Chevy Chase SAP Draft Vision and Goals
Chevy Chase SAP Draft Vision and Goals
The Vision of the Chevy Chase Small Area Plan (SAP) is to focus more environmentally sustainable and equitable growth along the Connecticut Avenue corridor to support an inclusive Chevy Chase community and thriving commercial main street. This vision is rooted in a people-centered planning and design approach that aligns with citywide priorities of housing production, economic recovery, and equity and racial justice. Specifically, the Chevy Chase SAP envisions a corridor that accommodates dedicated affordable housing options, where none exist today.
The SAP will build on the many positive characteristics of the Chevy Chase community to achieve a more sustainable and equitable neighborhood development pattern through the 21st Century. This will occur through anticipated incremental change to the built environment, catalyzed in part by re-imagining the Chevy Chase Community Center and Library to include mixed-income housing.
Developing the Draft Vision and Goals
The draft Vision and Goals were developed by the DC Office of Planning (OP) based on robust community engagement between the months of March and June in 2021, anchored by a series of virtual Visioning Workshops and an online Visioning Survey. In addition to these public engagements, the Vision and Goals were developed in collaboration with partner District agencies and feedback from the Chevy Chase SAP Community Advisory Committee (CAC).
The Vision and Goals will be used to inform the next phase of the Chevy Chase SAP in the fall of 2021, which will focus on urban design and developing specific recommendations intended to realize the vision and goals through the framework of the built environment. The SAP draft Vision and Goals address broader questions of “why” and “what” while the plan’s design considerations and recommendations will address more specific questions of “how” and “where.”
Download or read through the Chevy Chase SAP draft Vision and Goals and feel free to share a comment in the space after each of the six themes, below. Comments are open through October 22, 2021.
Theme 1: Inviting Social and Cultural Character
Vision: Chevy Chase is inviting and accessible to an increasing diversity of residents, workers, and visitors who participate in and contribute to the social life of the neighborhood while supporting a more resilient and connected community.
Goals:
- Maintain the friendly neighborhood feeling valued by all.
- Support opportunities to increase racial and socio-economic diversity of residents.
- Encourage community-focused organizations and activities that better reflect the diverse lived experiences in the community and center those of residents of color.
- Accommodate more inclusive growth in the community.
- Name and seek to dismantle historic practices that preserve racial and economic inequity.
Theme 2. Inclusive Built Environment
Vision: The built environment along the Connecticut Avenue corridor reflects the historic features of Chevy Chase and those valued by the community today, while embracing well-designed and sustainable redevelopment.
Goals:
- Re-envision Connecticut Avenue and its buildings from Chevy Chase Circle down to Livingston Street as a “gateway” into the District of Columbia and the Chevy Chase neighborhood.
- Enhance the positive and successful characteristics of Connecticut Avenue’s west side with thoughtful mixed-use development enhancements, while focusing more residential development and increased commercial activity on Connecticut Avenue’s east side.
- Retain and enhance the human-scaled architectural features of the commercial corridor.
- Promote active facades along Connecticut Avenue and key block corners from Chevy Chase Circle down to Livingston Street.
- Celebrate the mix of architectural styles on the corridor and in the neighborhood with new buildings that complement historic assets like the Avalon Theatre and Chevy Chase Arcade.
- Support a greener and more sustainable public realm throughout the study area.
Theme 3. Re-imagined Civic Core
Vision: The redevelopment of the Chevy Chase Community Center and Library takes a coordinated approach rooted in community engagement to include mixed-income housing and community gathering spaces while strengthening the site’s role as the social and physical heart of the Connecticut Avenue corridor.
Goals:
- Reconstruct the Chevy Chase Community Center and Public Library, visibly demonstrating commitment to design excellence, construction innovation, sustainability, resilience, and climate change.
- Optimize the District-owned property to deliver mixed-income housing with reconstructed public facilities that advance the District’s housing equity goals.
- Ensure equitable access to services and amenities regardless of age, race, identity, or ability.
- Enhance opportunities for community gathering spaces for people to meet, collaborate, socialize, and play.
- Explore design options that enhance the street-level activation of building facades on the site to support the commercial main street.
Theme 4. Equitable Housing Strategy
Vision: Housing options in Chevy Chase is expanded to accommodate a greater range of incomes, ages, and racial diversity that advances the District’s housing equity goals, supports the commercial main street, and enhances the social and economic well-being of the community.
Goals:
- Acknowledge and seek to undo historic and existing exclusionary housing practices to achieve a more equitable distribution of new housing and affordable housing across neighborhoods and the District.
- Optimize the development capacity at the District-owned site for the creation of mixed-income housing in coordination with the reconstruction of the Community Center and Library.
- Explore opportunities for public-private-partnerships on properties including not-for-profit developers to provide more affordable housing.
- Encourage a range of Median Family Income (MFI) levels in affordable housing on the corridor.
- Prioritize a higher provision of affordable housing units in Planned Unit Developments that may be proposed in the study area.
- Encourage accessory dwelling units in low-density residential areas.
Theme 5. Thriving Retail Corridor
Vision: Chevy Chase enjoys a thriving commercial corridor with a convenient mix of neighborhood-serving shops and services along Connecticut Avenue.
Goals:
- Promote independent businesses in the corridor, over larger, franchised commercial enterprises.
- Support a Chevy Chase Main Street brand that includes a retail retention and recruitment strategy.
- Proactively seek to expand the racial and gender diversity of business operators in the commercial corridor.
- Support services and retail options that are age-friendly, physically accessible, and reflect the range of incomes on the corridor today and into the future.
- Support all businesses making use of expanded outdoor opportunities in public and private spaces.
- Expand opportunities to introduce new events and inclusive social activities on the corridor.
- Encourage short term uses like pop-up retail, art display, and event space in transitioning or vacant spaces.
Theme 6. Safe and Sustainable Mobility
Vision: Chevy Chase is a safe and comfortable place to walk, with enhanced and accessible multi-modal transportation infrastructure that support more climate-friendly mobility patterns..
Goals:
- Enhance the experience and safety of roadway users throughout the study area with a focus on pedestrian crossing Connecticut Avenue and accessing Chevy Chase Circle.
- Explore a coordinated curbside management and parking approach that leverages the existing surface parking lots in the commercial corridor.
- Support improved bus service through the community.
- Continue to support planning for future bike lanes and explore expanding bike share and bike parking in public space and private developments.
- Support neighborhood transportation strategies that reduce single-occupancy vehicle trips and minimize carbon output.