Shaw activists fight unnecessary parking

The DC Office of Property Management plans to convert an old school building in Shaw into a resource center for abused children. That’s great. However, they also planned to convert the entire lot around the school into parking, creating far more parking spaces than the facility needs. Thanks to tireless activism from area residents, the DC government is pulling back from this plan, and may reduce the parking spaces in favor of a dog park or other recreational space.

The Bundy School is at 4th and O Streets, NW, and includes a vacant lot backing onto P Street. There’s a park next door, used by nearby schools and for organized sports. Residents were happy to have Safe Shores take over the property, but were dismayed when they saw the initial plans, which called for paving that entire lot (but not the park) to create 100 free parking spaces. Originally, OPM insisted that they needed lots of parking:

First, the confidential nature of the MDT’s/Safe Shores’ work and the need for clients to have access to relatively discreet parking behind the building, as opposed to only having access to the building via sparse street parking or public transportation. Second, a key purpose of co-location is to facilitate joint field investigations by MPD and CFSA, which requires immediate access to vehicles and adequate parking on site. Due to these parking constraints and issues, when the vacant parcel in question is transferred to the District, it will be used as parking for staff, volunteers, and clients of MPD, OAG, CFSA, US Attorney’s Office and Safe Shores, who are all part of the Child Advocacy Center at Safe Shores.

Residents, however, pointed out a few countervailing facts. The nearby Giant supermarket, for example, which has a large amount of parking, has 110 spaces. Another supermarket-sized surface lot seems nonsensical. Others noted that the Whitman-Walker Clinic, which also needs to serve people confidentially, has no parking for visitors and only a few spaces for staff. Safe Shores’ facility will only have 60 employees in total. Finally, the on-street parking in the area does not currently fill up during the day.

A group of residents organized a petition asking OPM to instead devote all or most of the space to recreation. A tennis court, playground, and dog park would be nice. Residents were even willing to compromise, devoting half the empty space to parking and the other half to a dog park, something like this:

They also packed a community meeting on Thursday, where OPM Director Robin Eve Jasper agreed to evaluate “how much parking is necessary” and explore another use for part of the lot. This is a good start, but the future of the site still depends on how OPM defines “necessary.” If they continue to maintain that every staff member will drive and needs a free, dedicated off-street space, then they’ll overbuild parking and create a strong incentive for those employees to drive instead of considering the bus or Metro, whose Shaw station is not far away. Perhaps some of the children using the facility will need to arrive confidentialy by automobile, but a few visitor spaces should suffice. Many of those children will come from families that don’t have cars.

The Federal Elements of the Comprehensive Plan call for one space per five employees in the DC core near Metro. That would mean 12 spaces for 60 employees. DC’s old parking minimums call for 2 spaces per 3 teachers in a school, which would mean 40 spaces, likely more than the facility needs.

Either way, adding in a few spaces for visitors and MPD activities, at a minimum OPM should have no trouble allocating half the lot to a park and building only about 50 spaces. That should accommodate the facility’s reasonable needs even without using on-street spaces and making driving very attractive for most employees. But with the wealth of buses, a Metro station, and available on-street parking, OPM should limit the project to build very few to no employee spaces, and dedicate as much of the lot as possible for better purposes that enrich the neighborhood.