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NATIONAL CAPITAL PLANNING COMMISSION

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COMMISSION MEETING

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OPEN SESSION

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THURSDAY, MAY 3, 2018

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The meeting convened in Room 5115, Suite 500, 401 9th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20004, at 1:00 p.m., L. Preston Bryant, Jr., Chairman, presiding.

NATIONAL CAPITAL PLANNING COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT:

L. PRESTON BRYANT, JR., Chairman Presidential Appointee ARRINGTON DIXON, Mayoral Appointee THOMAS GALLAS, Presidential Appointee GEOFFREY GRIFFIS, Mayoral Appointee PETER MAY, Department of the Interior MICHAEL L. RHODES, Department of Defense BETH WHITE, Presidential Appointee MINA WRIGHT, General Services Administration

NCPC STAFF PRESENT:

MARCEL C. ACOSTA, Executive Director JULIA KOSTER, Secretary to the Commission ANNE SCHUYLER, General Counsel

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C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S

Report of the Chairman ...... 4 Report of the Executive Director ...... 4 Legislative Update ...... 6

CONSENT CALENDAR ITEMS ...... 6

United States General Services Administration, Howard T. Markey National Courts Building, 717 Madison Place, N.W., Washington, DC - Perimeter Study

United States General Services Administration, Jamie L. Whitten Federal Building, United States Department of Agriculture, 1400 Jefferson Drive, SW, Washington, DC - Security Bollards at the North Entrance Motor Court

Mayor of the District of Columbia, Washington, DC - District of Columbia Capital Improvements Plan FY 2091-2024

Zoning Commission of the District of Columbia, Irving Street, NE, and Michigan Avenue, NE, Washington, DC - Map Amendment from Unzoned to MU-5-B, MIRV Holdings, LLC

ACTION ITEMS United States Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Fort Myer, Arlington, Virginia - New Security Fence ...... 103

INFORMATION PRESENTATIONS

Pennsylvania Avenue Initiative Update ...... 14 Monumental Core Streetscape Project ...... 32 District of Columbia Smart Street Lighting Project ...... 54

Adjourn ...... 153

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P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

1:04 p.m.

CHAIR BRYANT: Good afternoon and welcome to the National Capital Planning

Commission. This is our May 3rd, 2018 meeting.

If you would, please stand with me and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

(Pledge of Allegiance.)

CHAIR BRYANT: For all in attendance, please note that today's meeting is being live streamed on the ncpc.gov website.

We do have a quorum, so we will proceed with the agenda as has been publicly advertised.

[INSERT - AGENDA]

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AGENDA ITEM NO. 1

REPORT OF THE CHAIRMAN

CHAIR BRYANT: Agenda Item No. 1 is

Report of the Chairman. I'll note that related to one of the items on our agenda today,

Commissioners had a field trip to Joint Base

Myer-Henderson Hall to see the location of the new proposed two-mile-long fence.

And so I'd like to thank Mr. Sherrod

Jefferson from the Army Corps of Engineers and everyone at Myer-Henderson Hall for the logistics and the welcoming and for the trip. It was very helpful.

AGENDA ITEM NO. 2

REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

CHAIR BRYANT: Agenda Item No. 2 is

Report of the Executive Director Mr. Acosta.

MR. ACOSTA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just have a few items to report.

First, we're still accepting public comments on the draft parks and open space element of the comprehensive plan. Written comments are

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due by Monday, May 7th. You can find additional information on our website, and comments can also be submitted online.

The Smithsonian Institute is hosting a Section 106 consulting parties meeting of the

South Mall Master Plan on Wednesday, May 9th, at

3:00 p.m.

The meeting will be held right here at

NCPC's office, and we expect a final master plan to be reviewed by the Commission this summer.

And that concludes my presentation.

I also have written comments -- a report for you.

CHAIR BRYANT: I'm sorry, say that again?

MR. ACOSTA: I also have a written report for you that's before us.

CHAIR BRYANT: Sure.

Any questions of Mr. Acosta on the executive director report?

[INSERT - REPORT OF EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR]

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AGENDA ITEM NO. 3

LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

CHAIR BRYANT: Agenda Item No. 3 is the legislative update, general counsel Anne Schuyler.

MS. SCHUYLER: Thank you. I have nothing to report.

CHAIR BRYANT: Thank you.

AGENDA ITEM NO. 4

CONSENT CALENDAR ITEMS

CHAIR BRYANT: Moving to the consent calendar, we have four items.

Item 4A is approval of the preliminary and final site development plans for perimeter security at the Howard T. Markey National Courts

Building located at 717 Madison Place, N.W., and that's brought to us by General Services

Administration.

Item 4B is approval of preliminary and final site development plans for security bollards at the Jamie L. Whitten Federal Building in

Washington, and that also is brought to us by GSA.

Item 4C is comments to the Council of

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the District of Columbia on the District's proposed

CIP for FY 2019 to 2024.

And Item 4D is the approval of the report to the District of Columbia Zoning

Commission regarding the map amendments from

Unzoned MU-5-B for a site at the intersection of

Irving Street and Michigan Avenue, N.E.

And I'll note that on your desk is a revised EDR that just has two clarifying amendments. So that is before you.

Is there any discussion on any consent calendar item?

Hearing none, is there a motion on the consent calendar?

MR. RHODES: So moved.

CHAIR BRYANT: It's been moved.

MS. WRIGHT: Second.

CHAIR BRYANT: It's been seconded.

All in favor of the consent calendar say "aye."

(Chorus of ayes.)

CHAIR BRYANT: Anyone proposed, no.

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It is passed.

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[INSERT - HOWARD T. MARKEY NATIONAL COURTS

BUILDING]

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[INSERT - SECURITY BOLLARDS AT THE NORTH ENTRANCE

MOTOR COURT]

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[INSERT - DC PLAN FY 2019-2024]

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[INSERT - MAP AMENDMENT]

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CHAIR BRYANT: Moving to the open session agenda item, we have one item, and then we will have three information presentations.

MS. KOSTER: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR BRYANT: Yes, ma'am.

MS. KOSTER: If I may, I just was alerted that half of the Fort Myer team is still a little delayed in traffic.

CHAIR BRYANT: Okay.

MS. KOSTER: So if we could perhaps move to the first --

CHAIR BRYANT: Okay. We'll move to the information presentation, absolutely. So we will go a little bit out of order and take up the first information presentation, and that is an update on the Initiative.

Ms. Ridgely has been working quite diligently on this for quite some time. So this is, as you know, a collaboration between federal and local agencies to assure that the all-important

Pennsylvania Avenue meets all the many needs of a capital city, a truly nation's capital in every

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sense of the word.

Ms. Ridgely, welcome.

AGENDA ITEM NO. 6

INFORMATION PRESENTATIONS

ITEM NO. 6A

PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE INITIATIVE UPDATE

MS. RIDGELY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is

Sarah Ridgely. I'm a project manager for the

Pennsylvania Avenue Initiative, and I am pleased to provide an update today on the Initiative and announce the release of our Findings and Strategies

Summary now available on NCPC's website, and a copy is also provided at your seat.

So today, I'll brief the Commission on that summary, which includes an overview of the analysis work that we shared with the Commission back in October.

I'll also discuss how those analysis findings frame the Initiative's goals and strategies to improve the Avenue, and then wrap

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up with some of the progress already underway and the Initiative's next steps.

Just a quick recap of the Initiative for those who may not be familiar. It's a collaborative effort between NCPC, the General

Services Administration, NPS, the National Park

Service, as well as the District Department of

Transportation and the Deputy Mayor's Office for

Planning and Economic Development.

These are agencies that were given responsibility for the Avenue's ongoing planning and upkeep after the Pennsylvania Avenue

Development Corporation was sunset in 1996.

And we're also working closely with the

U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, our partners at the

DC Office of Planning, on this effort.

Collectively, the Executive Committee launched the Initiative to coordinate and improve the Avenue's economic health, physical conditions and operations to ensure that it remains one of the most important places in our capital city.

Now, the study area shown here in yellow

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covers about 1.2 miles of the Avenue and it's located between the and U.S. Capitol.

It includes the area covered by the 1974

Pennsylvania Avenue Plan shown here in blue, as well as that federal triangle area just to the south of the Avenue.

Now, one of the big challenges of the

Avenue here is that it feels like a dividing between downtown and the National Mall, which are two very active parts of Washington.

We want to blend these two facets of the capital city together so that it really becomes the best daily and civic destination in the nation.

Just a quick refresher on the

Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation. It was established in 1972 by Congress to redevelop the Avenue, created the plan in 1974, and it really served as a catalyst for Washington's downtown development revival.

And after that redevelopment was mostly complete, the PADC was sunset in 1996, and there were some ongoing responsibilities handed to GSA,

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NPS and NCPC, and the District did retain jurisdiction over the roadway.

So the PADC no longer exists, but the congressionally-mandated planning guidelines are still in effect today.

Now, given that that plan is over 40 years old, it doesn't recognize the dramatic development changes in the capital city since the

1970s or those best practices that are now followed by the planning and design professions.

And in addition, since PADC no longer exists to fund and stuff those operational, regulatory and maintenance needs, we have a lot of coordination issues moving forward.

So to address these challenges, the

Committee's first step was to research and analyze the current conditions of the Avenue. And their analysis work is contained in three documents, and

I updated you on most of this in October.

So the first part is the market study.

That includes the demographic and economic data, analysis of the land uses and, most importantly,

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the competitive advantages and disadvantages that the Avenue has related to other neighborhoods in

DC and the National Capital Region.

The second piece is the Cultural

Landscape Inventory, and that was developed by the

Park Service. It analyzes the eligibility of the

PADC-era landscape, the Avenue's periods of significance and the importance of looking at the

Avenue as a cohesively-planned composition.

Last, but not least, we have the Urban

Design Analysis, and that analyzes the physical components of the Avenue. This includes things like land uses, mobility, urban form and placemaking, and this analysis did identify that there were low traffic counts along the Avenue as compared to the rest of downtown.

This was due, in part, to the closure of E Street and Pennsylvania Avenue near the White

House, and the Committee built off this finding with some additional transportation analysis work from DDOT.

So using some updated transportation

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data to develop a more detailed level of service and carrying capacity analysis, the work did confirm that the Avenue's roadway could reallocate a lane of traffic, or about 20 feet, for other uses.

So, in essence, the Avenue could go on a road diet while still retaining an acceptable level of service standards.

As this was preliminary work, though, additional analysis would be needed to understand potential transportation impacts if the Executive

Committee decides to pursue that road diet approach.

So the Executive Committee took the results of all this analysis work and we developed three key findings.

The first, is that the Avenue has a very strong civic identity and character, but it doesn't provide that consistently-engaging experience needed for daily use.

Moving forward, the Executive

Committee wants to understand how to make this a daily destination and a stage for everybody that

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lives, works, and visits the capital city.

Second, the Avenue is well served by multiple modes of transportation, but if suffers from a lack of pedestrian connectivity to surrounding areas.

So how might that potential grow to reallocation for other uses, make the Avenue a more engaging place, and what could be done to generate stronger connections between that downtown and

National Mall area so that the Avenue can act as the connector?

Third, the real estate in the area is very expensive and opportunities to redevelop are limited.

So given this challenge, how can we bring more activity to the public space and ground floors, increase that foot traffic and generate some stronger economic opportunities?

So with the analysis work and findings complete, the Executive Committee then generated four goals.

First, celebrate the Avenue's civic

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role and democratic experience. This involves building upon that symbolic role as a stage for

American events and creating and enhancing the opportunities for everybody to participate in the capital city civic life.

Second, develop the Avenue's vital urban and landscape in and around awe-inspiring architecture.

This will harmonize the landscape, the buildings -- and the buildings to elevate the

Avenue's civic quality and improve that pedestrian experience.

We want active, accessible public spaces and ground floor uses that will draw people to the Avenue seven days a week.

Third, reinvigorate the Avenue's circulation and mobility for 21st Century needs.

This involves making the Avenue more walkable and improving those pedestrian connections to surrounding neighborhoods.

This also seeks a more efficient use of the roadway and sidewalks for current and future

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mobility needs.

Fourth, elevate the identity of the

Avenue as a great destination. And this is where we want to create an inviting and beautiful setting for daily activities and provide those flexible spaces that contribute to the energy of the Avenue.

So how does the Executive Committee plan to accomplish these goals? Well, this summary does include a detailed overview of the strategic approach. It's on page 7. It builds on the findings and goals and it's broken into short, mid, and long-term strategies.

