Last Tuesday night, Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George held a town hall meeting at the Lafayette Pointer Rec Center. Once again issues swirling around the proposed development by Maret school of the field at Episcopal Center for Children were raised by frustrated neighbors. Lewis George did what our own ANC has consistently failed to do: she listened, she asked questions, and then she listened again. She did not dismiss neighbors’ concerns, or paternalistically tell them they had a ‘fear of change’ or suggest they didn’t understand what was good for them.
On the other hand, ANC Commissioner Michael Zeldin was again on hand attempting to defend the previous ANC’s to bad decision to recommend this project as proposed by Maret. For neighbors who are not familiar with Maret’s proposed development, it calls for the destruction of 60+ trees on the ECC site, to be replaced by two artificial turf regulation size athletics fields that will be used by Maret and also rented out to privately run “youth sports leagues.”
The Commissioner suggested, once again, that the proposed development was just ‘a matter between two private parties’ and that there is nothing the community can do. However, the proposed development is not a matter of right. It requires Maret to seek zoning relief, whether a special exception, or perhaps, as the DC OAG opined, a variance. And although the Board of Zoning Adjustment has not addressed the AG’s letter, they recognized that the affected neighbors are entitled to a voice and granted the neighbors comprising Friends of the Field, legal or “Party Status.”
That means it’s NOT just Maret and ECC in the room; it’s Maret, ECC and Friends of the Field.
Every time the Commissioner, or Maret’s representatives, repeat their mantra, that this is just a matter “between two private parties” they just confirm what we already know; neither Maret nor the ANC has ever acknowledged that the people of Chevy Chase actually have a voice.
