“Planning Our Future” Series Recordings Available
The final program in HCCDC’s three-part “Planning Our Future” series aired June 9 and is now available to watch by clicking here. The June panel featured local activists and professional planners examining proffered solutions to the affordable housing needs in Ward 3, and in Chevy Chase DC in particular.
The series that started in April was organized to help provide historical perspective and context to the Small Area Planning (SAP) process that will shape our community’s future scale and appeal.
June 9: Affordable Housing in Chevy Chase and Ward 3
The focus on this final webinar was focused around the 2019 report “Creating Housing Affordability West of Rock Creek Park” organized by the Urban Land Institute and sponsored by the office of the mayor.
Panelist included Prof. Uwe Brandes, director of the Global Cities Initiative at Georgetown University, as moderator; presenter Philip Payne, co-founder and chairman of the Loftus Campaign, Charlotte, NC, and chairman of the 2019 ULI panel report; and two respondents — Ellen McCarthy, principal at the Urban Partnership LLC and former DC director of planning, and Peter Gosselin, ANC commissioner for ANC 3/4G. Listen to this program here.
April 28: Re-Imagining Washington, circa 1900
The first of the three webinars featured author/historian Tom Lewis as he took us back to the McMillan process that essentially shaped the DC we inhabit today. Lewis is emeritus professor at Skidmore College and author of the acclaimed “Washington: A History of Our National City” (2015) — a book that Ken Burns called “a vivid example of the best kind of history.”
Lewis examined how the DC we know today was created between 1890 and 1910, an urban landscape defined in part by the increasing force of Jim Crow racism. Despite post-Civil War modernization projects by “Boss” Shepherd, the original L’Enfant federal city plan had lost its charm due to rapid urbanization. A Republican senator from Michigan, James McMillan, initiated an episode of planning in the mid-1890s to address that. If you missed the program, watch a recording of it here.
May 19: Segregation Yesterday and Today: It Doesn’t Happen By Itself
The second Zoom webinar featured historian/architect Neil Flanagan. He focused on the mechanisms that produced the segregated racial geography we are living with today. Flanagan discussed how residents of Chevy Chase DC, or any city, can take collective action to shape their future in positive ways. A recording of this program will be posted soon.