So I'll briefly walk through each of these phases to explain how the Committee will explore the programmatic, physical, and operational changes that are needed to ensure the long-term success of the Avenue.

Short-term, the Executive Committee will identify opportunities to improve the Avenue.

So we broke this up into two pieces.

The first is that programming and operational improvements are very important, and

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the good news is they're already underway through better agency coordination.

So GSA and NPS are working with the downtown DC BID on a number of activities, including a second-year of seasonal plantings and more programming along the Avenue.

So the other piece is based on the completed analysis work. The Committee will begin exploring potential physical concepts to improve the Avenue.

This work will also build off of the

2016 FBI Square Guidelines discussion which explored building setbacks and sidewalk widths for about one block of the Avenue.

And with the Initiative analysis work complete, the Committee will now expand that discussion to the entire Avenue between the White

House and U.S. Capitol.

Work will involve analyzing potential changes to the roadway, the sidewalks and building setbacks to enhance that capital vista, provide a more engaging public realm and better connect

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the Avenue to the downtown and National Mall areas.

Now, this outcome will then inform our midterm approach. Here, the Committee will develop and evaluate those long-term changes and identify and document the solutions needed to improve the outcome.

So if the conceptual planning and design work yields reasonable alternatives that need further analysis, the Committee will notify the public and initiate the NEPA and Section 106 process.

As one of the most symbolic streets in the country, we recognize that public input on any potential change is a critical component to this process.

And the outcomes of NEPA and 106 would then be documented in an action plan and, as needed, an update to the Pennsylvania Avenue Plan.

Long-term, the Initiative will implement the action plan and any updates to that

1974 plan, and this will cover changes to civic and daily activity programming to bring more people

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to the Avenue.

And if the solutions involve physical changes, they would be funded and implemented at that time.

And to ensure any changes are properly managed in the long run, this would be the time to implement any changes to the operational and regulatory structure as well.

So the good news is that there's already a lot of momentum along the Avenue, and this summary does document some of those; development investments, some of the infrastructure maintenance improvements, and the activities that are underway to make this a more engaging place.

So from a development standpoint, we do have a strong economic and symbolic force here and the development in the office sector is very solid.

An average of about $80 a square foot,

JLL lists the Avenue as the sixth most expensive commercial street in the entire United States, and building owners are improving amenities like

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lobbies and rooftops along the Avenue with the redevelopment of 1301 Pennsylvania Avenue with an anticipated 2019 delivery underway, and there's a new children's museum headed to the Reagan

Building in 2019, too. So there's lots of movement on this front.

Next step, from the infrastructure maintenance standpoint, we have federal and local agencies invested in the upkeep and the maintenance of the open space features.

NPS recently cleaned and repaired many of the commemorative features. The seasonal planters were such a hit last year that they will return thanks to the work of the BID, GSA and NPS.

And overall, all of these agencies are coordinating more closely on maintenance and operations.

Driving more people to the Avenue daily through high-quality programming is a top initiative and there are a number of weekday activities that are already happening.

For instance, the BID held some

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weeknight events at last summer and they anticipate more to come.

The Capital Harvest Farmers Market happens Fridays at Wilson Plaza and they're coming back again this year.

The Old Post Office Tower, they hosted over 50,000 visitors in the past six months, and some of the museums are open late on select week nights, too.

One example is the National Gallery of

Art. They have their Evenings at the Edge and the next one happens to be coming up on May 10th. So if you happen to be in the area next Thursday, stop by.

So given all this momentum, the

Executive Committee is ready to tackle the strategies outlined in this summary, and the work ahead focuses on ways to improve those programmatic, operational, and potential physical changes to the Avenue.

So to quickly recap, we now have the research and analysis phase wrapped up and that

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strategic approach is now documented in the summary, and the Executive Committee is now going to shift gears and focus on those near-term efforts.

So as part of this phase, we're working on temporary programming and operational improvements, and the Committee will soon explore that conceptual design and work on the Avenue's roadways, sidewalks and other public spaces to make this an engaging and well-connected destination.

Now, midterm, any concepts that would become reasonable alternatives would be examined through a public NEPA and Section 106 process and solutions would then be documented in the action plan and, as needed, an update to that 1974 plan.

And hopefully by 2022, the Initiative

will begin implementing the solutions needed to make those long-term improvements to the Avenue.

So again, the work to date is available for download on the project website. You can also sign up for project updates and ask questions there as well.

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And I do want to thank the Commission for the opportunity to provide an update on the

Initiative's efforts and the ongoing evolution of what I personally think is capital city's most important destination -- I hope you do too -- and

I'm happy to answer any questions at this time.

Thank you.

[INSERT - PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE INITIATIVE]

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CHAIR BRYANT: Thank you, Ms. Ridgely, very much. You are doing yeoman's work on a very important project.

Are there questions or observations for

Ms. Ridgely?

Mr. Gallas.

MR. GALLAS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

One comment and one quick question.

The comment is, the goals are poetry, in my mind. You all nailed it. I mean, four really tremendously written and aspiring goals, and I commend you for that work, you and the team.

The question has to do with the short-term money or short-term actions was to select a block and then sort of evaluate that block, and then look to expand it along the broader avenue.

I'm wondering which block you picked and why.

MS. RIDGELY: Oh, that's interesting.

I think you might have heard me mention the 2016 FBI Square Guidelines.

Is that the reference?

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MR. GALLAS: I thought it was in the

-- you were talking about the short-term --

MS. RIDGELY: What we'd ideally like to do is take the work --

MR. GALLAS: -- about strategies, goals --

MS. RIDGELY: Right.

MR. GALLAS: The strategies page.

MS. RIDGELY: We do want to expand that out and look at all the blocks.

MR. GALLAS: Right.

MS. RIDGELY: Our next step may actually be to look at the Avenue block by block.

MR. GALLAS: I see. So you were using the FBI block as the --

MS. RIDGELY: As our starting point.

MR. GALLAS: That's a good block.

MS. RIDGELY: Well, there was a lot of analysis work performed on that block to look at the potential impacts; the vista, the public space, the relationship of the ground floor plane to the sidewalks.

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And we think that there was enough in there and, of course, with the analysis work that we've done, we can build this into a more robust approach for the entire Avenue.

MR. GALLAS: Thank you.

CHAIR BRYANT: Other questions or comments?

Thank you, Ms. Ridgely.

MS. RIDGELY: Thank you.

CHAIR BRYANT: All right.

CHAIR BRYANT: Okay. So we will proceed to the second information presentation.

AGENDA ITEM NO. 6B

MONUMENTAL CORE STREETSCAPE PROJECT

CHAIR BRYANT: Agenda Item 6B is the presentation on the Monumental Core Streetscape

Plan.

Ms. Spigle -- still in the theme of interagency collaboration.

(Pause.)

CHAIR BRYANT: Ms. Spigle, welcome.

MS. SPIGLE: Thank you.

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Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission. Today, I'm pleased to brief you on NCPC's Monumental Core Streetscape

Project.

The preface of today's presentation is to introduce you to NCPC's new initiative, the

Monumental Core Streetscape Project.

I'll provide background on how the project evolved from the 1992 Streetscape Manual and discuss its current issues, and then I'll inform you about the scope of work and timeline for the project.

As the central planning agency for the

National Capital Region, NCPC is leading this initiative.

NCPC is often in a coordinating role collaborating with agencies with diverse missions and for this project, we're working across jurisdictions and convening stakeholder agencies to advance streetscape planning, design and construction in the Monumental Core.

NCPC will use the outcome of this

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project for a new streetscape guide to review future project submissions.

The project's focus is the Monumental

Core of Washington, D.C. NCPC's urban design element of the comprehensive plan states that "The

Monumental Core is the spatial and symbolic center of the city, which includes the U.S. Capitol grounds, the White House, Arlington National

Cemetery, the National Mall, Federal Tranquil and the surrounding government office, civic, cultural and symbolic structures."

While we recognize the Monumental Core extends into Virginia, we're focusing on areas around the National Mall.

As the city has expanded to the south and southwest waterfront, this area, the National

Mall and surroundings, is no longer at the edge, but is now at the center of an expanded downtown.

This project will help connect across the National Mall and tie the capital city together through its public realm and streetscapes.

Well-designed streetscapes will make

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these north and south connections more natural and intuitive.

For background, in 1991, the Secretary of Transportation expressed desire to improve the

National Mall area roads.

This launched the interagency initiative for the National Mall Improvement

Program.

The Initiative originally included

Architect of the Capitol, the District Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration and .

And in 2005, more agencies came together to endorse this work, including the

Commission of Fine Arts, General Services

Administration, NCPC, the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian.

Collectively, these agencies form a working group, which meets quarterly to coordinate the planning, design and construction of streetscape improvements and maintain the

Streetscape Manual.

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The agencies originally developed a

Streetscape Manual for the purposes of providing guidelines for a coordinated and consistent streetscape treatment for roadways in the vicinity of the National Mall.

The contents of the manual included detailed drawings and specifications for construction and installation of streetscape elements that broadly fall into the categories of lighting, paving and furnishings. CFA reviewed, and NCPC approved, the Streetscape Manual in July of 1992.

Both the manual and the working group achieved great outcomes. The manual benefits stakeholder agencies by providing a guide for coordinated construction details and specs and was most successfully implemented between 1992 and

2012.

Over that time, the working group collaborated on more than 25 projects that rehabilitated and reconstructed roadways in

Washington's Monumental Core.

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The working group continues to meet in performance coordination functions and recently identified the need to update the manual.

And now, it's a good time to proceed with the updates since there are no major planned roadway improvements anticipated in the near term.

As mentioned, the Streetscape Manual covers roadways within the geographic area of the

National Mall and surroundings. This is an image in front of the Natural History Museum.

The manual applies to areas fronting on roadways and pedestrian ways considered part of the street scene, but it does not apply to parks, open spaces or building yards.

The manual guides the details for the various streetscape elements that you see here such as the roadway and sidewalk pavement, curb and gutter treatment, streetlights and other street furnishings.

As a contributor to quality urban design, Washington's streetscapes should reinforce its unique role as the nation's capital and create

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a welcoming and livable environment for people.

Particularly within the Monumental

Core, streetscapes reinforce the civic quality that inspires people and cultivates a sense of pride, permanence and dignity.

The Monumental Core is a place where the details matter and its streetscapes must meet these objectives at an elevated standard, and the new Streetscape Guide will contribute to achieving these aspirations.

Here are some examples of successful streetscape detailing: well-made and maintained streetscapes convey a sense of manicured precision that elevates the quality of the public realm.

By contrast, when streetscapes are not well-designed or maintained, the quality of the public space is diminished.

Streetscapes influence how people experience the nation's capital and their perceptions about its character, and it's noticeable when they don't rise to the level befitting the capital city.

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Streetscapes have changed and evolved since 1992 when the manual was first released.

For instance, people now drive less and walk and bicycle more, stormwater management regulations and best practices have become more sophisticated and technologies have advanced.

In order to document and analyze these changes and issues, NCPC staff examined relevant plans and policies to assess consistency across documents, field conditions to assess the manual's application and quality of existing streetscapes, and stakeholder needs through one-on-one interviews.

Staff's analysis is organized into these five categories: Policy and planning, manual application, precincts and transitions, function, and coordination.

With regards to policy and planning,

NCPC staff evaluated federal and local documents applicable to the Monumental Core and a wide range of detail from policies which provide general guidance, which you see at the top of this diagram

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here, down to specs at the bottom of the diagram, which cover all of the details.

Staff found that generally there is a gap in federal guidance at the middle level or the guideline level indicated by the red hatch as compared to the local guidance.

For instance, the District's Public

Realm Design Handbook and Manual, which was released in 2011, has been very successful and there's no equivalent federal guidance for streets in the Monumental Core.

Some other findings include that there's no clear federal guidance that reconciles function and character, reinforces the historic design character of precincts such as the White

House and U.S. Capitol grounds, and addresses transitions within the capital city between the

National Mall and Monumental Core.

With regards to manual application,

NCPC staff completed field studies which revealed that overall agencies succeed in applying the manual more consistently on the National Mall than

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off it.

Agencies do not consistently administer the manual because each agency implements the manual using different levels of details, specifications and forms of coordination.

The manual limits flexibility because it uses only prescriptive details and specifications for all of the elements, whereas performance details and specs may be appropriate for some elements.

This photograph is taken in front of the Whitten Building and it shows an area on the

Mall where the manual is not well applied.

