housing you know over here by me Park Morton's been tied up for years in court we are finally moving forward with the Bruce Monroe site because we have one in court but it's some of the same things um you know people concerned about traffic people concerned about more folks coming to the neighborhood um in this case there was sort of a confusing argument that it wasn't enough affordable housing uh it wanted to be 100 that some people wanted it to be 100% affordable housing which was um maybe a little bit of a red herring I'm not sure exactly who was saying that but I have a sense that it was meant to be kind of a poison pill because we couldn't possibly build 100% affordable housing while also doing a fire in police station and I think that was the point if if that was insisted upon perhaps the project would die um but you know I don't assume I know people's motivations I just know that this is important for our community it has unanimous support in the government and I think that we'll just have to prove to the neighbors that it's a great project once it's done right yeah I I the the Harris terer and Adams Morgan came through thec when I was on thec and you can almost write a Mad Lib of a opposing email to a project that is a you know a big change but but uh presumably a positive change um the I didn't hear about this why weren't there meetings and anyone uh in the process you it's clear how many meetings have been held and how many um discussions have been held on the list serve and posters been up around the neighborhood it's um you know sometimes that's the last Refuge is the how could we know conversation and I I get that all people are busy but that's a challenging one I think people don't like being taken by surprise period that's very human right and it can be jarring to realize you've been out of the loop on something so different and significant in your neighborhood I do think our government does a pretty good job of community engagement there are many levels um one place that Community engagement happens is at regularly scheduled A&C meetings with duly noticed agendas that's a very consistent thing so for people who were trying to stay in the loop on things like projects for housing or bus routes or bike Lanes or any of that you can almost always find that information by just checking thec agenda they only meet once a month generally and you have an opportunity so I can't speak highly enough of the importance of keeping an eye on what's going on but it's not Lim Toc meetings you know many of the Departments have public meetings outside that space as well sometimes they flyer depending on what the issue is they post on lamp posts they put things out on L serves and on social media so it is possible to be engaged on these things as a resident of the district even if you're not someone who's been very involved in the past it is important for all of our residents voices to be heard and that's one of the reasons that the government does this level of Engagement um you know so I get it if you weren't engaged on this earlier and it came to you as a surprise that's you're going to have a lot of feelings about that um but there's on this particular site on UST Street many more meetings to come some led by the mayor some at the council you know there'll be lots of opportunities for input so and and am I remembering correctly that the zoning commission passed this it has one more stop and then it comes back to the zoning commission one more time is that that right or did I that I don't know um just trying to see I thought it was done with them but I could be wrong I the second vote that may have been the first vote was the vote with the weight and the second vote May technically happen but but be less uh weighty got it oh yeah do they vote twice on everything like us yeah like it could be like a first reading second reading thing but um but anyway we will one of us should know this correct we will continue to follow this uh via the uh the Adams Borg and list serve and it's Rich uh multiple satirical uh post posts that are posted on this topic that uh that I personally am a fan of um but uh we I think are starting to run shorter on time but um and the disadvantage of you having done so many interviews is you've run through all of the fun closing round stuff so we're going to go to a as if this were an elementary school classroom and ask you um what are you doing this summer because I understand you have uh something particular really fun cool and uh a surprising element uh of it that that we should know about well Josh next week I will be answering only to the name Indigo which is my camp counselor name at camp Brighton Woods so for those of you who grew up here in the area and participated in Girl Scouts you might have gone to Brighton Woods this is a day camp it's a twoe camp but I only can be a counselor for one week this year and I'm going to be there with both my daughters Zoe and meline Zoe is um a rising Brownie and I will be a counselor to the daisies including one Daisy who is in our troop um that I'm a leader of and then meline will be in the pixie Group which is a group for um children of counselors who aren't yet old enough to be Girl Scouts and um we're just gonna going to go to Camp every day and have a blast and come home tired and sleep well and I think uh think it's going to be a great experience I am trying to shake off a cold because that's not a great experience is managing you know 25 kindergarteners with the cold God bless our teachers um but I'm psyched um I'm G wear a bandana on my head every day try not to get any ticks it'll be fun and are there are they is it still like arts and crafts and archery and am I showing my age is that like no all of that I mean it's in the woods there's literally archery arts and crafts this Camp doesn't have swimming um but and there's like um there's Traditions at Camp they have four different mascots that are part of the Camp's origin story and you have to capture the mascots like a flamingo a frog can't remember all of them but um it's fun I mean if you're a camp person like me it's fun yeah I mean I this is a tell of age is I remember us making ashtrays in arts and crafts at Camp um I did that too in fifth grade yep yeah that right they thankfully they don't do that anymore nobody even smoked in our house my parents are like what are we supposed to do with this yeah exactly but Blue's change in it or jewelry or something exactly it's a jewelry track uh but but if I if I uh heard correctly there is a cell phone ban at Camp is that true well more or less I have my cell phone for safety reasons um I'm not going to take my government cell phone because I'm not supposed to be checking my phone and I also managing teen counselors who are not allowed to have their phones and so we're trying to model good behavior and not be on our phones and give our full attention to the children and um so I'll have it for emergencies along with my walkie-talkie and uh you know the good people the ward one staff team will help me monitor my email and make sure we get all our constituent Services handled and is the opportunity to have an excuse to not be super presentent on your phone is that are you going to be uh are you gonna have the Jitters from not being able to do it are you going to be the most grateful person on Earth for having a reasonable uh excuse not to do it for a short time what what is your what are your emotions as go into this phoneless phase I have observed that preparing to be away from my work email for a week has been pretty stressful because it's sort of like I got to get everything clear out of my inbox and can't just get to some of it on Monday um I haven't really gone dark on a vacation which this is not since my honeymoon I I mean I didn't even go dark when I was in labor you know because you know you got to do something while you're in labor check email respond to constituent requests but um yeah I'm not suggesting that that's a healthy behavior for anybody who's trying to figure out work life balance but in this job in particular I try to stay connected because people sometimes write me with urgent needs so yes we did go dark on our honeymoon and by the way there was one Interruption to that and it was the chairman and I think I know better than to ask for any more detailed than that but uh I didn't even have my phone on it all no my office called my husband to be like the chairman needs the council member we were like we're in Hawaii are you serious anyway he probably didn't know yeah yeah I don't think he would have called to interrupt the honeymoon on purpose right that that's what we're going to go with um but uh and so any other big summer plans or or is this the um the Apex uh we're gonna actually do a vacation in Michigan which will be nice and then um we're going to go to Niagara Falls on the way back and I can't remember if we've talked about this much but you know my husband served in the army in Afghanistan and we helped um his friends and colleagues get out of Afghanistan when um it fell to the Taliban a few years ago and they have settled in Canada and I'm going to get to meet them for the first time when we go to the falls and so will the girls wow that yeah yeah that that's gonna be awesome I think so too so I'm pretty psyched yeah com the emotional awesomeness of the meeting with the natural awesomeness of the Fall so that's exactly exactly so yeah and throwing on the Poncho and riding the made the myth and that stuff maiden of the Mist yeah it's it's it's cheesy but awesome I did it when I was I think 13 and still remember it so uh love it but uh well anyway uh thank you again so so much um for being generous once again yet once again with your time um and uh listeners if you can remember to subscribe to our podcast on Soundcloud or wherever you get your podcast just search under hearing the counsil um that thanks again for joining us tune in next time we're on DCR 96.3 on your fm hd4 dial or at dc.gov I'm Josh Gibson this is not a council hearing this is hearing the council thanks council member have a great summer thanks you too Josh okay bye