Elizabeth Patton has lived in her D.C. home for 39 years and gets emotional talking about changes in her neighborhood.
“I’ve just seen so many beautiful homes be demolished. And, you know, larger huge homes, zero-lot-line homes being built in their place, trees taken down in order to do this. And it just makes me furious,” she said.
She added, “Don’t buy the house if you don’t appreciate the history of the house, the uniqueness of this home, the beauty of it, and its character.”
Patton supports a proposal to create a Chevy Chase DC Historic District between the boundaries of Western Avenue, Military Road, and Chevy Chase Parkway NW.
According to those who support the historic district, this would ensure all new development projects go through a design review, allowing residents to give input.
“I don’t want to live where everything looks cookie-cutter and plastic and cheap,” Patton said.
But some opponents say the proposal would prevent the possibility of affordable housing, halt growth and could impose burdensome restrictions on homeowners who want to renovate their homes.
“I think this is just more of that sort of stone-headed opposition to any kind of new development, and I’m opposed to that,” lifelong D.C. resident Alex Korman said.
“What does the city need? It needs more housing, quite frankly. It’s a very expensive place to live. We’re seeing homelessness pop up quite frequently, especially downtown. And I think if we as a city are going to be able to come and meet these issues, then we’re going to need more places for people to live.”
Jesse Kreier lives right outside the proposed boundary and says he is concerned about the increasing amount of development pressure.
“So many centers of American cities are high rises, surrounded by parking lots,” he said. “I love this neighborhood. And it’s not that I don’t want change in the neighborhood, but I don’t want its historic character to be destroyed.”
There are currently 37 neighborhood historic districts across D.C.
Kreier says this shows how it’s possible to grow and preserve history at the same time.
“If you go to historic districts throughout D.C., you can see that there’s all kinds of innovative ways of using existing structures, building behind them, you can have greater density and more housing,” he said.
“And I’m not opposed to further development in this part of the District. But without a historic district, what will happen is the historic structures will be bulldozed by developers.”
D.C.’s Historic Preservation Review Board could take up the issue in the coming months.
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