You can see there are three different trash cans, one solar compactor, two, three, none of which are complying with the manual, and nor is the pavement consistent with the manual.

With regards to precincts and transitions, staff found that generally the existing manual did not adapt to the unique character of different precincts, again, like the

White House and U.S. Capitol grounds, or clearly

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define elements applying to all precincts.

Material transitions inconsistently across precincts, and material is transitioned inconsistently between the National Mall and

Monumental Core.

So, for example, this photograph is taken from the Agriculture South Building facing

Independence Avenue, which is an entry point or threshold to the National Mall.

The overall quality of the streetscape is unappealing and the materials abruptly transition.

With regards to function, NCPC staff's field studies reveal that the Streetscape Manual does not currently address the following functional issues: Stormwater management, changing and sustainable technologies, expanding transportation options and infrastructure needs, walkability and universal accessibility for pedestrians, wayfinding for visitor orientation and perimeter security.

This photograph illustrates where

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universal accessibility and perimeter security needs are in conflict.

With regards to coordination, NCPC found that generally right-of-way jurisdiction is unclear and enforcement of jurisdiction for maintenance and repair work is inconsistent.

The manual specifications are not regularly updated or used, and the manual and local standards are not coordinated.

Also, the manual does not have an administrative section, for example, defining a process by which to update the manual.

Just as an illustration, this photograph shows an example of the lack of coordination and use of the manual standards for utility repair work.

So in order to address the key issues through an update to the Streetscape Manual, the

scope of work was broadened beyond just updating the manual's details and construction specifications to include several tasks.

First, to develop an urban design

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streetscape framework, to provide general conceptual guidance, and enhance coordination with the District's Smart Streetlight project, which you'll hear more about later.

Second, to develop streetscape design guidelines, to reconcile the framework vision with the construction details.

Third, to update the Construction

Manual to fill its current gaps, and this would be at a similar level of detail to the 1992 manual.

And lastly, update the MOU to more accurately reflect the changing nature of the working group.

I'll note that some of these tasks, particularly no. 1, fulfill urban design element action items which recommend collaboration with federal and local stakeholders to prepare an urban design and public realm guide for special streets.

Collectively, these tasks will form the

Monumental Core Streetscape Guide, and, again, NCPC will use this in future project review.

We're looking at several sources of

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information to develop the streetscape framework.

These serve as foundational documents from which we will draw guidance, document it and expand upon it where needed.

The streetscape framework will also help inform the District's Smart Street Light

Project, which is a comprehensive city-wide initiative to convert all of the city's streetlights to LED bulbs. And again, you'll hear more about this later.

As NCPC develops the streetscape framework, we will also be developing a conceptual lighting framework for the Monumental Core.

This image which you see here is an example of the conceptual lighting framework prepared by CFA in 1992.

This plan included illuminating the

Monumental Core and waterfront, major landmarks, special squares and circles and key avenues and streets with a whiter light than the surrounding urban context.

Similarly, a new lighting framework

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will provide guiding principles for lighting within the Monumental Core and its relationship with the rest of downtown Washington.

Once the framework is complete, we'll next pursue developing federal streetscape guidelines and provide missing guidance on emerging and functional issues such as stormwater management and changing technologies.

As an example of the level of detail we'll pursue, this excerpt is from the Downtown

BID Streetscape Enhancement Notebook from 1999.

It includes guidance on spacing between and relationships among the streetscape elements.

And lastly, we'll update the construction details and specifications that are in the 1992 manual to include elements that are missing or outdated.

This timeline provides an overview of how we're sequencing the various tasks. The MOU update, urban design streetscape framework, and conceptual lighting framework will occur this year.

We're targeting returning to the

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Commission in September with the urban design streetscape framework and guiding principles for concept review with a 30-day public comment period.

Afterwards, we will host a public meeting on the lighting framework and principles.

Then either November or December we'll return to the Commission with the lighting framework and an update on the streetscape framework.

Work on the design guidelines and construction manual, as well as further coordination with the District on lighting specifications will continue into 2019.

And, again, the District is here to discuss the Smart Street Lighting Project in the next presentation.

So that concludes my presentation and

I'm happy to answer any questions.

[INSERT - MONUMENTAL CORE STREETSCAPE PROJECT]

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CHAIR BRYANT: Thank you, Ms. Spigle.

One question. It's a 1992 document, but that is also to say that there have not been any appreciable amendments since then?

MS. SPIGLE: There was a minor amendment in 2013 --

CHAIR BRYANT: Okay.

MS. SPIGLE: -- which basically included elements that have been reviewed by our

Commission and were in situ such as benches and bicycle racks, and those were incorporated then.

CHAIR BRYANT: We should update every

25 years, I guess.

(Laughter.)

CHAIR BRYANT: Other questions or observations for Ms. Spigle?

Mr. Gallas.

MR. GALLAS: Thank you very much.

Very informative presentation.

I -- you know, I was really paying attention to some of the core examples of how the

Monumental Core has been implemented and some of

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the urban design challenges that we're trying to solve with this.

I guess I have two questions. One follows the other. The first is, did we get to that sort of condition because the guidelines just were inadequate?

And then the second question is, whose job will it be to really enforce those guidelines and the coordination that's associated with that going forward so that these guidelines will have landed somewhere that will have an impact? Thank you.

MS. SPIGLE: So with regards to the first question, there are what we would call "gaps" in the current manual such as there isn't any guidance on how to coordinate different elements, like what is the spacing between a tree and a light post or a bench. It's not in there.

Regards to the second question, NCPC and CFA would use this manual in the review process.

So this would be the standard by which we would review streetscape projects in the future.

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MR. GALLAS: uh-huh. I would --

MS. WRIGHT: While we're talking about this, can we go back to the good, the bad and the ugly slide?

(Laughter.)

MS. WRIGHT: I'm not going to say anything. I just wanted to look at it.

MR. GALLAS: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

I appreciate the gaps, okay. I'm skeptical that the gaps aren't only because -- it's not the only reason that the conditions, some of it good, bad, ugly, are the way they are.

And so -- and I appreciate identifying those gaps and preparing those, but I would like it to be a document that is -- you said that the

District's done a better job in some of their review and so forth, and I'm suspecting that's because there's a regulatory and governmental process of review that ensures that.

And what I'm trying to figure out is, if we do this -- and I understand that this will be used for, you know, ongoing reviews going

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forward, but do we have enough -- are people really going to come to us with all the things that you're trying to fix like the trash receptacles and things like that?

Is that part of, really, our purview at that granular level?

MS. SPIGLE: Well, we -- you know, in terms of maintenance and ongoing upkeep, I mean, that is outside of our purview. We can only influence the design and planning.

MS. WRIGHT: I'll jump in now. So but if this is here -- see, I love the -- this is

Commerce. I gave my firstborn for this and that's what it takes.

And so, the stated case, for example, is about perimeter security, but that's like the

Trojan horse, right, to improve the streetscape.

And if we have this, then there's a standard that you can -- remember earlier we were talking about facilities managers?

CHAIR BRYANT: Yes.

MS. WRIGHT: Yes. Those are the guys.

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CHAIR BRYANT: Uh-huh.

MS. WRIGHT: Those are the guys that if we have this manual --

CHAIR BRYANT: They will come to you and --

MS. WRIGHT: -- I can say, "We're going to be measured on these things. This is going to blow our approval to get through for the larger project."

I mean, you're probably not going to get -- you don't have the juice to execute just on the details; but if you have a manual for the details and there's a standard, then you can use it to educate the facilities guy and the people who are scoping the work.

So in GSA, our office now has the ability to -- we review all scoping now, which is huge because without reviewing the scope of work and having influence at that level, the ship has sailed, usually, by the time we get it.

So that's a big change and this would be a big help.

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MR. GALLAS: Right. Good to hear.

CHAIR BRYANT: Other questions for Ms.

Spigle?

Thank you very much.

We'll proceed to the last information presentation before returning to the agenda items.

AGENDA ITEM NO. 6C

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SMART STREET

LIGHTING PROJECT

CHAIR BRYANT: We have heard a little bit about the streetlight element, so the Smart

Street Lighting Project is what we will hear now.

Mr. Gluckman, we're happy that you're here. Hang on just a second.

MR. GLUCKMAN: Sure.

CHAIR BRYANT: Okay. You're up.

MR. GLUCKMAN: All right. Fantastic.

Thank you.

CHAIR BRYANT: You're welcome.

MR. GLUCKMAN: Thank you for having me and good afternoon. My name is Judah Gluckman and

I'm the deputy director and counsel of the DC Office

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of Public-Private Partnerships.

And I think in that continued spirit of interagency coordination, you know, we're here to talk about our Smart Lighting Project.

And as Meghan alluded to, it is a big factor and component to sort of the National Mall and the appearance and aesthetics that are in that part of the city, but it also applies citywide.

And it is a joint effort, I should say, of not only our office, which is a relatively newly-created office, but our District Department of Transportation and our chief technology officer.

And we've titled this project "Safer,

Smarter, Greener," and I think you'll see why as we get into it.

So before I talk about the project itself, I want to give you a little bit of a background in sort of public-private partnerships and that model for those who are unfamiliar or perhaps aren't familiar with the way that we do these types of projects.

So if you'll look here, public-private

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partnerships, or P3s, can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but fundamentally for us here in the District -- oops, looks like it's got a mind of its own here. Sorry about that.

So the P3s, for us, are long-term, performance-based contracts where we transfer risk to the party that's best able to mitigate it or to manage it.

And we do that through these contracts that not only encompass design and construction of an infrastructure project, but also, in most cases, the financing and maintenance.

And the reason we do that are several-fold, but as you can see in sort of the upper right corner here, the benefits for us are; one, it incentivizes innovation and efficient solutions for how we take better care of our assets.

So if you think about it from the perspective of both the government or the private sector, if the private sector is going to have to be responsible for taking care of the asset and

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they're also designing and constructing at the same time, they're going to think really holistically about what's the best way to do that? How do we design it that perhaps maybe costs a little bit more on the front end, but the long-term it's going to be the most sustainable, a best-fit solution that gets us the outcome we want to get to. And so, that's really about life cycle management, about transferring risk.

And because these contracts are performance-based and they are structured with private financing, if we don't get -- we, the government, don't get what we need, then the contractor is going to be penalized. And so, they are extra incentivized to do what we need them to do.

Before I jump into sort of some examples, I'd like to remind folks, you know, P3s are not free money. So they are a financing tool and a procurement mechanism, but ultimately it's always going to be government dollars that are underlying them that are paying back the contracts

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to make sure that we get what we need to get done.

And from the District's perspective,

P3s are also not privatization, so we are not selling off assets. We are always going to own, in this case, the streetlights; but, really, almost any facility we do, you're going to continue to own them.

And we're also not outsourcing government jobs, so anything that's performed by a government employee now is not really going to be changed.

What might look a little bit different is we're consolidating multiple contracts into a single -- single contract, single point of contact with greater accountability.

If you're familiar with the Virginia

Beltway hot lanes, those are an example of P3s in the area. The Purple Line, the light rail system that's being built in Maryland right now, that's another good example of P3s.

It's a relatively novel concept that's being used in the U.S. in fairly limited ways, but

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the Long Beach Courthouse is one of the first buildings that's been done as a P3. And the

LaGuardia Airport, the new terminal there is also being done.

It's a model that's been used for decades in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia particularly, and so that's really the model we're following is sort of that Canadian/European model of P3s.

So turning to the project itself,

Safer, Smarter, Greener, this gives you a little bit of background in terms of what the project -- where we stand with the project.

So we have 75,000 streetlights across the District. 75,000 streetlights and only five percent of them are this sort of latest technology of light-emitting diode or LED technology.

So almost 60,000, well over a majority are high-pressure sodium. That's a 30-,

40-year-old technology, at least.

There are others that are metal halide and mercury vapor, all sort of old-generation

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technology.

You can see here in the middle of the map, this sort of shows you all the different lights and where they are scattered across the city.

Some, in fact, are run by PEPCO and

Verizon, so we're coordinating with the utilities to make sure that as we go forward, you know, they are in -- partners with us as well.

There are over 50 different types of light fixtures and poles across the city. So as you can imagine, that requires a lot of nuance and sort of -- sort of thoughtful approach to how we maintain those facilities.

A lot of those are historic, and of course we want to maintain the historic fixtures and poles as well as we can. And so, that's a big part of our motivation for this project.

So moving on, project scope. So as I alluded to earlier, we're going to be converting all 75,000 of those lights to LED technology.

