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School Improvement Team
February 7, 2008
Eric Scott, Esq.
Deputy Director of Operations
Office of the Deputy Mayor for
Planning and Economic Development
1350 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Suite 317
Washington, DC 20004
Dear Mr. Scott,
The Janney School Improvement Team (SIT) is concerned about the impact of the revision to the Tenley Library/Janney Elementary School RFP that was announced last week.
As you know, we have supported exploring the possibility of a mixed-use development on this site. We continue to hope that such a project might be able to provide benefits to the community, including the school, that couldn't be realized through separate renovations of the library and the school.
The new requirement that was announced last week, however, appears to put that hope in jeopardy. If we understand it correctly, it prohibits any private development in the space above the library. This contradicts the primary rationale for pursuing a mixed-use development on this site, which was the opportunity to take advantage of space that the library does not plan to use. It also implies that developers will be forced to claim more land from Janney, more than the District of Columbia Public Schools or the Janney community should be forced to give up.
The SIT was supportive of a development concept that foresaw no net loss of play area at the school. This could be achieved by limiting the amount of surface land lost to private development to 12,000 square feet. This is the area of our current parking lot, which could be moved underground, allowing it to be reclaimed as play area. (An addition to the school will claim additional play area, of course.)
Any proposal that claims more than 12,000 square feet of Janney land for a residential project will be seen by many as a land grab, and will provoke, justifiably, strong opposition. The land at Janney is scarce and precious, and it needs to be preserved.
Best regards,
Dan Charles, SIT chair Scott Cartland, Principal
Staff representatives: Parent representatives:
Laure Hunter Claudia Piras
Shellie Wood Sherry Ettleson
Karen Langford Andrew Smiles
Mary Osterman Kirk Rankin
Tawana Franklin Karen Martin
Malin Kerwin Allison Feeney, PTA representative
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