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Latest News
| Zanzibar seeks nightclub license |
VOICE writes, "BY JEZEREY WEIDERMAN
Zanzibar on the Waterfront is not meeting its food sales requirement, said Michel Daley, one of the owners of the establishment, following an Alcoholic Beverage Control Board hearing Feb. 6.
To remedy the problem, Zanzibar has applied to change its liquor license from a restaurant license to a nightclub license. But some community leaders are opposing the idea of the change, saying it would set a bad precedent for the future development of the Southwest waterfront.
Mediation between the two groups would be a “complete waste of time,” said the beverage board’s chair, Peter Feather.
The Southwest advisory neighborhood commission is adamantly opposed to the change, said commissioner Max Skolnik, who represented the neighborhood commission at last week’s hearing.
The license change would free Zanzibar from the restaurant license that requires it to earn from its food sales 45 percent of its gross revenue or $2,000 per seat per year.
“If we were able to obtain a licensing change we would not have the struggle with increasing the food sales,” Daley said. Zanzibar still intends to sell food, but the majority of its revenue would still come from liquor sales.
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Posted on Feb 20, 2008 15:13pm.
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| Logistics for H Street streetcars pondered |
VOICE writes, "BY BEN WEINSTEIN
The city recently broke ground on the highly anticipated H Street streetscape project, which includes tracks and electrical-infrastructure work for the corridor’s streetcar system. But questions still remain about funding for the cars, where service will begin and how the system will be powered.
Northeast Capitol Hill advisory neighborhood commissioner Joe Fengler, who has been a forceful advocate throughout the streetscape process, said he wants to see a streetcar break the ribbon when the estimated three-year project is complete.
“If we think we’ll need more money, let’s get it,” Fengler said, adding that the city set aside funding for streetcars before shifting some of it to cover higher-than-expected streetscape costs.
Fengler, who helped push the District Department of Transportation to do streetcar work during the streetscape project, said he is working with Ward 6 D.C. Council member Tommy Wells to identify all the unfunded costs for the streetcar line in order to get the money written into next year’s city budget.
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Posted on Feb 20, 2008 15:04pm.
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| Noise ordinance gains traction at D.C. Council |
VOICE writes, "By NATALIE GONTCHAROVA
Current Staff Write
Spurred by anti-noise activists in Near Northeast, three D.C. Council members have introduced a bill that would limit the volume of non-commercial public speaking in the city.
Council members Kwame Brown, Mary Cheh and Tommy Wells proposed the bill, which would classify non-commercial public speech as a noise disturbance if it fits certain criteria.
To qualify as a disturbance, noise must either exceed 70 decibels (comparable to the sound of a train, or traffic on a busy street) or rise 10 or more decibels above ambient noise when measured at a distance of 50 feet from the source -- whichever is greater. A "reasonable person" must also consider it disruptive.
The "reasonable person" standard, according to the D.C. Municipal Regulations, classifies as a noise disturbance any sound that is "loud and raucous or loud and unseemly and unreasonably disturbs the peace and quiet of a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities in the vicinity thereof," unless making the noise is necessary to protect somebody's health or safety.
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Posted on Feb 20, 2008 14:54pm.
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| ‘Performance parking’ gets support with conditions at D.C. Council hearing |
VOICE writes, "BY BEN WEINSTEIN
Ward 6 D.C. Council member Tommy Wells’ performance-parking plan recently gained momentum, gathering support from a majority of witnesses who testified at a Jan. 30 council hearing.
Several Ward 6 residents and neighborhood leaders said they support the “performance-parking” proposal, but they want to be assured of community involvement when it is implemented.
“You need to make sure that we’re preserving residential parking,” Southwest advisory neighborhood commissioner Andy Litsky told Wells and Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham, chair of the public works committee.
The current residential parking pass regulations use a “one-size-fits-all approach” throughout the city ,said District Department of Transportation director Emeka Moneme at the hearing of the Committee on Public Works and the Environment. But, he said, Wells’ plan to control parking around certain Ward 6 commercial corridors and the new baseball stadium with programmable meters and stricter time limits would allow the city to tailor regulations street by street.
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Posted on Feb 20, 2008 14:45pm.
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| Greening the lot around the corner |
VOICE writes, "By Joshua Gray
Some newcomers to our ever-transient neighborhood, knowing their time is brief, avoid putting down roots. Others, like Hill East resident Eric Schwalb, take the seed of an idea and nurture it into a scion of neighborhood good will.
Schwalb’s inner-city Walden is a small parcel at 13th and C streets SE. Adjacent to the Kentucky Courts complex, the mostly empty lot is currently host to a Dumpster, and little else. It’s not exactly a black pit of urban blight, but it doesn’t contribute anything to the up-and-coming intersection. Though the corner once had a reputation for illicit activities, crime is largely limited to illegal dumping by unlicensed contractors working in the area, an ironic footnote in the evolving gentrification story on the Hill.
Still, it’s an eyesore and a waste of that rarest urban commodity: open space. In its place, Schwalb and his wife, Christy, envisioned a green oasis, a neighborhood hub that would go beyond the usual small park. Rather than a collection of benches and shrubs, it would be a fusion of park and active community garden, a space where neighbors could congregate.
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Posted on Feb 20, 2008 14:33pm.
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| Nationals still bargaining with city for RFK parking lots |
VOICE writes, "BY BEN WEINSTEIN
The Washington Nationals have not yet secured enough parking for 2008 season-ticket holders, but the team expects to finalize a deal with the city to use RFK Stadium lots by opening day, a team official said last week.
The Nationals will provide free shuttle rides between RFK Stadium and the new ballpark, said Gregory McCarthy, director of the ballpark district, at a Jan. 11 D.C. Council Committee on Economic Development hearing. But he said fans without reserved parking should take Metro trains or buses rather than expect to find free spaces on residential streets. Season ticket holders whose packages don't include parking canpurchase spots for the entire season in one of several lots around the stadium.
“We have a parking deficit in and around the ballpark,” and the RFK lots are critical for overflow parking, McCarthy said.
Several Ward 6 leaders said the city must produce a plan soon to minimize an unavoidable crisis. With only 4,000 to 5,000 confirmed spaces — out of a needed 5,000 to 7,000 — and less than three months before opening day, they said Southwest and Near Southeast residents will shoulder most of the burden.
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Posted on Jan 24, 2008 07:05am.
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| Church agrees to end parishioners’ illegal parking |
VOICE writes, "BY BEN WEINSTEIN
Ward 6 D.C. Council member Tommy Wells recently stepped into a rancorous dispute involving two of the most combustible issues of our time: religion and parking.
On Jan. 19, Wells helped negotiate a deal between Northeast residents and Brown Memorial Church to end parking violations around the congregation’s 130 14th St. NE building.
Brown’s pastor, the Rev. Henry White, agreed to end the parking violations residents found most egregious, and residents agreed to give the church one month to find alternative parking arrangements.
“We’re at a flashpoint and we’ve got some neighbors who are pretty hot,” Wells said, referring to longstanding problems between illegally parked churchgoers and frustrated residents.
But Wells also tried to put the debate into context, saying similar conflicts erupt in other parts of the city with old churches and tight parking.
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Posted on Jan 24, 2008 07:05am.
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