Art Place – Construction Notification Weeks of March 28 2016 thru the week of April 4 2016 FINAL

Pepco Providing 1,350 Trees to District of Columbia & Maryland Customers,
Oaks, Maples and Other Varieties to Provide More Green Coverage

Washington, D.C. – Pepco announced today that it will provide 1,350 free trees to customers in the District of Columbia and Maryland through the Energy-Saving Trees program.
It’s the sixth year of the partnership that helps customers conserve energy and reduce household electric bills through strategic tree planting. Since 2011, Pepco customers will have received more than 13,000 free trees thanks to the partnership between Pepco and the Arbor Day Foundation.
Trees are made available first to customers who were on the waiting list from the program last year. Those customers will receive an email from the Arbor Day Foundation in the next few weeks. The remaining trees will be distributed beginning this week to customers who make the request while tree supplies last.
Pepco customers can request up to two free trees by visiting www.arborday.org/pepco, or by calling 1-855-670-2771. The 18 to 36 inch trees that will be delivered directly to customers include Eastern Redbud, Crepe Myrtle, River Birch, Red Maple, Northern Red Oak, and are in small containers that allow for the growth of a better root system.
“The Energy-Saving Tree program benefits our customers by helping them to conserve energy, save money and improve the environment,” said Donna Cooper, Pepco region president. “The program also educates customers on the appropriate placement of trees to promote ongoing system reliability, improve aesthetics and energy conservation.”
The Arbor Day Foundation calculates that the 1,350 trees will produce nearly $294,720 in energy savings within 20 years.  
An online tool can help Pepco customers find the most strategic location for planting and estimate the annual savings that will result from the tree.
The Energy-Saving Trees online tool was created by the Arbor Day Foundation and the Davey Institute, a division of the Davey Tree Expert Co., and uses peer-reviewed scientific research from the USDA Forest Service’s i-Tree Software to calculate estimated benefits.
Customers may call the Arbor Day Foundation for technical help and other questions at 1-855-234-3801.

If you are planning to appeal your property tax assessment, the deadline to appeal is April 1, 2016. Last year, DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson and representatives from DC’s Office of Tax and Revenue held a tax assessment townhall for the neighborhood. We covered that townhall, with information about the process and tips for appealing in this post. Contact your assessor to obtain your property worksheet and neighborhood sales list.

Art Place – Construction Notification Weeks of March 14 2016 thru the week of March 21 2016 FINAL

Ward 5 Community Happy Hour

Meet your neighbors — Support local — Share some laughs, Why not?

Join us for the Ward 5 Community Happy Hour on Thursday, March 3rd at Old Engine 12 Firehouse Restaurant!

Happy hour food specials will be available until 7pm and drink specials will continue until 8pm.

Enjoy $5 house wine and rail drinks, $2 off house cocktails and $3 off draught beer.

Thursday, March 3, 2016 6:00pm – 8:00pm

Old Engine 12 Firehouse Restaurant

Upstairs Ballroom

1626 North Capitol St, NW

Washington, DC 20001

www.oldengine12restaurant.com

Street parking is available as well as multiple bus lines and Uber!

Please feel free to invite and share this information with your neighbors!

For more information contact us via email at ward5communityhappyhour@gmail.com

find us on Facebook Ward 5 Community Happy Hour or find us on Twitter @ward5happyhour

Hope to see you there!

Breaking Barriers to Employment

Art Place – Construction Notification Weeks of Feb 29 2016 thru the week of March 7 2016 FINAL

The mayor’s office is hosting three budget engagement forums around the city. RSVP using the link.

• Thursday, February 25 at Roosevelt Senior High School
• Saturday, February 27 at the Department of Employment Services
• Monday, February 29 at King Greenleaf Recreation Center

The Lamond-Riggs Citizens Association (LRCA) is offering scholarships to high school seniors who live in the Lamond-Riggs community. The application deadline is March 22, 2016. For information and to apply, visit http://lrcadc.org/scholarships

LRCA scholarship flyer

Subway is open at Fort Totten Square. The restaurant is hiring. Pick up an application in the store or apply online at http://www.mysubwaycareer.com

At the end of 2015, DC’s Office of Revenue Analysis published a really interesting post on its District Measured blog about housing prices in various DC neighborhoods since 2001. For Riggs Park, the news is a mixed bag. (The Office uses tax subdivisions for its analysis, so some of the transactions may be outside of what we in the neighborhood consider Riggs Park). Median sales price is up 96% since 2001.

