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Monday's hearing for GW's plan, which is a proposed agreement between the city and GW on restrictions for future campus development, is the seventh meeting in a four-month process before the Zoning Commission. The tone of the hearings has been contentious at times, as the Foggy Bottom Association and local elected officials have used lawyers and expert testimony to block GW's 2006 Campus Plan proposal. GW's new 20-year proposal would supersede the original 10-year plan initially conceived in 2000.
In contrast to the resistance GW has seen, no parties came out in opposition to Catholic's campus plan, said D.C. Office of Zoning Spokesperson Sara Bardin.
Catholic's proposal changed the construction site for two residence halls approved in its 2002 campus plan. Locally elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners said they were happy to see more residence halls on Catholic's campus because that translates into fewer students in the surrounding neighborhood.
"I have no problems with (the amendment) because it's about things the community would rather have happen," said ANC 5A Commissioner Mary Baird-Currie. Baird-Currie, who represents a district that borders Catholic, said the Michigan Park ANC has not voted on the campus plan yet, but assumed the other commissioners would approve it at the next meeting.
Nearly all of Catholic's student body lives on campus, according to the university's Housing and Residential Services. GW is required to house 70 percent of its students - including all freshmen and sophomores - on campus as part of the 2000 Campus Plan.
Recently elected Foggy Bottom/West End ANC Chair Michael Thomas said one of the reasons residents are upset about the University's proposed construction is the inconvenience the projects place on the neighborhood. Thomas said the approved construction of a 474 bed dorm on F Street, behind the School Without Walls, is a continuation of the school encroaching on residential housing.