We're also going to have a remote control monitoring system, and this is really

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exciting from the perspective of; one, the lights will tell us when they're not working.

So rather than you or another resident have to call up and report to us that a light is out, we will know and we will have had it fixed before you even notice it.

Also, that remote control monitoring system also allows us for a lot of customization.

So as you can imagine, when you can dim LED lights and you can adjust the brightness, you can sort of customize them and tune them to particular streets, particular neighborhoods.

Perhaps the time of day if it's really late at night and we have much less activity on the road or the sidewalk, perhaps we need a little bit less lighting. Maybe we go to 25 percent or

50 percent lighting as opposed to the full hundred percent brightness.

You know, from a P3 perspective, obviously a big part of this is asset management.

The contractor is going to take care of these and maintain these facilities for the next 10 to 15

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years so that we make sure that they maintain a state of good repair throughout that entire time period.

And then, you know, the fourth and final sort of aspect of this project and perhaps one that

I'm most excited about, is expansion of public wi-fi and Smart City technology.

So this is really building off of the

PA 2040 Project that I know the Commission was very heavily involved in, where just west of the White

House a number of blocks where we added, with OCTO's help, you know, wi-fi hot spots.

We're starting to get into that second phase of Smart City sensors and air quality sensors and a whole host of other things. We now want to take that and expand it to other parts of the city.

And so, as we do the streetlight work and we modernize the streetlights, we're going to be adding wi-fi, we're going to be adding a platform for future Smart City technology.

And that really can run the gamut anything from, you know, sensors in our trash cans

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that tell us exactly when they're full and we need to attend to them and pick them up, air quality sensors, you know, there really are a whole host of options and probably a lot that we haven't even thought of.

And so, that's why we're doing an open-source scalable platform so that when a new opportunity comes along, a new technology comes along in Smart City, we can get to that and expand it.

And perhaps in some limited cases, we might even have a sort of living laboratory for universities, businesses, obviously other government agencies to sort of add new technologies. So that's something that we are very, very excited about.

So I've already highlighted some of the benefits, but just to put a finer point on it, as you can see from a public safety and a traffic safety perspective, if you'll look at the pictures here before and after, you can see the real stark difference.

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On the bottom there is sort of a -- this is not in DC, but another sample project that will have a similar effect.

Once you've converted to LED technology, the clarity, the sort of object recognition, the color differentiation is greatly enhanced.

And so, as you can imagine for drivers, for pedestrians, for bikers, all of the folks on the streetscape are going to see improvements.

And we think that's going to have a big effect when it comes to our Vision Zero goals and all those sorts of things.

From an environmental perspective, you know, just like LED conversions in our own homes, it really is a no-brainer.

It's 40 to 50 percent energy savings, at least. And for the District, given the amount of energy we consume in those 75,000 lights, that's the equivalent of 30 tons of greenhouse gases a year. So it's a real big environmental benefit.

And in addition to sort of the energy

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savings, because we're doing this from a comprehensive perspective and we're not only sort of converting to LEDs, but we're also installing shielding technologies, that means we're going to reduce light pollution in a lot of ways.

So when it comes to the lights near Rock

Creek Park, you know, the wildlife, impacts of lighting will be reduced, and we think that's going to have a really important benefit.

And then for dark skies and sort of the astronomers, both amateur and professional, they are going to see a benefit as well because we're only going to be lighting the streets and the sidewalks and the places that need to be lit as opposed to the trees above and clouds, et cetera.

So we've been having conversations with the Naval Observatory. They are very excited about this project because it will help them do their work more effectively, and there are a lot of other folks that are interested in it as well.

You know, I won't dwell too much on the other benefits, but I will say, you know, from a

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neighborhood perspective we think these lights are going to be more finely attuned to each neighborhood's needs.

The Smart City technology I mentioned from a P3 perspective, what I'm most excited about, perhaps, is, you know, because we're using private financing, it allows us to do this project in just two to three years, and we will pay it back over the course of about 15 years.

Under previous models, under the traditional procurement and financing approach, it was slated to take us about 8 to 12 years. So we're going to see all of these benefits a lot sooner in a lot more, sort of, accountable performance-based process.

So next, I will turn to the project timeline and it's a lot to digest here, I will admit.

But because these P3s are fairly complex projects, because they take on, you know, an entire 15-year period -- because they last for 15 years, you want to get them right and you want to be really deliberate about how this works.

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So in this case, we have what essentially is a two-step process where we qualified the best possible teams who will be then the exclusive teams that respond to our request for proposals.

So where we are now in the process, we just finished the qualification stage and we have some short-listed teams.

We will be going back and forth with them over the next few months to finalize not only the request for proposals, but also the project agreement itself.

So most of the technical terms and legal terms and financial terms will all be worked out with all three teams rather than having to negotiate at the very end.

And the benefit of that; one, is, really, we're clear and we have very firm, fixed-price bids once we actually put out the final

RFP.

The other benefit is simultaneously to the procurement process, we're also going to be

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involved in the NEPA and Section 106 process for environmental and historic review.

And my colleague Kathryn Roos will be getting to that shortly and giving you a little bit more detail about sort of what our thinking is on lighting and design, but one of the most important things is that it's a really good opportunity to sort of make sure we've got public and other stakeholder outreach.

So this project is being responsive to all the interests and concerns that we've heard so far and are trying to sort of address.

In terms of the overall timeline, we hope to have a final team selected by the end of this year. And I think that aligns really nicely with the timeline that Meghan had mentioned for the streetscape and guideline updates that NCPC and the federal agencies are doing.

So once we've selected somebody by the end of this year in the beginning of 2019 right around the time that those guidelines are being finalized by the Commission, we'll be going into

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our design phase. And so, that will sort of be able to incorporate any recommendations and guidance particularly around the National Mall area and Monumental Core.

And so from there, once the design process is complete, we anticipate about a two-year construction process. So that is the project timeline.

And to the point about public outreach, we've had dozens of meetings so far throughout the

District and a lot of one-on-one meetings, as well as community meetings. We have several more coming up, for anyone who's interested, May 19th and May

23rd.

So far, we've heard a lot of good support for the project, but also some helpful feedback in terms of the LED appearance, color temperature, questions about light pollution.

One more thing I want to flag for you all is the creation of a Streetlight Advisory Panel.

So in addition to having these sort of general community meetings where anyone can come

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and attend and voice their opinion about the project, we're also having really detailed -- a core, sort of, working group that's going to be made up not only of residents, but of experts in public health, environmental issues, design, historic preservation.

And so, they're going to get really detailed updates on a monthly basis from our team and the District government, as well as the contractor, once they're selected, and can really sort of put their guidance and really have an impact on the specifications that are going into not only the procurement, but the final contract, and ultimately this advisory panel will be in existence during the construction and implementation phases as well so that we can continue to improve the project and incorporate public feedback.

So with that, I will turn it over to

Kathryn Roos who is the Streetlight and P3 Manager for our District Department of Transportation.

MS. ROOS: Thanks, Judah.

Commissioner, Chairman, thank you very

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much for having us here.

As Judah mentioned, the lighting design is really important for us because this impacts everyone's daily lives. And so, we've taken some really deep thought in terms of what we want to look at.

So first of all, Judah mentioned that we've had a lot of feedback on the color temperature. And so what that means -- you might have heard the word "kelvins."

And so, all of our light fixtures have different kelvins, and basically that means the amount of -- is the light yellower or is it more white and blue?

And the color temperatures that we're currently looking at right now for -- to implement as part of the project is 2700 kelvin on residential and local streets, with 3,000 kelvin on primary arterial as well as interstates.

We have committed to the community that we will do no more than 3,000 kelvin throughout the District of Columbia.

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I think Judah also mentioned that we have dimming capabilities as part of the remote monitoring system, which is really important because that will allow us to set schedules in individual neighborhoods.

So if we want to have something that, you know, let's say at 1:00 a.m., it goes down to a 25 percent dimming, we then will also have what are called "proximity sensors," and these sensors within a certain distance of the streetlight, will come back on.

So if someone is walking down the sidewalk or a car passes by, that proximity sensor will sense that and it will turn the light back up to, let's say, a hundred percent and it will stay on for a certain amount of time before it dims back down as long as nothing else crosses that sensor.

So this really will help us to create a customized feeling for certain neighborhoods and to address concerns that residents might have.

The other important thing is shielding.

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All of the lights that we will have, we are specifying that there must be the capability for shielding to be included.

We know that there are conversations and the importance of the Washington globes, and that's a conversation that we really want to continue to have as part of the Streetlight Advisory

Panel because we know that that's something that's really important on both sides of the table.

As Judah mentioned, again, the

Streetlight Advisory Panel, I think it's going to be crucial as we continue to talk about these lighting design aspects in coordination with the work that Meghan and the team is doing here, and we very much want to incorporate that and come to good solutions together.

And that's really what this is about, is finding balanced solutions. We do have many community members from both sides of the spectrum, you know.

In Wards 7 and 8, we have residents that feel very strongly about having a lot more light

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that is a lot brighter.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, as you can imagine, we have a lot of community residents that want the 2700 and they want less light.

And so, the Streetlight Advisory Panel is really an opportunity to bring diverse perspectives and points of view together so that we can come to that balanced solution that's very important for us.

We'll also have the NEPA and the Section

106 process running alongside of that, so all of this will ultimately inform our final design and our final technical specifications.

Finally, we just wanted to show you -- this is a proposed example of what I was just mentioning to you, which is the 2700 kelvin, which you'll see here on this map as the blue dots.

Those are on residential and commercial

-- or residential and collector streets. The yellow dots that you see are the proposal of the

3,000-kelvin lights.

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You'll also see we chose an area that we've seen in the map a lot today, of the core of the District. We also -- where we have a lot of

BIDs.

We have agreements with the BIDs, as the Department of Transportation, on the level and the type of lighting that we need to provide to them as they're primarily commercial corridors within our downtown area.

The BID is another community stakeholder that we very much want at the table as part of the Streetlight Advisory Panel, because we want to have further and more detailed discussions about the type of light that is needed and coordination on that; but right now we're showing 3,000-kelvin lights within the BID districts exclusively.

I think that kind of wraps up, but Judah and I would be more than happy to answer any questions that you might have.

[INSERT - DC SMART STREET LIGHTING PROJECT]

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CHAIR BRYANT: Thank you. I have a couple questions.

One is I'd like to learn a little bit more about the wi-fi element, and I ask for this reason. In Virginia, there has been very controversial legislation by the telecom companies to propose small-cell technology deployment on utility poles. And these would be dorm-room size refrigerators that, in early proposals, would allow them to almost -- historic district notwithstanding or anything else to do that. Do you all anticipate anything like that in the District?

MR. GLUCKMAN: Sure. I can take it and then Kathryn may want to chime in, but from our perspective for this particular project and this procurement, the wi-fi component is limited to public broadband wi-fi. So it's not quite the same technology.

CHAIR BRYANT: It's not the small cell.

MR. GLUCKMAN: Yeah. It's not small cell. So that wi-fi -- we're still determining exactly where we're going to put the new wi-fi.

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It won't be citywide just yet, but it will be primarily, you know, main street corridors, great streets, priority corridors primarily east of the river and underserved neighborhoods where broadband penetration and adoption hasn't been quite as high as it has been.

But we are also -- the District, like

Virginia and many other places, we are getting interest and applications from small cell and that's -- we sort of look at that as a regulatory process that the Department of Transportation handles.

MS. ROOS: I'd be happy just to add a little bit about the small cell. So while that is very separate from this process, it's something that we're considering in parallel because there are proposals to attach them to streetlights, so we're looking at what are those parameters that we will allow.

It will be through a permitted process.

So as you might know, the Department of

Transportation is responsible for permitting all

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access to the public right of way within the

District that is District right of way.

And so, we're looking at what are the parameters upon which we would allow for them to attach to our streetlights.

CHAIR BRYANT: Thank you.

The second question is procurement related. I realize the District has a P3 statute.

I'm wondering if as you move towards selecting a vendor and, you know, do the comprehensive agreement with and contract with them, does this procurement and that contract limit itself to, say, a cooperative procurement provision where other jurisdictions and MCOG may ride it, so to speak.

Because I know there are other jurisdictions in the area who are very interested in upgrading their streetlights just like the

District is planning.

MR. GLUCKMAN: Yeah. That's a great question.

So under our P3 authority in the

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District of Columbia, we do have the ability to do those kinds of -- those partnership agreements or cooperative agreements.

We've had several conversations with our neighboring jurisdictions about our project.

