AHCA position on Crystal House plans

Crystal House – Planning Commission Remarks                                                             4 Dec 2019

Planning Commissioners,

My name is Natasha Atkins. I am an officer of the Aurora Highlands Civic Association and have lived 2 blocks from this site for 33 years.

We note that Crystal House plans reviewed in the recent staff report have changed significantly since the final SPRC meeting. There was no follow-up meeting to discuss the positives and negatives of conveying the CH5 lot to the County for future affordable housing. There were also numerous other problems with the process, some of which are detailed herein. Below are AHCA’s responses to the staff report. Some aspects of this plan are showstoppers for our community if not mitigated.  We offer some recommendations, not to make the plan great, but simply to make it less bad.

1.     Affordable Housing:  The change from 47 on-site integrated common affordable units to up to 81 units in a separate building does provide the prospect of additional housing.  However, the community would like the planning commission to consider the following negative aspects and some possible mitigations:

a.     The current staff recommendation defers 47 units delivered with Crystal House to 81 units delivered at some future time, unspecified.  The lack of time commitment for delivering CH5 is a significant concern.

b.     The new plan locates all the units in a separate building, segregating the units and their residents from the rest of the community.  Such a situation is contrary to our values of equity and inclusion and risks setting a precedent of how we provision affordable units across our area.

c.      The people in the CAF units will no longer have access to the amenities in the Crystal House development, such as swimming pool and fitness facilities.

d.     There was a reference to CH5 condos in page 68 of the original 4.1 submission: “Crystal House 5 will be located across 22nd Street and will be 7 stories and 81 units, some of which may be condominiums." None of the thousands of units in multi-unit residences recently built, recently approved, or being considered contain for-purchase units. The community strongly supports the creation of for-purchase housing in new developments in our area. Dedicating CH5 to affordable housing would remove that option.

e.     Although the CH5 building can indeed claim additional height up to 110 ft in accordance with the sector plan, the community has long felt, even during sector plan development in 2010, that this would present an uncomfortably abrupt taper to the 35-ft buildings on 23^rd street on the south side of the same short block. We strongly support helping Restaurant Row meet its need for parking, but would prefer that this be achieved through means other than increasing the height of CH5 beyond the proposed 75’.

Recommendation 1: 

a.     Given the County’s expressed concerns on the shortage of affordable housing, in particular near transit, we ask the County to find a way to provide 47 committed affordable units, at the time of Crystal House occupancy, through subsidies or other arrangements, until Crystal House 5 is delivered.

b.     When CH5 is delivered, provide CH5 residents with access to CH amenities such as the swimming pool and fitness center at no cost.

c.     Where underground public parking spaces are provided on CH5 and any other structures, provide (1) real time indication of parking availability at street level to enable drivers to efficiently find parking spaces with minimal expenditure of time and fuel and (2) electric vehicle charging stations, in accordance with recent site plans elsewhere in the National Landing area such as MetPark 6/7/8

d.     Provide some for-purchase units in the other Crystal House buildings to diversify housing options in Aurora Highlands.

2.     Public Pedestrian Access. Fig. 32 in the staff report shows a public access route through the site from the Crystal City Metro station that is now longer than just walking up 18th and around the corner on Fern. A roughly diagonal through-site walking route to the corner of 18^th and Fern was an express request of the community for pedestrians en route to the Crystal City Metro.  Indeed, the applicant has provided almost exactly such a route, but effectively restricts it only to tenants because it cuts through Crystal House III.

Recommendation 2:  Add a site condition that requires public access through Crystal House 3 from the corner of 18^th and Eads to provide a viable metro walking route through the superblock to the neighborhood.

3.     Surface Parking. The most recent plan apparently reduced surface parking to 62 spaces. This is an improvement over 200, but still 62 more than the CC Sector Plan allows for under the new zoning.

Recommendation 3:  We oppose this approach, not only for this site, but also for the precedent it offers future developers.  If the PC is still inclined to support this, we offer the following mitigations:

a.     Designate some of these spaces for Uber/Lyft DO/PU spots.

b.     Designate interior street parking by the corner park for 2-hr usage, say from 7 a.m. to midnight — for use of the park during the day and the restaurants at night.

c.     Designate some spaces for handicapped use.

4.     Open Space. DPR said that AHCA needed to get our community’s input on both parks, and that all planning would take place through the SPRC only. This was not how the park designs happened.

Corner Park.  The community welcomes a corner park, but the process and results are flawed. DPR conducted a county-wide survey of its own, providing several options. After the survey results came in, DPR substituted an alternative that appeared out of nowhere—an urban orchard—with no opportunity for feedback. In addition to a haphazard process, the orchard presents several problems for the community.

a.     Unlike a community garden, which had support from the community, an orchard does not encourage community building: It does not create ownership and engagement.

b.     There are very few native fruit trees and almost all are problematic in this setting; fruit production is difficult to achieve (native plums, paw-paws), of questionable edibility (native plums, persimmons) or quite messy (mulberries, persimmons). Most important, an orchard requires frequent tending to keep fruit from rotting on the ground and attracting pests.

Eads St Park. As requested, the community submitted a comprehensive list of suggestions. We specifically mentioned the importance of including something to activate the space and make it clear the park was open to the public; suggestions were a small retail space such as a coffee or wine bar or a prominent water feature. At SPRC 2, where the amenities were supposed to be discussed, time ran out. By SPRC 3 we had been informed that the park space that had been developed with the previous site plan amendment would be used.

Recommendation 4:  Include a feature in the Eads St park that will help advertise that the public is welcome. It would have to be readily apparent from the sidewalk, not hidden toward the back of the park. For the corner park, we recommend either returning to the original park concept of a community garden or enlarging the secluded open area, creating a pollinator habitat, and planting native trees of interest at the edges—including at least one tree that could mature to very large size, perhaps a tulip poplar or white oak.

5.     Fern St sidewalks / plantings.  The street scape being proposed on Fern St is poorly explained. The text on p. 13 says "The 43-foot wide curb-to-curb roadway is not changing, however, there are proposed streetscape improvements along the site frontage. The proposed 6-foot wide sidewalk and 6-foot wide landscaping strip with street trees is an improvement from the existing 5-foot wide sidewalk." However, Figure 13 on p. 14 shows a 6′ sidewalk all the way to the curb, with no planting strip, and the rendering in Figure 11 depicts some weird hybrid of planting strip and narrower sidewalk.

Recommendation 5:  Given the significant loss of trees overall on the site, provide a continuous planting strip of sufficient width along Fern to plant decent-sized street trees.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide our input.

Natasha Atkins

Aurora Highlands Civic Association