Corner of Wisconsin and Idaho today. Photo from Giant development team.

Those were the words of OP’s Jennifer Steingasser at Wednesday’s Giant meeting in Cleveland Park. Steingasser was referring to the fact that concerns about the project are almost all actually transportation concerns, not zoning concerns.

Commenter, now contributor, Bianchi attended the meeting, and sent me her thoughts. Here is some of her interesting color commentary, to add to the details Ben Thielen already covered yesterday. — David

The meeting was held in a suffocating room with no air circulation. It was swelteringly hot, literally. The approximately 100-200 people were visibly sweating, fragrant and waving handouts of the plan on their faces like fans. A quarter of those in attendance stood around the edges of the room because there weren’t enough chairs. I arrived late and stood.

It wasn’t just the temperature that was high—passions were too. One woman, who prefaced her comments by saying she supported the project, but just had some questions/concerns, asked about parking for the residential piece of the project while complaining that there was already too much density in the area (read “not enough street parking”). A man near her interrupted and said, “Yeah, you support it, just not in your back yard.” She angrily shot back that was not true, she just had specific questions.

A gentleman who’s lived nearby for many years pointed out that right next to this parcel is a very low density area with two parks. He recommended more residential units on the Wisconsin Avenue side than are currently planned because transit is plentiful here, our city needs the life and tax revenue of new residents, and Wisconsin is a major corridor and thus should have people living on it.

He also offered the observation that at 2 in the afternoon you can park anywhere you like. It gets crowded around 7 pm when people come home from work. He suggested that if some of his neighbors lived car-free as he has for years they could solve their own parking and traffic problem. He was applauded by half the room.

A young woman new to the area acknowledged that parking can be a problem but that she and her husband knew that before they bought. They chalked it up to, “It’s a city. What do you expect?” She was applauded by half the room too.

Apparently the meeting was productive. Someone said it was, compared to the last one, and the OP reps concurred. Then it was adjourned for the debate. I forgot to ask about bike racks.