So far no one has expressed an interest, but we would certainly be willing to have that conversation if there was interest.

CHAIR BRYANT: Thank you.

Mr. May.

MR. MAY: So, I have a handful of questions.

MR. GLUCKMAN: Sure.

MR. MAY: The -- first of all, I mean, this is a procurement, so this is like an energy-saving performance contract kind of model where you've basically getting kickback out of energy savings --

MR. GLUCKMAN: That is --

MR. MAY: -- or are you paying them --

MR. GLUCKMAN: We're paying them directly through an availability payment. So,

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essentially, if the asset is available, they get paid.

The energy savings is certainly a significant benefit and so ultimately some of those resources will be used for the project, but it's not explicitly tied. The money doesn't go directly to them.

MR. MAY: Okay. So, I mean, the financing that they would have to put in place to do all this, is this going to affect the city's borrowing --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

MR. GLUCKMAN: Yeah. Absolutely.

No, that is a question that we have been discussing a lot lately.

So there isn't a final resolution on that issue, but in all likelihood if not a hundred percent, certainly 80 percent of it or a significant

-- the capital aspect of it will count towards our debt capacity.

MR. MAY: Okay. So the -- not specific to this contract, but there has been a fair amount

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of controversy about streetlighting in the

District, and I'm a regular reader of the Northwest

Current, so I know all that.

MR. GLUCKMAN: Yeah.

MR. MAY: But the -- I mean, it -- for many folks, it's a health concern.

MR. GLUCKMAN: Uh-huh.

MR. MAY: I mean, are you -- have you been able to address these concerns? Because I haven't read much about it lately, but it was a big controversy and the world was ending like two years ago.

MS. ROOS: Yeah. Absolutely. So that brings up a great point and it goes back to the commitment that we've made to the residents of the District that we will have no more than 3,000 kelvin.

The AMA in 2016, came out to report -- and that might be what you're referencing -- that had a recommendation that streetlights not be more than 3,000 kelvin because the impact that the higher blue wavelengths that you have in higher kelvin

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fixtures can have on things such as sleep cycles, circadian rhythms, et cetera.

And so, we very much have taken that feedback into consideration and that's why we've dedicated ourselves to have no more than the 3,000 kelvin.

MR. MAY: And has that generally been accepted by the people who are most concerned about it?

MS. ROOS: I think that there's a desire to have 2700 across the District and that's something that we're looking at.

We're currently about to do testing of

2700-kelvin fixtures on our main arterials to see that we -- if we can get the light output that we need from that type of fixture, but we also know that there are differing points of view in terms of the desire to have differentiation along our arterial roads and have that be more distinct than a residential road.

So again, that's really why we want to bring everybody together in the Streetlight

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Advisory Panel so that we can hear all of those kind of issues and get the feedback.

And that's not in a vacuum because right now they're happening in individual conversations.

MR. MAY: I mean, even 2700 is pretty far up on the spectrum compared to, say, like, your standard interior soft light incandescent, which is probably down like 2,000 or something, right?

MS. ROOS: So currently, as you saw in the map, 86 percent of our lights are HPS. Our

HPS typically run between, I believe, 1900 and 2400 in the kelvin scale. So it's slightly higher than that for the LEDs.

The LED technology is still very much rapidly evolving and not even a few years ago the standard was 4- and 5,000-kelvin fixtures.

And that's what -- the very small percentage of the fixtures that we do have out on the streets, the majority of those are 4- and 5,000.

So those will all be converted to a lower kelvin.

But even the technology for the 2700, we're finding it's hard to get manufacturers right

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now to send us those spec lights so that we can put them up to test them because they're very much still developing it, but our hope is, is that they'll continue to develop the technology.

And, again, that's another great thing about the P3 structure of this contract is that in a few years if the technology changes to such that it makes sense financially for everyone involved to upgrade and include something else, they're financially incentivized to do so within the contract.

And so, we win in terms of incentivizing innovation going forward.

MR. MAY: So I appreciate all that you are trying to accomplish and you're saying all the right things about how to get it done and how to design it, you know, shielding and dimming lights and things like that.

I just have -- you know, part of me is, like, celebrating, yeah, this is a great thing.

But then the other part of me, which is the part of me that always thinks about all the things that

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can go wrong --

(Laughter.)

MS. WRIGHT: That's why you're such a fun date.

MR. MAY: Yeah, I know.

And what happens when you let the engineers control too much? I say that with the greatest affection for engineers because I come from a long line of engineers and I have three sons who are engineers, but they are -- and I would throw facility managers in with them as well because a lot of times there's this tendency to just sort of fall back to what's dumb and easy and low maintenance and things like that.

And, you know, and I fear that a system that's too sophisticated is going to become too programmatic.

I think it's good that the people who install it are going to operate it and I think you're protected on a certain level, but in 15 or 20 years are you going to do the same thing again and replace everything, or is it going to fall back to DDOT's

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engineers or some contractor that you hire just to maintain it?

I mean, I -- like I said, part of me is celebrating; part of me is just nervous about what happens when it all kind of runs amuck.

And just as a word of caution, the -- and maybe you can carry this message back to DPW or whoever operates the facility, but there is a tendency among facility managers to, you know, now that you have LED fixtures and you can get these great, bright fixtures that are low energy and they're going to be much more efficient, and you have that in combination with, like, crime problems. And so, maintenance yards are getting lit up like it's the surface of the sun.

And there's one on Kenilworth Avenue that makes me crazy because you go by it and it's just blinding -- it's good he's taking note of this.

(Laughter.)

MR. MAY: I think it's DPW, but I don't know for sure, but, I mean, it's really pretty awful. And certainly it could have improved and

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done well, but it just -- don't let that happen.

And one last thing is, on the shielding, on the question of shielding and on the D.C. standard streetlights, the globes, I mean, there's so many of them where people have, like, gone up on a ladder and spray painted the side black because it shines right into their -- are you going to try to address problems like that with shielding?

MS. ROOS: Yes. So particularly for the globes we're looking at, we will require that every fixture type that they specify -- because we want, again, to promote innovation so we're not going to tell them what manufacturer to use, but each one will have to have the capability to include shielding internally for the globes.

So you have both top shielding, as well as side shielding within the globes that you can use, as well as there is external top shielding.

Sometimes you'll see the black caps in some neighborhoods. That's what the ANCs have chosen to have us install for those.

MR. MAY: I imagine your advisory

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committee is going to have a lot of fun looking at how those things are going to get developed and deployed.

Otherwise, you're going to wind up with a lot of people on ladders with a spray can and spray painting them again.

MS. ROOS: Yes. Absolutely. Thank you.

CHAIR BRYANT: Ms. Wright.

MS. WRIGHT: I have a quick question because this is a big number and I don't understand it.

So you cite a 40 to 50 percent reduction in energy costs. So is that due to replacement of the kind of fixture?

Because my question, I'm really curious about this dimming business. Because, you know,

I don't know. It's that old wives' tale, I guess, that it takes more juice to start something up again.

So do you save energy with the dimmer or are you saving the energy with the -- with the

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new LEDs or whatever, you know.

I mean, I just don't -- it doesn't -- it seems counterintuitive to me.

MS. ROOS: Absolutely. I think that's a great question.

So most of the lights that you see on a principal arterial right now in the District are an HPS and they -- so the high-pressure sodium, and they have most likely a 400-watt bulb in it, essentially.

MS. WRIGHT: And they're super ugly.

MS. ROOS: And the equivalent of that in an LED is a 215 watt.

MS. WRIGHT: Okay.

MS. ROOS: So right there you're automatically saving almost 200 watts of energy that you're not using, but that's the equivalent to get the same light output for there.

I think you have a great question in terms of how much energy savings is lost in the physical transfer of the dimming.

That, I don't know specifically, but

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that's something that we can ask and get back to you if you're very interested in that.

MS. WRIGHT: I was actually afraid to ask the question because I thought it was a dumb question.

MS. ROOS: No. No. Not at all.

MS. WRIGHT: But the dimmer -- I mean,

I assumed that the savings has to do with replacement of fixtures -- or bulbs -- are we talking bulbs?

MS. ROOS: Yes.

MS. WRIGHT: But the dimmer part, I just would be curious if that's a net gain or a net loss because if -- I mean, if it's a net gain

-- or what am I saying?

If it's a net savings, then I get it, but that's a lot of trouble to go to if it's not.

MS. ROOS: Yeah. I think --

MS. WRIGHT: And it's also kind of weird. It's disconcerting when you're walking along the street like BWI in the garage and you

-- and you think you're walking into a kind of scary

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spot and then all of a sudden the lights come up, which is reassuring, but it's all kind of weird.

The progression, it feels a little unsettling.

If I were walking along a city street at 2:00 a.m. by myself, I would be a little nervous even with the lights going on and off -- going off behind me. It would feel weird.

MS. ROOS: Totally understandable.

I think our approach to the idea of the possibility of dimming is for some area residents that do want to have a little bit more flexibility, that it allows us to provide that.

So the priority in including the dimming isn't necessarily related to energy savings. We see that as an extra perk --

MS. WRIGHT: Right. Okay.

MS. ROOS: -- but it's more driven about the ability to customize lights on streets.

MS. WRIGHT: Thank you.

CHAIR BRYANT: Mr. Dixon.

MR. DIXON: I just -- first, I guess, we all get excited. And with the excitement, comes

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questions.

I guess I've been working on my homes putting smart light bulbs in. So I know about the dimming capacity with your cell phone, and you can turn them off, put them down, dim them, even get sleep light out of them, if you want to, if you like bright bulbs.

I'm assuming that you won't be putting those kind of sophisticated bulbs in so you can actually change colors and that type of thing and dim?

MS. ROOS: Correct. The dimming is specific to the light output, so the lumens and not the kelvin. So --

MR. DIXON: Because I know that people tend to think of homes that when they dim their lights, they're saving.

You're really costing yourself more electricity because you're putting a resistor in the line --

MS. ROOS: Right.

MR. DIXON: -- to burn more electricity

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to make your lights dimmer. So I'm assuming the technology you're using is not going to be the same thing that will do that.

MS. ROOS: To my understanding, it's not, but that's, I think, a great question that we're going to make sure that we go back and talk to our engineers about.

MR. DIXON: Yeah, because it may be just costing you more.

MS. ROOS: Yeah.

MR. DIXON: It's just dimmer, but you're burning more to -- the other question, there are certain communities that will have -- obviously, you stated different needs and goals.

I come from a history of, you know, we resisted any kind of lit signs in the city for many years.

We even had a battle with taxi cabs, you couldn't put signs on them because it was pollution and signs that had lights were really no good.

Now, we got huge billboards and all

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kinds of things, so times have changed. People are putting these bright lights in front of schools now. You're able to have bright light to notify a school.

So I hope we won't go to that extreme, but I do hope that the neighborhoods that have needs that are, I should say, more -- maybe more critical than cosmetic or, you know, trying to tweak it a little bit, will get some attention.

I think that those neighborhoods will change. At some point, they may not need the bright lightings that they have now that they would request because of security and other issues. They may want to move to a less intense light later on.

So I hope you'll move to those communities that need some help now in particular in safety areas and other things, and then with the ability to move back down to a more tranquil, quieter, less bright lights in the future.

Is that part of your plan, I hope?

MS. ROOS: Absolutely. And we want to be responsive to community needs, and so that's

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why we're making sure that our contract has the flexibility so that -- you know, situations will change five years down the road.

MR. DIXON: Yes.

MS. ROOS: So we have the ability to respond to different community needs over the length of the contract, which is very important to us.

MR. DIXON: And I know that in a Smart

Home, which is a miniature of what you're doing, you can, you know, adjust the lights, same bulb for different times. So I'm sure that would be built into what you're doing.

I'm also interested in the wi-fi capacity and security. What about -- you're going to have to be concerned, as we all are, all of our systems nowadays, of hacking and all of a sudden somebody else getting control of the lights.

Just watch television and see them change the lights. People are driving down the street and the lights change. All of this stuff can be a problem, you know. Darkness would be --

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that would be a problem.

MR. GLUCKMAN: Yeah. Absolutely.

And to that point, sir, you know, that's why our chief technology officer is so closely involved.

I think we all saw the stories of what happened in Atlanta a few months ago.

MR. DIXON: Right.

MR. GLUCKMAN: And that was a wake-up call for a lot of folks.

So, fortunately, OCTO has a state-of-the-art security team. They've developed specifications for the existing wi-fi that they have throughout the city now, and I think it's really strengthening of that system and making sure that those concerns are addressed.

