Chevy Chase Voice Petition to Save the Chevy Chase Commons Site

In May 2023, the DC Office of Planning publicly presented its plan to apply for a new zone at the Commons, to convert the site to a mixed-use complex, with residential buildings of up to 94 feet on top of a rebuilt library and community center. Upzoning would allow buildings that dwarf the current surrounding 2, 3 and 4 story commercial and residential properties, and would greatly reduce open space. Because this new zoning allows a building to occupy 80 percent of a lot, the outdoor open space could be reduced from 70 percent of the site to 20 percent, eliminating above-ground parking, basketball courts, the playground, reading garden, trees, and green space and parking. Recently DMPED reduced the original proposed height to 80 feet, with 60% of the lot covered. The library and community center currently cover 35% of the land with the rest of the parcel covered by the Commons Park and parking.

In surplussing public land, the city sells that property to developers at a steep discount or leases it to them for $1 per year. The promise of some affordable housing is a fig leaf for a lucrative privatization deal. The proposed up-zoning of the Chevy Chase Commons and upper Connecticut Ave corridor will result in:
• Far less open space for neighbors to recreate, bring children, sit quietly, and enjoy the outdoors, and hold community events, and for the city to run its summer programs.
• More parking problems and added traffic across the neighborhood.
• Infrastructure straining aging utilities.
• More students for already overcrowded public schools.
• Hi-rise buildings inappropriate for our neighborhood.

I, THE UNDERSIGNED, oppose the D.C. government’s plan to surplus the publicly-owned Chevy Chase Commons and dramatically upzone upper Connecticut Ave. I oppose the loss of the outdoor recreational facilities and green space, especially for an incompatible private land-use like housing. No other DC community is being asked to forfeit its public Commons. I want our public land to continue to serve its numerous public uses for the community. Therefore, I oppose surplussing the Chevy Chase Commons site, any sale or leasing of the site to developers, and incompatible upzoning on upper Connecticut Avenue. With regards to the Chevy Chase Commons, I call upon our elected officials to cease surplussing plans, leasing or selling to private developers and building anything outside of our current zoning restrictions.

Chevy Chase Voice will deliver this petition to: MAYOR BOWSER, WARD 3 COUNCILMEMBER FRUMIN, WARD 4 COUNCILMEMBER LEWIS GEORGE, COUNCIL CHAIR MENDELSON, the DC COUNCIL and ANC 3/4G.

Additional Information:
The Bowser administration is proceeding with a project in our community that is incompatible with the community’s enjoyment and use of the Chevy Chase DC Public Library, Community Center, and our Community Commons.

Background: For the past three years, the D.C. government has been plotting to rezone and replace neighborhood commercial buildings on Connecticut Avenue -- from Livingston Street to the Chevy Chase Circle -- with 70-90 foot high-rise buildings. The government wants to increase density in Chevy Chase, a “high opportunity” neighborhood. This planning has been conducted quietly and methodically by the City’s Office of Planning (OP) and our own Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC), employing “Citizen Advisory Groups” packed with developer proxies and organizations seeking to increase density in Chevy Chase. These plans were prepared during the height of the Covid emergency, in online virtual meetings, with little citizen knowledge and input. On the basis of this flawed, unrepresentative process, the City is about to give away our Library and Community Center to a commercial developer for a nominal amount of money, reportedly $1 per year, to build 100 - 200 luxury residential units — with a smattering of affordable units thrown in, as a fig leaf. The residences would be built atop a new Library and Community Center thus necessitating the construction of an enormous building or buildings that would be completely out of scale with surrounding stores and houses.
Impact: Our Chevy Chase Commons site is home to our community’s shared outdoor/indoor recreation space, open green space, library, and event space (such as hosting Chevy Chase Day). It is the civic and educational center of our community. Throughout the year, it hosts numerous classes and programs for children, teens, adults, and seniors. For eight weeks in the summer, 75 children per day, from ages 3 to 13, participate in day-long summer camps at the Community Center and the outdoor recreation space. If the Chevy Chase Commons is given away and developed as a multi-use high-density complex, the community will suffer irreparable harm from the loss of this invaluable resource and the numerous problems ensuing from that development.
Points to Consider: Two criteria must be met for the City to give away the Chevy Chase Commons to a developer: first, it must be disposed of as municipal property, “surplussed,” which requires demonstrating that the public land is no longer needed for public use; second, in order to make the project attractive to a developer, it must be “upzoned” to allow much larger buildings with denser occupancy.

Sign the petition and take a stand for the only public Commons land in the heart of Chevy Chase, for all who live here now and future residents to come.
Thank you for your support, Chevy Chase Voice
ccdcvoice.org ccdcvoice@gmail.com