Source: Districtmeasured.com

But prices have not quite reached the high achieved in 2006, which was $398,250. The median sales price in 2015 was 11% lower than 2006.

Source: Districtmeasured.com

Since 2009, the median sales price has increased 25 percent.

Source: Districtmeasured.com

Here is the median sales price for each year since 2009, according to District Measured:

• 2009: $283,050
• 2010: $258, 276
• 2011: $241,680
• 2012: $254,800
• 2013: $300,900
• 2014: $328, 750
• 2015: $355,000

2015 also recorded the highest number of sales since 2009.

Source: Districtmeasured.com

Of course these numbers obscure the difference in price between a fully renovated or newly constructed home and a non-renovated one. I waited to publish a piece about the analysis because I had my eye on one particular property, a high end renovation of one of the older, midcentury brick semi-detached homes that was originally listed at $650,000. The price was eventually reduced to $599,000. A few days ago, the house sold for $585,000. By my review, that price is the highest to date for one of the older homes, albeit one that has been fully renovated and one that sits on a larger lot than many of the neighborhood homes.

Newly constructed homes close to the metro are selling for well over $600,000. For a while, recently renovated homes were being listed in the range of $450,000 to $499,000 and selling right around that price point. Now we are seeing renovated homes selling for over $500,000. Non-renovated homes that need a good bit of work are selling for around $280,000 to $300,000. For the non-investor, there is still a bit of a risk of losing out to all-cash buyers for the true fixer-uppers, but homes that have been maintained in good shape but that have not been fully renovated are selling in the range of $315,000 to $375,000. These are just figures I have eyeballed from following real estate listings over the year, not the result of doing a detailed analysis of the numbers since I am not a real estate agent.

Interest rates will surely creep up this year. We will see what effect the increase has on the upward trajectory of neighborhood housing prices.

ANC 5A sent out a revised meeting notice. The meeting on January 13 will be a committee of the whole planning meeting, not the regular ANC 5A meeting as they previously indicated. Please disregard the previous meeting notice.

Happy New Year everyone! It is 2016 and that means local elections come November. We will soon be bombarded by ads and election signs for council races. But equally important are elections for our local advisory neighborhood commissioners (ANCs). Our neighborhood is split between Wards 4 and 5. I live in Ward 5, so I stay more attuned to what is happening in ANC 5A. My commissioner on ANC 5A is Frank Wilds, who represents single member district (SMD) 5A01. It is not a secret that Commissioner Wilds does not actually want to be commissioner. He says he ran because no one else would. So this is a call for residents in ANC 5A01 in particular, but also residents in other SMDs, to start thinking about representing our great community on ANC 5A. 

Having a really good, well-functioning ANC can do wonders for a neighborhood, especially one like ours that is seeing so much development. Generally, I think most of the ANC 5A commissioners are good people. They are nice and usually professional. Invited guests often remark that ANC 5A meetings are well-run and they seem surprised by how civil residents are to guests. We usually do not have any raised voices, at least not by residents.

My main issue with ANC 5A–a longstanding one–is the seeming lack of concern about transparency. Simple things like updating the ANC 5A website with meeting notices and official ANC documents like minutes, resolutions, and letters on behalf of the commission, are not being done. It would be great for the commissioners to recognize that the SMD boundaries are artificial lines that straddle neighborhoods and that the actions of one commissioner who represents one SMD can affect residents of other SMDs because those residents actually live in the same neighborhood. That is really all I expect of my commissioners. I recognize that these elected officials are not compensated and people have limited time, so I do not expect all that much of them. I go back and forth on whether I think commissioners should be paid. Sometimes I think that if they were paid, then they would do things like update the website, provide meaningful notice of ANC meetings or projects in the neighborhood that warrant community input, rather than having us operate in an information vacuum, or be a little more proactive about representing residents. But we also have elected and nonelected officials who are compensated to represent our interests and respond to our concerns, who are sometimes responsive and sometimes not. All that to say, there is an opportunity on ANC 5A for someone or someones to make a difference, especially when it comes to making ANC 5A a bit more transparent and improving coordination between commissioners across SMD boundary lines.

