Waterfront Hotel Hearing Is Means to an End, and Little More

Some things never seem to change.

By pushing the Board of Architectural Review to hold what is just an “informal hearing” on a proposed hotel at the foot of Duke Street in Old Town, City Hall is making it clear, yet again, that the end justifies the means. The end is a spot or spots along the Potomac where developers can put up one or two “boutique-ish” hotels with splendid river views.

City planners and their political allies have been hell-bent since the start of the waterfront planning process several years back on finding a way to get property owners to agree to a zoning change that would permit waterfront hotels where none are currently permitted. 

They had NO trouble convincing property owners like the Washington Post Co, who wants more flexible development rights, to accept such a zoning change. It jibed quite nicely with what some business interests want too.  And elected officials are always quick to say that more development will drive taxes down and pay for the public benefits that we ALL surely want. After all, a hotel is just the thing we need to breathe public life into our waterfront. Maybe so, maybe not.

The problem is – and it’s just a small problem, mind you – that the City has failed to ask the very citizens who live here and pay taxes what they thought about this deal, what they wanted the waterfront to look like. Instead, the City was meeting behind closed doors with the Washington Post and their legal representatives, and others. This is where the real waterfront plan was assembled.

But hey, the end justifies the means.

The City also found time to meet with Carr Properties, who just happen to be the only developer who still wants to put a hotel on the waterfront. Hotels open up the waterfront to the public, city planners say. Problem is, no one asked the community what they thought of this idea. When they finally did, the Planning Commission simply sneered at citizens and voted to approve the plan the City had put together.

But hey, the end justifies the means.

These early “just informal” meetings would never have come to light if some concerned citizens hadn’t filed a Freedom of Information Act Request a year or so ago.

Through the FOIA request, we also learned that the Washington Post Co (Robinson Terminal Warehouse) had told the City that hotels didn’t make any sense for the properties they own. The City’s response was muted for good reason: The end really means to them not just hotels, but simply more waterfront development. It also means more traffic.

Then Mayor Euille created a work group, whose purpose was always just the means to an end they had a mind. Following that, there was the small matter of the Planning Director (and City Attorney) denying citizens their right to protest a major rezoning decision. Now there are the lawsuits that this decision spawned, at no small cost to citizens and taxpayers.

It is always the same end justifying the same means, time and time again.

Fast forward to today. City Planning Director Faroll Hamer says this special BAR hearing is just an “informal gathering” to look at plans for a hotel on the waterfront that Carr Properties wants to build (should the zoning ever be approved), which just happens to be the same hotel the City has always sought, and that citizens are concerned about.

This is just another one of those meetings where the end justifies the means. Again.

Andrew Macdonald, independent candidate for mayor of Alexandria