MR. DIXON: And I do hope you'll work on something with the small cell systems because when you're in there doing poles, if it can be put in, to strengthen our wi-fi capacity, internet capacity, I think it's a good idea.

MR. GLUCKMAN: Okay.

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CHAIR BRYANT: Mr. Gallas.

MR. GALLAS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

A comment and a question.

So the energy savings are huge here, potentially. I see 30 tons of greenhouse gas savings per year. It's huge.

And then of course the financial impacts that Peter were talking about also not insignificant.

My question has to do with the light poles and fixtures themselves. I think you mentioned that there are 50 different light poles and fixtures in the city, which is probably not surprising.

And when I was reading through the materials to prepare for the meeting today, I was hoping that we were trying to work with the

Streetlight Advisory Panel to create the kind of character that we want in our neighborhoods so that we're not -- I don't know, you know, we don't want the big highway lights in the neighborhoods just because they're less expensive and more efficient.

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I think that the character and the quality of the streetscape in the urban design, that will be created through that lighting.

So while I guess it would make sense to sort of streamline the number of options, I'm hoping that that won't suffer because of efficiency to the extent that we sacrifice the quality of life in the communities.

MS. ROOS: Yeah. Absolutely. To maybe clarify a little bit about the project, this is actually only a replacement of the fixture.

So we won't be replacing poles unless they are structurally needing to be replaced.

So we will have as part of the conversion process, and as well as the long-term asset management of the process, that we will be maintaining those poles through the contracts and, again, addressing any deficiencies that exist, but this is not a project that we will be switching out all the poles during the two-year period. It's really just about switching out the fixture that exists.

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So if you see a fixture right now as a post top or a teardrop, that will be the same type of fixture that is replaced through this process.

MR. GALLAS: Thank you.

MS. ROOS: Uh-huh.

CHAIR BRYANT: Ms. Wright.

MS. WRIGHT: May I suggest since lots of us are in this business of trying to figure out creative ways of financing projects that nobody else wants to pay for, that you pay attention to writing this up as a case study and a how-to for sharing with other people when this is all said and done because it would be hugely helpful.

We've tried to do some private-public partnerships and -- so far with limited success, and I think it would be super helpful to other people as we confront these large-sprawling, nobody really owns it, but everybody owns it, kind of projects.

MR. GLUCKMAN: Thank you for that comment. It is something we are taking to heart.

We've learned a lot from a couple other

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jurisdictions that are doing a similar approach with the lighting and other assets and we want to continue to sort of spread that word.

CHAIR BRYANT: Mr. Griffis.

MR. GRIFFIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Quick question.

Was there ever any discussion about augmenting the character, as Mr. Gallas said, and actually looking at burying the power lines in some of the older neighborhoods that have exposed power?

Because it seems to me you're replacing with these modern, highly-functional fixtures and they're really cobras that are on these old posts with, you know, bands of wires that are also destroying a lot of the trees.

MS. ROOS: So that's a great question.

There is a program called DC PLUG that is looking at the ability to start burying some of our infrastructure.

That is not my area of expertise in

DDOT, but I would be more than happy to get your information and connect you with the lead on that

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team to discuss more of that, but it's -- unfortunately, it's not part of this project as contemplated.

MR. GRIFFIS: Right. So I would just say it would be exciting if it was so that when they tear up the streets once, you don't come back and tear them up again in the same scope, but I totally understand why it wouldn't be necessarily.

Thank you.

CHAIR BRYANT: Other questions or comments?

Very well. Thank you very much.

MR. GLUCKMAN: Thank you.

CHAIR BRYANT: As you can tell, we're very interested in this project.

We will now return to the open session agenda and take up our one matter.

AGENDA ITEM NO. 5

ACTION ITEM WITH PRESENTATION

AGENDA ITEM NO. 5A

JOINT BASE MYER-HENDERSON HALL

CHAIR BRYANT: Agenda Item No. 5A is

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the proposal for a new security fence at Joint Base

Myer-Henderson Hall. It was proposed to us by the

Department of the Army.

I will note, again, our thanks for the folks at Myer-Henderson Hall for entertaining us this morning and providing a firsthand view of the project.

Mr. Hart, welcome.

MR. HART: Good afternoon, everyone.

Fortunately, we had a fairly nice day for our trip this morning. So I think it was good to kind of walk out there and see the site, kind of see everything, where things are located at.

I think that the Commissioners that went enjoyed kind of getting that perspective and understanding that and had quite a number of questions.

Excuse me. Actually, allergies have caught up to me, so I'm trying to -- hopefully,

I'll be able to get through this pretty well.

So good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission. The Army has submitted

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preliminary site development plans for a new security fence at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, which is located in Arlington County, Virginia.

The project was last before the

Commission in December of 2017. At that time, the

Commission provided comments on the content design and the Army has made some changes and provided staff with updates on the project, and I'll go through these in the presentation.

So the purpose of the new security fence project at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall is to secure its eastern border it shares with Arlington

National Cemetery.

And you see the Arlington National

Cemetery here and the red line is the actual location of where the fence will be located.

The Army states this security project is necessary to meet anti-terrorism/force protection requirements for the base because the military district Washington headquarters, a number of generals' residences, the Joint Force

Command and the Old Guard are all important

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functions that are located there.

There is an existing four-foot boundary wall that separates these two federal properties.

The cemetery -- both the Arlington

National Cemetery and Fort Myer are historic districts that are listed in the National Register.

So here's the overall site plan for the entire two-mile-long length of the fence. To orient you, north is to the left on this slide.

I've also identified several areas, including the Memorial Chapel, the Old Post Chapel and the Millennium Expansion area.

I'll just note that the Millennium expansion area was a project that the Commission approved in July of 2013. Actually, we saw that on the tour. It's actually completed.

There are several components here, including the new fence, which is, again, shown in red, there are five gates, some new landscaping, a new plaza, a new parking area on the southern portion of the installation.

And this fence project, I'll just note

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that the fence project was not included in the 2013

Installation Master Plan.

So as some of you saw this morning, and some of you may remember from December, this four-foot historic boundary wall has separated these two federal facilities for over a century.

It was built during the mid to late

1800s and is made of red Seneca sandstone for most of its length.

Another portion of it, as you see here, transitioned to a stone towards the southern portion of the site.

The historic boundary wall is important because it is identified as a contributing element to the Arlington National Cemetery historic district.

I'll also note that there are some problems with the wall, including some of it is no longer structurally sound due to its age and poor construction.

So before I get into the project, I'll note that the Commission raised several concerns

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with the concept design.

These concerns primarily focused on the alignment of the fence and views of the fence to and from Arlington National Cemetery.

There were some other comments, as well, with regard to the landscaping and the parking lot.

So with this presentation, I'll focus on these items: The fence design and alignment, views, a viewshed study, entrance gates and the landscaping.

So first, I'll discuss the fence design and alignment. In December, the Commission requested the Army provide an analysis of alternatives, alternative fence locations, including a fence on or next to the existing historic wall.

The Army has noted that the historic wall is actually on Arlington National Cemetery property and it would be unable to construct on the wall itself.

The Army discussed this possibility

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with the cemetery and they did not want there to be a fence on their property because it was really not their security concern. This security concern, as I said earlier, is really the installation's concern.

In addition, the Army states that the new fence needs to be far enough away from the wall to keep people from using it to scale the new fence, and this distance is also needed to provide security personnel with adequate sight lines.

The Army is proposing, approximately, a ten-foot separation -- and this varies depending on where you are, but it's approximately that -- between the wall and the new fence.

And finally, the historic wall is not structurally sound enough to allow the construction on top of it without having to kind of take it down and rebuild.

The staff appreciates the information that the Army has provided and finds that the submission includes sufficient information to justify the distance between the proposed security

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fence and the new historic wall that's located between these two federal facilities.

So here was just the image of the detail in the fence in Slide 8. I'll note that the Army has proposed -- had proposed in December, a curb at the bottom of the fence during the concept review. But on further consideration, the Army has removed this curb because of potential impacts to tree roots as it would have to navigate between the trees, and that it could affect the stormwater management by blocking the water -- surface water flow. So that's all part of the project. There's just grass underneath it.

So regarding the alignment, and this one is -- I found a couple of slides. This slide is just to show that the Army has taken a second look at the fence alignment.

This is what was being proposed during the concept design, and you'll note that it's got somewhat of an abrupt change. And this is due to the Army not wanting to impact trees, and you can see this is highlighted in pink.

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And I'm showing you this portion of the fence primarily because this is the portion of the fence alignment that actually did the most movement. It has -- it was really kind of almost a zigzag around some of the trees.

The rest of the alignment is fairly, actually, straight either both south and north.

And I'll note that this is actually between two gates; Selfridge Gate, which is to the right of the slide, and Old Post Chapel Gate, which is to the left.

So this is what is -- the Army is proposing now. This is the preliminary alignment

-- or the alignment for the preliminary design, and you can see the difference in this alignment, which is definitely a much smoother movement through these trees.

Again, you'll see this is what was proposed back in December, and this is proposed now.

So I'll also note that the Army has made these changes because they've realized that they

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didn't need to do -- some of these movements, they kind of moved the location of the fence.

The Army did actually look at another alternative. I'm not going to show it, but the alternative was looking at kind of making niches or kind of rectilinear boxes around the -- where the trees were, but that created more abrupt changes and really didn't improve the alignment, so they've gone with this alignment.

Staff finds that the Army has refined the fence alignment in response to the Commission's comments to navigate the trees more gracefully and are supportive of it. So this is what the two alignments look like, one on top of the other.

So with regard to the views, the

Commission requested a viewshed study to understand the impacts of the new fence and gates on historic resources and the views to and from the cemetery, the Arlington National Cemetery.

The Army responded by conducting a viewshed study and included this in their submittal.

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The map here shows the -- there are 21 locations where they provided these views. And

I'm not going to show all 21, but the next few slides will demonstrate the proposed fence, how it will look from these different vantage points.

While staff understands the need for the fence, we also realize that it will impact views to and from the cemetery because it is adding a new element into the landscape.

So what I'm going to show over the next few slides, this is what it looks like now, and this is what it will look like with the fence in the project.

This is actually at Wright Gate. We actually walked over here. It was one of the last stops that we did on the tour. So this is an existing gate off to the very left-hand side of the slide.

And this fence comes off of the -- that existing wall and then it starts going down this hill and kind of parallels the historic wall.

This is, again, what it looks like now.

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This is a view from Arlington National Cemetery.

Again, this is with the new fence. You'll see it in the background. There's an arrow that's pointing to where that fence is, again, now and then with the new fence.

MS. WRIGHT: What -- where are we from

--

MR. HART: This is actually --

MS. WRIGHT: -- on that last --

MR. HART: I'll try to get back to it.

This is actually very close to -- what

I'm doing, actually, is I'm going --

MS. WRIGHT: Going down?

MR. HART: -- I'm going southward towards the end of the gate. So we didn't stop here, but we kind of drove by here.

MS. WRIGHT: Okay. All right.

MR. HART: So the Wright Gate is actually to the right -- to the right of this slide.

MS. WRIGHT: Okay.

MR. HART: So that's kind of north of us. So we're looking kind of west-ish. I mean,

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it's hard to, you know, but it's about west, northwest.

This is another image. This is actually from the Millennium Expansion. The expansion is a new project that I noted earlier, and these arrows are just showing where the top of the fence is seen above the columbarium wall that's been built into the landscape.

You can see the hill that's behind here, and a little farther up from that hill is where we got out of the bus and looked -- had the kind of sweeping views of downtown. So this is much farther down from where that hill is.

This is a view -- we actually were driving on this road next to the Millennium

Expansion, and this is a view where you can see the -- somewhat of a sweeping view in the top portion of this slide, but this is the Millennium Expansion without the fence, and then with the fence.

There's a pathway that's also kind of meandering on the west side of this road that's included in the project as well, as well as some

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landscaping as well.

The arrows are pointing to where the fence is located. So, again, this is the existing, and then where that fence is going to be.

What you also see is kind of a shadow on the pavement from the fence itself. That's why the pavement looks a little dark.

This is -- we actually walked alongside here. There was a bus that was offloading some

-- I think they were Air Force personnel. And so, that bus was just a little bit farther north of this, but this, again, shows you the -- those close proximity of the cemetery to the site. This is with the fence next to the -- closer to where the parking area is.

Now, this is much farther down. We didn't actually drive down here. This is the

Henderson Hall portion of the installation.

