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Leaders, families study plan to redevelop Whitehall Street area Both Washington city leaders and Whitehall Street area families have been studying maps, photos, and plans to learn more about the city's far-reaching five-year plan to improve conditions for people, private homes, and small local businesses all over southwest Washington. At both the open house Tuesday evening, and at an all-day retreat with city leaders last week, Christian F. Lentz, AICP, Director of Planning for the CSRA Regional Development Center told about how the Southwest Washington Redevelopment Plan will benefit city residents, and heard their questions about how the project will take shape over the next few years. Lentz pointed out that it will not be a quick project. The project has been underway for some two years at this point, he said, and the draft redevelopment plan will be complete after this last round of public comments are heard. The plan runs through 2012, and the big, visible changes are not expected to be seen until 2009. Lentz stressed that Washington's mayor and city council will make all the decision on what parts of the plan to implement and when. City leaders are saying that putting the redevelopment plan into effect will require some of the most far-reaching decisions they will make, and have been studying and discussing the redevelopment plan at great length. Mayor Willie Burns, City Councilmen Ray Hardy, Rev. G.L. Avery, Pamela Eaton, and Edward Pope Jr., along with City Administrator Mike Eskew, City Attorney Barry Fleming, and City Clerk Debbie Danner, spent most of the day last Wednesday at a city council retreat studying the draft plan in great detail with Lentz. The redevelopment plan is being prepared in partnership with the CSRA Regional Development Center to achieve the following goals: promote housing redevelopment through home ownership; improve street utilities; abate nuisance (dilapidated) properties; promote neighborhood commercial investment; and to provide home-ownership and credit-counseling opportunities for residents. This is not the "urban renewal" of the 1970s that saw old homes bulldozed and replaced by government housing, Eskew said at a recent council meeting. "This is nothing like that old program. This is all private, single-family homes, improving what we have and helping make it possible for folks to buy or build their own homes." One of the objects of the program, in fact, is to create a housing market, Lentz said. Some 15 to 20 families have already qualified for home loans, but can findno appropriate houses to buy. As dilapidated and abandoned properties give way to new homes and businesses, Lentz said, property values in the whole area should increase, as crime and poverty decrease. The redevelopment planning area includes portions of Washington roughly bounded by Lexington Avenue and Liberty Street to the north, 42nd and Spring Street to the east, and the southern and western municipal limits. A draft of the Southwest Washington Redevelopment Plan and a map of the redevelopment planning area can be viewed at Washington City Hall, 103 E. Liberty Street; or at: www.csrardc.org/ csra/ planning/ planning_review.asp. The next step for the city will be the development of a site plan to apply for a CDBG next spring. That grant will allow for infrastructure improvements such as new storm water and sewage lines, laying the groundwork for redeveloping the Rusher Street area.
But city leaders stress that the changes underway will take time. "This is a long, drawn-out process," Mayor Burns said. "It will be two years before any dirt moves."
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