Over the next several months, I will repeat the entreaty to residents to throw their hat in the ring to represent the neighborhood on ANC 5A. It does not matter how long anyone has lived in the neighborhood. We need a voice. I hope some of you will consider serving.

Next Stop…Riggs Park is three years old! I published the very first post on December 5, 2012, introducing this new blog to the community. Thank you very much to each person who reads, follows, leaves a comment, sends an email, or drops a tip. It has been fun getting to know residents through the blog. To the regulars, you all are awesome. I hope I have been able to inform and provide a platform for residents to share news and thoughts on neighborhood happenings in this little pocket of DC.

You might have noticed posting has become less regular and less frequent. That is mainly because of my day job. Working longer hours leaves less time to attend meetings, peruse information sources, and create blog content. A couple of people have been great about sending me notes from ANC meetings in particular when I cannot make it. They like to remain anonymous, but I have to give a big thanks to them. I told myself when I started that if I could not post on a regular basis, then I would stop. All that preface to say, I am not sure what I will do with the blog. There is still a lot happening in the neighborhood; lots of changes are still in store, so I think there is still a need for a place where people can go for information. To that end, I will put in a plug for the Lamond-Riggs community listserv (which I moderate with two other people), Lamond Riggs Citizens Association’s website, and LRCA’s facebook and twitter pages, which I also maintain with a few other people. I encourage residents to join, follow, and post to all of these sources. And if there is anyone who wants to write guest posts for the blog, email me at nextstopriggs@gmail.com. For now, I will continue to post when I can.

Thanks for reading.

• December 10

Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie Holiday Party, 6:30 pm – 9:00 pm

Gallaudet University, Sorensen Center (800 Florida Avenue NE)

Bring an unwrapped toy for child 5 to 12 years old

• December 11

LaSalle Backus Food Pantry, 4:00 pm

La Salle Backus Education Campus (501 Riggs Road NE)

Free groceries. Just bring a bag

• December 12

DC Bilingual Public Charter School Fair, 10:00 am – 2:00 pm

DC Bilingual school library (33 Riggs Road NE)

New neighbor, DC Bilingual, is hosting a Scholastic Book Fair this Saturday, December 12 from 10:00 – 2:00 in the school library.  This event is open to the neighborhood and a great chance to supplement your child’s home library with great children’s books in both English and Spanish!  A portion of the proceeds will benefit the school.

In case you missed it, here is a link to the Washington Post’s coverage of Mayor Bowser’s move from Riggs Park to Shepherd Park after 15 years in the neighborhood that ushered her into public office. A Post reporter attended LRCA’s holiday meeting on December 7 and spoke to a few neighborhood residents. The article, strangely titled “DC Mayor leaves her working-class digs for a more upscale neighborhood,” was clearly going for a certain slant, suggesting that the move symbolizes the value placed on representing residents of more modest means. (We will assume for the moment that the mayor strongly advocated on behalf of middle-income residents when on the council). If the reporter was hoping to get negative feedback on the move from the mayor’s neighbors, it looks like she did not get it Monday night. Certainly there are those who have critical thoughts about the mayor (check out a few comments on LRCA’s facebook page) (Disclosure: I maintain the page with a few other residents).

I do not think the move really matters much. I think the mayor’s values matter more. Certainly where the mayor lives can have an impact on what is valued, but in this case I do not think the slant the Post aimed for is really accurate. For example, the mayor drives everywhere. Even as a councilmember, she largely drove everywhere. So she is not going to be super concerned or maybe as thoughtful as I would like about pedestrian, biking, or public transit issues unless residents beat the drum on those issues because her perspective is largely that of a driver. That is something that matters to me more than the fact that it was obvious to everyone even when she was campaigning to be mayor that she would be moving if elected. The same can be said for the mayor’s delay in responding to the FreshPAC fiasco in any meaningful or thoughtful way. That matters and I do not think that is driven by where she lives. We know that moneyed interests have an outsize influence in the political arena for most of our elected officials (witness the astounding payoffs happening to get DC elected and non-elected officials, nonprofits, and residents to support the Pepco-Exelon merger). Again that matters and has little to do with where the mayor or any of our elected officials live.

This article missed the mark by trying to draw a really dubious link. As I mentioned in my previous post, I think there is room to talk about the mayor’s legacy to the neighborhood, in some cases critically and publicly. The move provides nice timing to talk about those issues, but I think that is about it.