So Memorial Chapel Gate, this is actually south of that. So, again, we didn't see this portion of it, but you'll see the fence in the background here on the other side of the wall.

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The circle here is the Argonne Cross, and the Argonne Cross is a memorial to the men and women of the World War I American expeditionary forces who died at the Argonne Forest Region in northeast France. And this is, again, a historic part of the cemetery.

And, finally, here is a view of the new fence as it connects to the existing Gate #3 at the southern-most portion of the project.

As you can see, the fence will affect views to and from the -- from the cemetery and from the base.

It will be located on Joint Base

Myer-Henderson Hall property and set away from the historic wall in an effort to minimize its visual impact and visibility from the cemetery.

Staff does commend the Army for conducting a viewshed study to understand the impacts of the project on the important nearby historic resources.

Staff does find that the viewshed study demonstrates that the proposed fence will not have

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a significant impact on views; however, the fence and gates will negatively impact views toward the cemetery at several entrances. And in a minute,

I'll actually go through the entrances themselves.

This was really primarily looking at just the fence, the proposed fence itself.

So we have a few gates and I'll kind of talk about them in groups. The first two gates

I'll talk about are Millennium and Hobson Gate.

The -- and I'll note that there are these five existing entrances into the -- through the wall.

The Old Post Chapel, Hobson and

Selfridge entrances are defined by historic piers, while the other two do not have these piers.

All of the entrances currently include a metal gate; however, only the gate at Old Post

Chapel entrance is historic.

While the Army included the five gates in the overall design, staff felt that these two were fairly straightforward designs.

And I'll note that all of the proposed

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gates will need to incorporate anti-climb and anti-ram components.

So first, we have Hobson Gate. And

I'll just point you to the -- well, actually, you see the image in blue is actually a map of the entire fence line. That circle with yellow is just showing you where Hobson Gate is with respect to the other gates.

The Army is not proposing a gate at this location as it does not anticipate needing it to use in the future and because the cemetery is using the land on the other side of the wall as a maintenance area which is -- which makes this entrance inaccessible. The Jersey barrier and the pavement will be removed as part of the project.

So this is what it looks like now, and this is what it will look like after the project has been installed.

The old gate I have circled here is in the background and it -- again, it will remain there. It just will be a fence in front of it and some landscaping installed to complete that corner.

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MS. WRIGHT: Could you just back it up to the last slide --

MR. HART: Sure.

MS. WRIGHT: -- again so we can -- okay.

So is there just -- is this just a swing gate?

What is that? I can't tell from the slide --

MR. HART: This is --

MS. WRIGHT: -- if this gate's going to stay.

MR. HART: This is a swing gate that will stay, but it is --

MS. WRIGHT: Thank you.

MR. HART: It looks like it is a swing gate that --

MS. WRIGHT: Yeah.

MR. HART: -- that's existing. And there will be no gate on the --

MS. WRIGHT: Got it.

MR. HART: -- on the Joint Base

Myer-Henderson wall side.

MS. WRIGHT: Okay.

MR. HART: And as you can see, there's

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a green wall behind there.

MS. WRIGHT: Yeah.

MR. HART: So that's the Arlington

National Cemetery side and that's where they have, actually, walled off a maintenance area for their own purposes. So there is no kind of way to get to it from the other side. So this is, again, what it will look like and this is getting a little bit more detail.

The Millennium Gate, which, again, we

saw, is not a public gate and it sits behind the

Old Post Chapel. It is typically only used for emergency vehicles.

The wall in this part of the cemetery was built, actually, as part of the Millennium

Expansion project and is not a historic portion of the wall.

For these reasons -- and you can actually see this in a little bit more detail, I don't know if you -- I don't know if you can see the -- I don't know if you can see the image over here to the right. The arrow is where that new

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gate is proposed, and this is the new fence.

Staff is supportive of this as it is really not a very public location. It's not an historic portion of the wall. And so, staff didn't have any comments on this particular gate.

So that leaves the other three gates; the Old Post Chapel Gate, Selfridge Gate and

Memorial Chapel Gate.

And we did have some comments on these gates and these are in the historic portion of the wall.

So after reviewing the significant materials, staff found that while the proposed security fence and slide arm gates would have a negative impact on the historic entrances, there is an opportunity to minimize impacts by creating more defined entrances through the design of the fence and the gates, and I'll step through each one of these in a little more detail.

So first, we have the Old Post Chapel

Gate. This is a view from the parking lot. The

Old Post Chapel is to the left of this slide. We

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actually walked through this gate and looked, you know, kind of back towards the base.

Again, you can see where this is located on the -- the map in the background on the -- where it's located on the base itself with that yellow circle and the red arrow.

The metal gate here is historic and it will remain. The Army is proposing an anti-ram slide arm only for this entrance. And again, this is because the existing gate will be used for the anti-climb portion of the site -- of the gate, and the anti-ram portion will be this new slide gate.

Just for a little bit of background, this is an important location because the Army notes that about four funeral services occur at the chapel each weekday, and they are estimating about 70 vehicles -- so four times 70, 280 vehicles passing through here daily -- the caissons that use the gate to access the cemetery during funerals as well, and this is the only gate that actually has a guard posted in it.

Given the close proximity of the gate

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to the historic Old Post Chapel and the fact that it's the most public of the gates, staff did spend some time analyzing the visual impact of the new gate.

So, the Army provided this photo simulation to show the view of what the gate would look like when the gate is closed.

And what I'll not here, is that you can see the existing historic gate that's kind of in the background, and so the new part is just that

-- the kind of larger, thicker, horizontal piece.

That is the anti-ram portion.

It is rather heavy looking and the -- you can see this as it's closed, but I will note that this condition will only be -- it will only be closed at nighttime. During the day, it will actually be open as is the historic gates will be open as well with the person -- guard standing there.

We did note that an alternative security element that is less visually impactful may be more appropriate given this important

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location.

Staff considered alternatives for the security at this entrance. We did consider retractive bollards and the slide arm -- the proposal that's before you, which is the slide arm gate.

So, retractive bollards could be placed in this -- in front of the historic gate and between the historic piers. And as with the slide arm gate, they would also be raised at night and that would eliminate any visual impacts during the day. So what you see here would be what is visible at night.

And this is the slide arm as it has been retracted or moved to the right out of the way of the view towards the historic gate.

Staff finds that because the historic gate will remain, there is an opportunity to address anti-ram security through the use of retractable bollards between the two piers, minimizing impacts to the historic wall and other historic elements.

However, there is one important issue that the Army raises -- actually, they raised

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several issues.

One of them is that they did -- the Army did provide us with information that they had used historic bollards in the past at the base, and they find that they are -- the functionality of them is an issue.

And they note that because of this location, if one of these -- or several of these bollards are not able to retract, then they may have problems trying to get the funerals through the gate, and they really are trying to make sure that they have that -- the functionality is still there.

So this is a critical concern for them and it could adversely impact the use of this site.

And they are also noting that the slide arm does not have the same operational concern.

So they have raised, and they raised at the December meeting, that there may be basing issues with the caissons coming through the gate as well.

The horses having to go over the plates

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that sit on top of the retractable bollards, that could be somewhat of an issue and we just note that as well.

But because the gate is an important public location or connection into the cemetery, it's used for four funerals a day and approximately

280 vehicles, buses and cars, we just felt that it should be operationally reliable.

And so for that reason, staff would be supportive of a slide arm, and the fact that the slide arm would be out of the viewshed during the daytime, it would only be visible at night.

So, therefore, staff does support the

Army's proposed slide arm security gate at this entrance recognizing that the bollards are an aesthetically better option; however, the slide arm provides the reliability that the Army says it needs for this public entrance. So this is what the view is when the slide arm is actually open.

So the other gates we analyzed are

Selfridge and Memorial Chapel. Selfridge Gate, which you see here, is approximately 1200 feet from

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the Old Post Chapel, about a quarter mile or less, and about equidistant to the Memorial Chapel Gate.

It's only accessible by authorized personnel, and we actually did see an emergency vehicle go through there as well. So there are approximately 200 vehicles that access this gate on a daily basis.

This is mostly used by the Old Guard, and the Old Guard is responsible for guarding the

Tomb of the Unknowns, as well as attending funerals at the cemetery. There are historic piers in this entrance, but the gate itself is not historic.

The Army is proposing a new, small seating area here next to the Bakers Creek Memorial.

And this memorial commemorates the worst accident involving a transport plane in the southwest

Pacific during World War II. It was approved by

NCPC approximately ten years ago.

And, again, this is the proposal with the fence coming up to where this gate is, and then the slide arm gate. And this slide arm gate actually has both anti-crime and anti-ram features

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because the gate behind it will be open.

So Memorial Chapel Gate is shown here.

Normally, it's closed during the day and only used for large funerals. And these take place -- these larger funerals take place at the Memorial Chapel, which is about two or three hundred feet to the north of this gate.

We stopped by this gate -- actually, this was the first gate that we stopped at this morning.

Here is a proposal for the Memorial

Chapel entrance. This includes a new fence, a gate, as well as landscaping. The existing gate will not be used.

In both of these locations, Selfridge and Memorial gates, it appears as if there is a continuous fence along the entrance with an anti-ram gate across the bottom.

We find that the proposed design does not create a gateway element at either location, but rather an image of a continuous fence line.

Staff initially considered

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incorporating -- the possibility of incorporating piers into the -- into the wall, but we understand that -- which would have reduced the visibility of it.

But, fortunately, the Army has stated because the wall itself and the piers are under the jurisdiction of the Arlington National

Cemetery, that would not be possible. So this gate will have to be set back from the historic wall and gate.

And by comparison, the -- you can see the historic wall incorporates piers that are taller and larger than the wall itself at several locations to help differentiate these entrances from the existing historic wall.

And so, this is the kind of comparison, the existing and the proposed between the Selfridge

Gate on the left and Memorial Chapel Gate on the right.

Staff believes that piers shown on the

Selfridge Gate help to define the entrance along the wall by creating a special feature along the

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length of the wall, and the Memorial Chapel Gate doesn't actually have these.

And neither of the proposed gates, which, again, are on the bottom, incorporate these.

And, therefore, staff would request the Army consider the use of piers, posts or other elements to clearly frame the gates and explore additional design details that will help differentiate the gates from the proposed fence.

And again, these are just ideas -- just some sort of vertical element that we would like them to consider.

So staff knows that the Army is continuing to work with the landscaping to ensure that there is a coordinated design that balances the need for both security and the campus planting guidelines, and notes that the Army will submit a more developed design with its final submission.

Staff also finds that a proposed plaza adjacent to the Memorial Chapel, which you see the plaza -- there is a design here on the left. The

Memorial Chapel is the image on the bottom.

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We feel that this is a positive addition to the landscape and the events held at the chapel.

And regarding the Commission's comment that the Army need to meet stormwater management requirements, the Army states that it will comply with these standards from the state of Virginia.

So with that, the Executive Director's recommendation is that the Commission approve the preliminary site development plans for the new fence with the exception of Selfridge and Memorial

Chapel gates, which need additional requirements.

And for the fence design and alignment, we find that the new fence design does not -- excuse me -- does navigate the trees more gracefully.

And just to save time, I'm not going to read all of these, but regarding the fence, the entrances, in general, we find that since the fence can't be incorporated into historic walls or piers, that it will have a negative impact on these historic entrances; however, we see an opportunity to minimize these impacts through creating a more defined entry expression.

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And we make the following comments on several gates, including Old Post Chapel, which is a public location, the funerals at an approximate

20 to 280 cars, considered to -- we've considered two options; the retractable bollards and the slide arm gate.

Both of these proposals would be closed at night so that use during the day would be less impacted. Bollards would be less impactful than the slide arm, but they have maintenance and operational concerns that the Army has raised.

Given the high public use and the need for operational reliability, a slide arm gate option is more reliable, and we support the slide arm gate that the Army is proposing at the Old Post

Chapel location.

With regards to the Selfridge and

Memorial Chapel gates, we understand that the

Selfridge Gate is used by up to 200 cars daily, and the Memorial Chapel is visible along Carpenter

Road, which is the main connector road between

Henderson Hall and Fort Myer to the north and

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they're both next to the historic wall.

We believe that the fence and the gate are not differentiated from each other well and they need -- and they kind of blend together, so it is staff's recommendation that the Commission request the Army to consider the use of piers or other elements to help frame the gate and explore other design details that will help differentiate the gates from the fence.

For Millennium and Hopson entrances, we find that Millennium is not in a highly-visible area and will only be used by emergency vehicles.

