Zoning Commission Unanimously Approves Georgetown Campus Plan

With less than an hour of discussion, the Zoning Commission unanimously approved the Georgetown Campus Plan on Monday night, bringing hours upon hours of hearings and years of fraught negotiations between Georgetown University and the community that surrounds it to a close.

"I'll be talking about this for a long time. ... I'll be talking about the agreement that was made over in Georgetown and encouraging people to do that," Commissioner Anthony Hood said.

In June, the University and the community on that runs from 2011-2017 and they agreed to develop a 20-year plan for GU together.

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The hearing Monday was not without a few road bumps. ANC3D, which represents the Foxhall and Palisades area, filed a motion about traffic impacts and other concerns they felt were still not addressed by the campus plan agreement reached in June. Georgetown community organizations and the University asked the commission to strike the ANC3D filing.

The commission decided to allow the filing in the record, but ultimately determined the concerns raised had been met or addressed in previous hearings and in the plan.

In the 2011-2017 plan approved Monday, GU will move many undergraduate students out of off-campus housing, including the contentious Magis Row apartments, and into on-campus rooms. GU also promised not to purchase or lease any additional property in Georgetown, Burleith and Foxhall for use as student housing without permission from the respective community organizations. The University will also begin the search for a large satellite campus to allow growth in the long-term.

The university and the community also agreed to create a new Georgetown Community Partnership to develop better ties and communication so that future campus plans can avoid the fractious discussions and hearings of the past year and a half.

"I was not expecting this substantial and successful a result when we deferred the decision before," Commissioner Peter May said.

May did express concern about a clause that would allow Georgetown to build, without further processing of the campus plan agreement, an addition to its Leavey Center to create more student housing on campus.

Commissioner Michael Turnbull agreed, saying a Zoning Commission review of the plans "gives an extra safeguard to the community."

The commissioners reviewed draft plans on the spot and agreed to submit them as further processing to the campus plan that evening.

Commissioners May, Turnbull and Hood all voted to approve the plan, which will go for review by the Office of the Attorney General before a final order is issued July 30.

"Everybody’s probably not happy. But I can tell you, when you get a letter in with four or five groups on it working together with the university, that says a lot," Hood said.

With that, the Georgetown University 2010 Campus Plan was put to bed.