Approximately twenty people attended the Civic Association meeting on Tuesday evening 17 September at Firehouse 9.
The agenda included:
We reviewed a proposal by Capital One Bank to donate land to the County to enable the completion of the missing segment of 11th St South between South Monroe St and South Glebe Rd, through the Pike 3400 (Rosenthal) site.
While most attendees were in favor of the extension, as it has long been part of the Columbia Pike redevelopment plan, we did have concerns with the intersection designs at
South Glebe Road and South Monroe Street as proposed by County staff. Both these intersections are shown as ‘driveway’ style entrances rather than standard intersections. The Civic Association feels that these new street segments should be designed to resemble all other intersections in the neighborhood. We will be appealing to the County Board to address our concerns as talks with County Staff gave reached an impasse. More details on this project may be found here.
Update (22 September): Several officers of the Civic Association spoke about our concerns at lat night’s Board meeting. On a motion from Board Member and Douglas Park resident Chis Zimmerman, the item was deferred to the October Board meeting with instruction to Staff to work with the DPCA in resolving our concerns. In addition, there have been last minute snags in the legal language between Capitol One Bank and the County regarding the necessary easements.
Update 2 (22 October): In negotiations with Staff, DPCA was able to have the intersection of 11th St South and S Monroe St altered to a standard intersection. We were less successful with the intersection at S Glebe Rd as that intersection is under the jurisdiction of VDOT and any significant design changes would trigger a very lengthy review process. With Staff assistance, we have identified several small design changes to give the intersection a more conventional appearance without triggering VDOT review. In addition, the County and Capitol One Bank have resolved their issues with the legal language of the easements. The project was approved by consent at the County Board meeting on 9 October.
We heard presentations from 49th District Virginia House of Delegates candidates Alfonso Lopez and challenger Terrence ‘Terry’ Modglin.
Both candidates were given fifteen minutes to speak, followed by 15 minutes of questions from the audience.
The next Civic Association meeting is scheduled for Tuesday evening, 19 November 2013 at 7.30p.
