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Community members and the DC Public Library have different visions for libraries in Ward 8. They also disagree about decision-making, including interpretations of terms such as “Notice” and “great weight.”
This summer, DCPL continued with plans to demolish and replace the Washington Highlands Neighborhood Library, beginning this fall. DCPL touts architect David Adjaye's cutting edge concept, while community members demand a design with “some reference to the neighborhood.” ANC requests for reconsideration of the entire project – possibly including renovation and other ways to provide other library services in Southeast – were dismissed by the library as “not compelling in any way.”
A neighborhood coalition, including ANC commissioners from across the ward, banded together to request postponement of the library's Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) hearing, scheduled for Sept. 1.
Community and ANC Notice
Impending change is not obvious to a Washington Highlands visitor. This reporter, for example, recently approached from the east, browsed the collections and visited the children's area, restroom and meeting rooms without encountering any announcement of change or invitation to participate in planning.
Required notice of the BZA hearing was not placed inside Washington Highland's large glass front but outside. A regular library patron reported retrieving the rain-damaged sign from the dirt in late August. Once upright, the placard – although visible to Atlantic Avenue pedestrians – remained hidden from the doors.
DCPL did not present plans to any ANC until June 22, when requesting support from ANC 8D – the commission in which Washington Highlands is located – for variances from courtyard and parking regulations. A “courtesy copy” of the BZA application, filed May 22, was mailed June 25, after the meeting.
At its May 2009 meeting, ANC 8D passed a resolution demanding that DCPL “cease any further action toward the replacement of Washington Highlands Library and respond to the following 'great weight' issues …” ANC 8E filed a supporting resolution. In a July response, DCPL writes that “Notice” of the library's intent to replace Washington Highlands was sent on Oct. 1, 2008, giving the ANC “until approximately Monday, November 17, 2008, in order to advise DCPL relative to the Washington Highlands Library.”
“Had ANC 8D responded to the 'Notice' within the required time frame,” the response continues, “DCPL would have certainly given the offered advice 'great weight' as required pursuant to statute.”
In fact, however, the library did not await advice from ANC 8D before acting last fall. Instead, they were months into the replacement process by Nov. 17: An architectural team was selected in July 2008. “The actual designing of the library building,” DCPL writes, “began in earnest with the 'Hopes and Dreams' community meeting” on Sept. 18 – two weeks before “Notice” had been sent.
“DCPL has and continues to demonstrate good faith in engaging ANC 8D and the community,” the library explains. “Our intent was implicit in inviting the chairperson of ANC 8D and [another community member] to serve on the Architectural/Design Selection Panel.” The July 2009 response also details meetings to which ANC commissioners were invited.
ANC 8D Chair Theresa Jones did participate in the selection panel. In addition, individual commissioners, along with other community members, weighed in at library meetings. It was not until June 22, in conjunction with the BZA application, however, that the library addressed the ANC as a body. Only as a body does an ANC's “great weight” apply.
Community Input, Needs
ANC 8D asked in their May 22 resolution if DCPL had conducted a needs assessment prior to the demolition decision.
“We [DCPL] are currently planning the methodology and scope of such an undertaking,” the library responded.
A new library should be “a destination, an anchor, a place for learning and meeting that is welcoming and comfortable for the whole community,” states DCPL literature. But community members do not find Adjaye's design welcoming or comfortable. They add that concept drawings, which include no neighboring structures and feature a mostly light-skinned, European-looking crowd, fail to reference the existing community.
DCPL argues that community comments have been addressed and design changed in response to concerns. Community members insist that designs shown in March 2009 were substantially complete without their input. While some community members favor any new building – “just replace that moldy place” – others wonder what the $10 million investment, reconsidered, could bring.
Cardell Shelton (ANC 8C07) looks to construction as a form of involvement: “Let local craftsmen and trades-people do the work … show their children, ‘See that? I put that there.’”
The library activist group District Dynamos proposes renovation of the existing building – the only full-service library in Ward 8 – with cost savings directed to smaller store-front libraries elsewhere in the ward.
Karlene Armstead (ANC 8E06) was organizing a petition drive to demand meaningful community engagement prior to library action.
DCPL Calls for Art; Artists Respond
Also during the summer, DCPL – in conjunction with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) – sent out a call to artists in Wards 7 and 8 to present ideas for “four prominent areas inside the new Benning and Anacostia Libraries.” DCCAH offered workshops, through the Ward 7 Arts Collaborative, to help artists convert their work into digital templates for submission. Approximately 20 artists participated. Several noted objections to the process: Some were disappointed in previous interactions with DCCAH, saying selection criteria were not apparent. Others objected to each artist's $2,500 stipend, while more substantial contracts went to non-locals. Wanda Aikens, director of the Arts Collaborative, said community members had hoped for more substantial involvement in helping to shape the new facilities to community needs and culture.
Archie Williams, of DCPL, says the library expects to provide facilities which each community will make their own. |