And Hopson Gate would be closed, and staff does support these -- both of these gates.

With regard to the views, we commend the Army for conducting its thorough review. And while there will be definitely visual impacts, the most negative impacts will be -- that we're thinking would be from the gate -- from the gates as viewed from the base itself.

And finally, regarding the landscaping, note that the Army is continuing to

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work on the landscape design.

The Memorial Chapel is a positive addition to the landscape and the Army states it will meet the current stormwater management for the -- for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

And with that, that concludes our presentation and I'm available to answer your questions. We have a representative from the Army and that's it.

CHAIR BRYANT: This is an awful project.

(Laughter.)

CHAIR BRYANT: I mean, if you were looking for a way to fortress and destroy a pretty, serene place, you have hit on it. This is just awful.

Sorry, Mr. Rhodes.

(Laughter.)

MS. WRIGHT: I'm glad you said that.

CHAIR BRYANT: Jeez Louise.

Others: Mr. Gallas?

MR. GALLAS: I'm going to start

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positively.

I do appreciate the effort to minimize the tree loss. I think that we do appreciate the response that you all -- and the thoughtful response that you've made to that because the trees -- when you go out there, you realize the importance of how the trees add to this historic character and just kind of the grandeur of this place in a very important way.

Now, the trees will sort of be in between the wall and the fence, but they'll still be there, and I think they'll lend great character to what we're doing.

Can we go to Slide 28? Let's start with the Old Post Chapel Gate. What occurs to us here

-- or me here, is that, for the most part, this is what people will see, you know.

People are coming out of the chapel, entering the Arlington National Cemetery and that

-- this is what they'll see, not the closed condition.

I think the closed condition is, for

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the reasons you've stated, it's after dark, nobody is going to see it, the fact that it looks like a bunker won't be seen by anybody.

It will provide the safety it needs to, but it does beg the question of, possibly, could we add landscaping over to the right so that this condition that will be most of the time when we're awake and when we're observing and using this gate, we could hide that big, ugly.

And it wouldn't be hard, and I think there's room to do it, so that would be certainly a, you know, a question to try to -- you know, ultimately, this is the historic gate and I will say, kind of generally, that all of the three gates we're about to discuss, the designers and the builders of the original wall and the piers really got it right.

It looks so great, and that's why what we're comparing it to here with our fence is, unfortunately, what you're commenting on,

Commissioner. So that's my first observation.

I don't know. Do you have a comment

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on that one before we go to the next?

CHAIR BRYANT: You're Mr. Nein, right?

MR. NEIN: Yes. Brett Nein, landscape architect with Jacobs.

CHAIR BRYANT: Thank you.

MR. NEIN: Yeah. I'm looking at it on the plan and you're correct. There's enough space without interfering with the circulation of the caisson, because that's their staging area prior to the ceremony.

There is enough area that we could modify the curb line to create a strip that looks to be about five feet wide that we could do a shrub

-- planting in there that would allow for that screening of that open condition.

MR. GALLAS: Thank you. That would be great.

I'm going to -- I'm going to defer on the Selfridge Gate to my fellow Commissioner, but

I would like to go to Memorial Chapel Gate. I think that's number 34.

This is another one that, you know, we

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have this really, kind of, gentle treatment of piers and the wall at this location.

And I don't think, necessarily, that the amount of use of this gate is the relevant factor here. I think it's the aesthetic that we're focused on.

And, again, if the -- if the gate has to be a sliding gate -- I'm not a security expert, so I'm not -- I'm going to trust the experts, but we did have a -- I think a pretty good and extended discussion while we were out there about the opportunity to create piers that represent this gateway that I think the staff is also recommending.

I'm not sure I love the kind of black monolithic in the exhibit, but something more elegant, obviously. But to be able to kind of connect the honor that which this wall is currently built and to sort of amplify it or, you know, respect it in a way that this current very conceptual design doesn't do that.

So we're hoping when you come back, you think a little more about how you develop that

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notion of announcing the entrance and showing that kind of connection and the respect that the wall brings to these gate openings. Appreciate that.

CHAIR BRYANT: Ms. Wright.

MS. WRIGHT: I'm so glad you said that,

Chairman Bryant, because I feel the same way.

Going out and seeing it made it worse for me.

I just have to say I think it's -- I understand the problem, but I wish it wasn't so that the cemetery and the base couldn't work together on a solution.

Even though it's a historic wall, I think a treatment -- a sensitive treatment with a fence on top of the wall would even be better than this because there are junctures that make you think that we've all lost our minds that -- and can we go to the next gate?

MR. NEIN: Selfridge.

MS. WRIGHT: Yeah. Sorry.

I'm not -- for the record, I am not convinced at all that retractable bollards are an unworkable solution.

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I know they can be temperamental, but it is a two-lane road. And I also understand the obvious emotional consequences for people who are geared up to go in to bury their loved ones. That would be an awful thing to be stalled because of a bollard, but I am -- remain unconvinced that all of them across the width of two lanes would fail at once and make that an impossible solution. I just don't buy it operationally.

I do, however, hear the business about the horses. I understand that, but I think that technology is improving all the time and certainly a hoof-proof retractable bollard must exist.

Having said all that, if we take as a given that this must be -- because we did the same thing at St. Elizabeth's to similarly tepid results, this is a beautiful gate and I just can't imagine why we can't have a swing gate -- and I understand the security issues -- there you go.

Can you blow that up a little bit?

MR. HART: We don't use those terms here.

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MS. WRIGHT: Oh, sorry. Enlarge.

Thank you.

I don't understand and I -- well, I don't necessarily -- I don't want to say I don't believe; I don't agree that a combination of tire strips and a swing gate can't do the job here.

All right. I think putting another one of these awful slide arm things here is just to be avoided at all costs.

I would still like to see more design development for alternatives on all three of the gates that we've looked at, but this one seems to be the most likely candidate for compromise, and

I think if we can, we should.

They're just -- and why -- I think landscaping -- we talked about this on the way back, but of course, you know, some evergreen shrubbery is better than looking at these crossbars, but somebody -- what's the name of the crossbar company that we saw a little cut sheet before?

MR. HART: I think it was Hayridge Gate

(phonetic).

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MS. WRIGHT: They really need to up their game because there's a -- there you go. The

Tymetal Corporation, they need -- they've got some design work to do. It doesn't have to be this bad.

MR. HART: I think we can easily modify the fence component, but those bars are the engineered --

MS. WRIGHT: I understand.

MR. HART: -- vehicular barrier that is --

MS. WRIGHT: That's why I'm saying I

-- for the Selfridge Gate, I -- please try to -- try to avoid the Tymetal Corp on this gate. They're making enough dough on the other two gates. I just

--

MR. HART: These were examples. We weren't specifying how to do that one.

(Laughter.)

MS. WRIGHT: I just think we owe -- we owe the landscape a little bit more effort. I really do.

It's really not a -- it's not grand,

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it's not -- the wall, I'm talking about now, the original wall -- but it does the job and it does it very elegantly for something so simple.

And so a simple response to the -- that gate, I think, if you could figure out some way to combine security apparatus in a way that allows that gate not to have this big crossbar would be a nice gesture.

MR. GALLAS: You could call

1-800-GATE.

(Laughter.)

MS. WRIGHT: I should say I don't hate it so much that I'm going to vote against it, but

I'm this close.

MR. NEIN: I understand.

CHAIR BRYANT: Mr. May.

MR. MAY: I can't add anything. The

Chairman set the tone for this. I mean, I understand the need, but it's really just an unfortunate thing. So I'll leave it at that and no specific comments beyond that.

CHAIR BRYANT: Mr. Rhodes.

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MR. RHODES: Mr. Chair, I would just note two points.

One, certainly that the EDR is not approving preliminary for the two gates. So -- and the staff is very consistent with the comments of the Commissioners, which is something that can be addressed and we could do preliminary filings for the next one should it be deemed satisfactory to the Commission.

So all the comments here are consistent, really, in general, especially with

EDR with the two primary gates are concerned on what other approaches to work and a great idea for the landscaping for the Old Chapel Gate.

The other one I would just -- the other point I would just highlight is certainly if you

-- I think if you noted in the mockups of the -- how the gate might -- how the fencing alternative might look across the perimeter, the challenge here, of course, as we all know and that they're working on tourist - you've got general open -- for the most part, open, public cemetery on one

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side and then a federal military installation on the other side.

So I was always struck by the presentations of the fencing from the inside of the cemetery where the mass of population will be going openly and seeing it, and that's a very different view.

When you have that old, historic, block stone fencing that's in there and a little bit of rise of fencing beyond it, I think it's just a very different view and that -- when I saw those pictures, I really just don't see the concern raised from that perspective.

Certainly, it is much -- a bit more garish and also from the military side, from the installation side, but that's where you get the control population that has a different perspective on it, possibly.

So I think I would just call out that when you look at the views that are presented from the public cemetery portion of it, I don't think the view is quite as impactful from the impact of

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the fence, but I don't know if we're at a point of any other conversation or point of recommendation, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR BRYANT: Comments?

MS. WRIGHT: Just for grins, was there ever -- did the two entities ever explore a combo build?

MR. HART: One on top of the other?

And actually, the -- and I'll say that the Army has had a number of conversations, actually, for years --

MS. WRIGHT: Yeah. That's what I figured.

MR. HART: -- about -- because I actually -- I remember, actually, several years ago starting a discussion -- not me starting it, but being part of a discussion on what to do about this.

MS. WRIGHT: Yes.

MR. HART: And I have to say it has transformed mightily since the very beginning.

MS. WRIGHT: Okay. Yeah.

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MR. HART: At one point, they were looking at possibly having a glass or a -- some sort of, like, transparent kind of wall that was somewhat over -- on top of the -- on top the wall itself that would be -- but it was all like -- it would have all been something that was designed specifically for this project. It was not something that you get a cut sheet for.

You were looking at, you know, a very

-- a fairly expensive, you know, item because it's a unique item that is only designed for this --

MS. WRIGHT: Uh-huh.

MR. HART: -- but we've moved from that. There were -- there was quite a bit of discussion about having a fence on top of the wall.

And the problem that you run into is -- and I --

MS. WRIGHT: Yes.

MR. HART: -- think I said this earlier, is it's not only that it's kind of an ownership issue, but you have -- the wall itself is not structurally sound enough, so you'd have to then take part of it down --

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MS. WRIGHT: You'd have to take it apart.

MR. HART: And that would be -- and that, I think, is problematic.

MS. WRIGHT: Yeah.

MR. HART: And maybe that's something that they -- I don't know -- that they would consider at some point, but they are really -- the Army -- the cemetery is not looking to do that because they're basically saying, well, this is something that you're bringing forward, this is not something that we are, you know, necessarily wanting to do for ourselves.

And so, the Joint Base has the issue of, well, then where do we put it? If we can't put it on top of the fence and we can't have something that's there -- and so, you know, then it becomes how much.

And the conversation that we had with them was really, if you make it too little, then how do you not make that an area where all the leaves and the trash and everything else kind of collects.

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And so, then it becomes, well, then, how much --

MS. WRIGHT: And then you can't maintain it.

MR. HART: And then you can't maintain it for, you know, for grass and all the other stuff.

So it's not that it wasn't a lot of discussion about it as it becomes a how do you minimize the impacts to --

MS. WRIGHT: Yeah.

MR. HART: -- the best part that you can? And so, that's kind of where they are.

They're very close to that now, so -- but I think the comments that they've heard today will be helpful for them moving forward.

CHAIR BRYANT: Discussion or comments?

Hearing none, is there a motion for EDR?

MR. RHODES: Mr. Chairman, I make a motion for approval of the EDR and noting that there is a comment on the landscaping for the Old Chapel

Gate, which has been recognized. I'm sure it will be considered.

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MR. NEIN: I drew it in when we were talking.

(Laughter.)

CHAIR BRYANT: So moved.

Is there a second?

MR. GALLAS: Second.

CHAIR BRYANT: A reluctant second.

All in favor of the EDR, say "aye."

(Chorus of ayes.)

CHAIR BRYANT: Opposed, no.

MS. WRIGHT: "Aye" with tone.

(Laughter.)

MR. NEIN: Thank you.

CHAIR BRYANT: That ends today's -- thank you all. After last month's marathon session, this was fairly efficient, so thank you very much. See you next month.

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter was concluded at 3:17 p.m.)

[INSERT - NEW SECURITY FENCE]

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[NSERT - LETTER FROM CARLTON ROBERT DUFFY]

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