Despite ongoing concerns from residents in the surrounding neighborhood, the Melwood redevelopment project near Crystal City appears on track to be green-lighted early in the new year.
“This project is going to be approved. It is going to be approved 5-0 by the County Board in February,” predicted Nicholas Giacobbe, one of several neighbors who voiced concerns about the proposal at a Dec. 19 meeting of the county government’s site-plan review committee evaluating the plan.
It was the committee’s second crack over the past month at the proposal by Melwood and Wesley Housing to raze an existing property at 750 23rd Street S. and replace it with a five-story building combining services to Melwood’s clients with intellectual disabilities and 105 units of affordable housing.
Giacobbe, who lives in the Aurora Highlands neighborhood that surrounds the 1.9-acre parcel, said he believes improvements had been made to the proposal in recent months.
“It’s looking better,” he said. “But there are things we need to look at.”
Other residents speaking at the meeting voiced ongoing opposition to the proposal in its entirety.
“We’re a residential neighborhood. The project is simply too big,” said Louise Ott. “Three stories would be okay, but five stories is too high.”
“It’s also going to set a precedent going all the way down the road on 23rd Street,” Ott said.
“A little too big” is how speaker Ben Watts, another neighbor, put it. He voiced concern that increasing density at the nearby Crystal House site coupled with the Melwood site will add to traffic woes in the neighborhood, which includes Crystal City’s restaurant row.
Among those on the site-plan review committee, however, there was general appreciation for the revisions to the submission made over the preceding month.
“The entrance is much improved,” said Stephen Sockwell, who represents the Forestry & Natural Resources Commission on the body. Several others concurred.
It was just one of the changes made to the design over the past month, said Kathy Puskar, a land-use attorney representing the applicants.
“We have balanced all of the feedback we’ve gotten, and hopefully you’ll see the improvements,” she said.
Among other design changes since the earlier meeting: streetscape upgrades have been proposed for 23rd Street South and S. Grant Street, the sidewalk width has been increased, a transformer planned for the rear of the new project has been moved away from Nelly Custis Park, and more buffering landscaping has been added to better shield it from park users.
But Stacy Meyer, who represents the Aurora Highlands Civic Association on the site-plan committee, said the changes did not alter her community’s core concerns. She called the scale of the building “wildly inappropriate.”
“This project is going to be a real problem in terms of the neighborhood, in terms of traffic, in terms of density and in terms of parking,” Meyer said. “The scope of the changes … are nowhere near what we’d like.”
County Board members in May formally accepted a change in the General Land Use Plan for the parcel, It was a key step paving the way for the current review process.
Meyer appeared alone on the committee in total opposition to the proposal. But a number of members zeroed in on environmental issues related both to razing the existing building and constructing the new one.
Under questioning, attorney Puskar said current plans do not call for the recycling of materials from the 101-year-old existing building, which served as Nelly Custis Elementary School before becoming a training facility for individuals with developmental challenges.
There also was no commitment to bird-friendly glass, dark-sky lighting or renewable energy on the site, and the development will not be shooting for top-tier certification from organizations that measure a building’s environmental impact.
The disinclination to recycle the bricks and other features of the old building rankled Planning Commission member Nia Bagley, who serves on the site-plan committee.
“I know there is a cost involved, but when we just take things down and we just add to the landfill, we’re not doing the best we can,” Bagley said. “It doesn’t do any of us any good.”
Bagley suggested Melwood cast a wide net in trying to find someone willing to take the materials.
“There could be some things that somebody could repurpose,” she said.
Additional discussion centered on tree-preservation efforts and overall landscaping, as well as areas to be used by delivery vehicles. There also were questions about the number of electric-vehicle-charging stations in the garage underneath the future building.
Proponents of the project say it will bring needed accessible, affordable housing on a site that is less than a mile from both the Crystal City and Pentagon City Metro station. Several speaking at the public-comment portion of the meeting also supported the ongoing efforts of Melwood in the local community.
Planning Commission member Jim Lantelme, who with Eric Berkey is co-chairing the site-plan committee, said the body’s role in the process was essentially one of information-gathering.
“It is not a hearing,” Lantelme said at the outset of the two-hour Dec. 19 meeting. “We do not take votes, we do not make recommendations. What we do here is try to identify issues.”
The committee will report its findings to the Planning Commission. That body likely will evaluate the project in early February.
Other advisory groups — including the Housing Commission, Transportation Commission, Disability Advisory Commission and Historical Affairs and Landmark Review Board — also will vet the project before it goes for final County Board action.
Giacobbe lamented that county leaders seemed to be avoiding interactions with residents who voice concerns about the project.
“We haven’t received any responses and we’re told we’re not going to get any responses,” he told members of the site-plan review committee.
Giacobbe urged committee members to use their positions to advocate for those in the neighborhood.
“We’re the ones who have to live with this,” he said.
Some local residents have promoted the idea of making the existing building a local historic district, a time-consuming process that almost assuredly would come too late to save the building.
Redevelopment opponents also could take the matter to court, with one avenue of litigation possibly being restricted-use language in the deed when the county school system in 1981 sold the building to Linden Resources. That non-profit was absorbed into Maryland-based Melwood in 2017.
