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Health & Fitness

Georgetown 2020

Just as Georgetown University's Campus Master Plan has balkanized the surrounding neighborhood from the University, planning for the Georgetown community's evolution could potentially heal the wounds.

Georgetown University’s 2010 Campus Plan has galvanized the Georgetown community like no other land use issue in recent history. The vocal opposition to Georgetown University’s proposed growth plan notwithstanding, new development in the District’s oldest neighborhood hardly attracts a palpable level of widespread interest.

Amid the bickering and politicking legion on both sides of this polarizing and volatile issue, critical questions about how Georgetown should evolve as a community remain ignored.

Given the seismic shifts in the District’s economic, demographic, and regulatory landscape, Georgetown as a community ought to consider embracing master planning to distill and maintain the community’s indelible character, boost the market competitiveness of our business district, and preserve the market value of our homes.

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With each wave of revitalization that has washed over formerly derelict regions of the District, a new competitive commercial corridor has emerged to challenge the primacy of Georgetown. As 14th and U Streets NW has become the new nexus of DC nightlife and a resurgent H Street NE has found new life as a restaurant row, Georgetown’s storied collection of bistros, boites, and boutiques can no longer remain beyond the pale.

Aside from the obvious geographical advantages of being centrally located, D.C.’s new commercial frontiers also benefit from the presence of multiple modes of transit infrastructure. Infrastructure that much of Georgetown noticeably lacks.

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Though the Georgetown Business Improvement District (BID) has attempted to face the growing competition via marketing, Georgetown’s commercial identity seems perpetually muddled and its traffic/transit ratio remains troubling. The DC Circulator aside, community leaders have been largely reticent to publicly embrace and promote the expansion of much needed multi-modal transit options.

Planning for retail attraction and retention in Georgetown will mean accommodating new transit lines to relieve the neighborhood’s often traffic-choked streets. While Mayor Vincent Gray works to lay the political groundwork to fund new streetcar lines and possibly dedicated bus lanes, Georgetowners ought to develop a localized framework for optimizing the functionality of proposed transit lines within Georgetown’s borders.

Similarly, without planning for the expansion of family-friendly amenities and the preservation of multi-generational housing, Georgetown may struggle to retain the neighborhood’s growing population of young families.

The Georgetown Metropolitan’s recent analysis of neighborhood household formation forecasts a sizable increase in families with school-age children populating the neighborhood. in Georgetown’s public elementary school enrollments already appear to reflect the trend and confirm the statistics. Growing and maturing families benefit the neighborhood by diversifying and increasing foot traffic; the uptick in diverse pedestrian traffic often corresponds with an expanded cadre of retailers seeking a foothold in the area’s street level retail market.

But Georgetown could lose out on this symbiotic relationship if existing local assets - schools, parks, and multi-family housing among them - go neglected. A plan to improve such amenities and build new ones is critical for outfitting Georgetown for multi-generational growth.

With D.C.’s Zoning Regulations , there is no better time to collectively confirm Georgetown’s identity and map frontiers for growth. The Office of Planning has begun discussing the prospect of customized neighborhood zones, a prospect that inherently involves hyper local discourse about what land use policies and programs would best bolster economic development, quality of life, and public safety at the neighborhood level.

The competitiveness of Georgetown’s commercial strips and the market value of its tree-lined residential streets rest on having a coherent regulatory framework that enhances form and optimizes function. A master plan would be the most effective mechanism to prioritize the community’s land use issues in advance of the customized zone.

Just as Georgetown University’s Campus Master Plan has balkanized the surrounding neighborhood from the University, planning for the Georgetown community’s evolution as an increasingly diverse neighborhood serving diverse needs could potentially heal the wounds currently dividing this one village. The process would give us a time to collectively realize what Georgetown has become and envision all that Georgetown can be.

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