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Minor
Hill Task Force Meeting
Where:
Little Falls Presbyterian Church
6025 Little Falls Road, Arlington
When: 18 March 2001 at 4:00 PM
Why: Review the revised project proposal for Minor Hill
Twelve members of
the Minor Hill Task Force met on 18 March 2001 at Little Falls Presbyterian
Church to review the revised
project proposal for Minor Hill to be submitted in the spring 2001
funding round.
Howard McGowan reported
on developments relative to Minor Hill:
- As of 14 March, AT&T still has not submitted a request to Arlington
County to construct a monopole and associated service building on
Minor Hill.
- However, Cellular
One has made initial inquiries to the County about siting a communications
pole on Minor Hill. Their interest in the site underlines the importance
of moving forward with Civic Association projects to make sure future
use of the site reflects community and neighborhood interests.
- With regard to
the Task Force's earlier proposal for a tot lot, the County's Parks
and Recreation staff has told Minor Hill Task Force members that the
County must observe certain procedures in siting a tot lot at this
location. For example, placing a tot lot here would entail a change
in the classification of Minor Hill from passive to active use. Moreover,
the County wants to keep the number of tot lots at forty (the current
number); to move ahead with a tot lot on Minor Hill, the County would
have to close down one of the existing lots. County staff must also
make sure that safety issues are taken care of. Finally, the County
requires that a citizen committee be in place to work with County
staff. For all these reasons, the County recommended that we wait
to submit this item in the fall funding round. However, to move ahead
on these preliminary issues over the summer, the County requires that
we provide to them a letter of commitment to submit the tot lot as
our top priority for the fall funding round. Howard McGowan submitted
a draft letter of commitment to Brett Fox, WCA president.
This last item initiated
a spirited discussion on how much various projects will cost, how we go
about finding out costs, whether or not NCAC has an informal "cap"
on the costs of an individual project, and how we can best go about informing
neighbors about them. Several Task Force participants pointed out that
we need more precise information on all of these things.
- There seemed to be no consensus on the existence and size of an
informal NCAC "cap" on individual projects.
- One participant suggested that we should have invited the NCAC chairman
to the Task Force meeting to clarify this issue.
- Other participants noted that we cannot determine priorities until
we know how much each project (and each component of each project)
will cost.
- One participant indicated that Arlington County staff had stated
that they will supply cost data, but not until after the end of March,
after WCA has identified which projects we intend to submit. Once
the County costs out our two proposals (Minor Hill and Little Falls)
during April and May, the two Task Forces will be in a better position
to make recommendations to the Civic Association.
We did not achieve
closure on these issues and the proposal was not put to a vote.
After the
meeting, we received from Chris Nixon (Arlington County's Neighborhood
Conservation Coordinator) the following response to our questions:
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While the
NCAC has been discussing the topics of placing a cap on the
size of projects and limiting a neighborhood's use of bond funds,
there has been NO DECISION made about making strict rules about
project size or access to the program. There is currently a
group sense that anything over $300K at once is unusual and
has to be justified in terms of neighborhood priority and public
purpose.
Projects
recomended for funding in the Fall 2000 round range from $11,000
for neighborhood signs (Williamsburg Civic Association) to $250,000
for improvements to Westover Park. There are five (of 15 total)
projects which fell in the mid-range of $100K to $200K:
- $158K
street improvements in Bluemont
- $187K
beautification in High View Park
- $120K
street improvements in Waycroft-Woodlawn
- $160K
street lights in Alcova Heights
- $100K
street improvements in Aurora Highlands
Since 1988,
there have been five very large projects (in terms of cost)
funded by NC:
- $297K
North Danville Street in Lyon Park
- $334K
North Jefferson Street in Yorktown
- $342K
Columbia Pike Retaining Wall in Alcova H
- $350K
Route 50 Service Road in Arlington Forest
- $519K
South 6th Street in Penrose
Ms Nixon
indicated that it might make sense for us to have two projects
submitted for Spring funding:
- Minor
Hill ($170K)
- Little
Falls Phase One ($250K more or less), with Little Falls Phase
Two ($250K more or less) submitted for Fall Funding.
These points
will be summarized at the next Civic Association meeting.
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Task Force discussion
on informing neighbors and making the decision process as transparent
and as inclusive as possible focused on communication.
- Several Task Force participants noted the need to continue current
efforts to inform neighbors and recruit active participants: the newsletter
(once every two months or so); monthly WCA or Conservation Plan Committee
meetings; frequent Task Force meetings; email notices; updates on
the web site; and hand distributed flyers for targeted neighborhoods.
- One participant mentioned the experience of the Signs Committee
as a valuable model for participatory decisionmaking.
At this point, the
Task Force – having endorsed the goal of informing and involving
neighbors in each step of the process – moved to examine, through
a series of votes, the revised
Minor Hill Project proposal.
Throughout the discussion
which ensued as we examined each element, several different points of
view emerged.
- One Task Force participant (supported to some degree by two others)
expressed concern that many or all of the proposed measures would
run the risk of creating problems, particularly for near neighbors
who would be adversely affected by parking problems, litter, and noise.
This participant noted these problems in conjunction with the now-defunct
basketball courts and cautioned that some proposals might present
unknown risks to the County water supplies. Another participant expressed
reservation about removing some of the fences, since this would open
to other County residents the buffer of trees and public land between
the tanks and the residents who backed up to the area.
- The remaining
Task Force participants expressed strong support for carrying out
the recommendations gathered during the Conservation Plan Survey,
to beautify the area and make use of it for broader community needs,
within the constraints imposed by the integrity of the water supply.
These participants noted that the "just say no" approach
would not be effective. The property is public land and will inevitably
be pressed into service to meet public needs. Those making this argument
noted that if the neighborhood does not take an active role in the
decision process, we likely will find ourselves with a forest of monopoles
as well as a host of facilities (such as a skate board park, dog park,
basketball/tennis courts) that many residents oppose due to potential
noise/litter/parking problems.
The Task Force
voted to present the following recommendations for approval at the 27
March Civic Association meeting:
- To make a Minor Hill Use Plan (for about $40K) part of the spring
2001 funding cycle (12 yes votes). The Task Force later voted (10
yes, 1 abstain, 1 no) to make this the top priority for a Minor Hill
Spring 2001 Project.
- To include a
request for landscaping and beautification in addition to the Use
Plan (unanimous). However, Task Force members were divided about how
much we felt should be allocated to this end. Several participants
felt that the suggested amount ($60K) was too high. Another asked
for specifics about how many bushes it would buy us. Another indicated
that such activities fell within the realm of regular maintenance
that the County should be providing, along with a thorough cleanup
of the area.
- To include a
request for park benches and picnic tables (8 yes, 2 no, 2 abstain)
- To include a
request for two signs (7 yes, 5 abstain)
- To include a
request for purple martin houses (8 yes, 3 abstain, 1 no)
- To include a
request for a textured crosswalk mid-block on Powhatan (8 yes, 3 abstain)
- To include a
request for an exercise/nature trail (7 yes, 3 no, 1 abstain)
- The Task Force
also voted to make all of these elements the second priority (10 yes,
1 abstain, 1 no), with these issues revisited as soon as we had more
information from the County on costs.
These recommendations
were presented to the Civic Association membership on 27 March.
One Task Force participant
moved that the Minor Hill Task Force recommend that the Williamsburg
Civic Association President appoint a committee to explore the study
of the height limitation by zoning of the public land on Minor Hill.
This proposal was supported by the nine remaining Task Force Participants.
Task Force participants
then voted to adjourn the meeting.
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