©Muriel Bowser – Meeting with the students
and faculty at CentroNia in Ward 4.
©Muriel Bowser – At the Austin, Texas City
Hall to meet with city leadership.
News from Muriel
July 24, 2013
Dear
Neighbors:
This weekend, we
will once again welcome world class tennis to Ward 4! The CitiOpen tournament will host its opening
event, the National Parks Community Day this Saturday, July 27th.
I look forward to the addition of the women’s draw this year and
watching the exciting matches in our neighborhood. For more information, please review my
Newsletter.
This week, I attended
the 2013 American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Transit Board
Members Workshop in Austin, Texas to better serve this District as your
representative on the Metro board. In
addition to APTA, I met with city officials in Austin and Houston to discuss
and learn more about best practices. I’m
so appreciative of the city leadership and the African American Chambers in
both cities.
Lastly, I’m
happy to report that the Office of Planning (OP) has made important changes in
its recommendations on parking for the Zoning Code revisions. You may recall that OP had proposed to, in
some cases, eliminate parking minimums for new construction. Instead, all parking regulations will now be determined based on
the zoning for each neighborhood. They will eliminate no parking requirements
for new buildings with less than 10 units and transit zones – areas where
there would have been no parking requirements for all new buildings. Other details of the changes in their
recommendations include:
-
Allows a 50%
reduction in parking requirements in any zone located close to transit: a half
mile from a metro station, or quarter mile from a streetcar line or WMATA bus
route and identified as part of the Priority Corridor Network.
-
Outside of
these areas, in low density residential zones, the one parking space per
property requirement is maintained except where there is no alley access.
These
changes mean that there is no cookie-cutter approach to the parking
requirements. This is what I have been
pushing for from the beginning. Different parts of the city have
different needs and this proposal by OP shows they have finally recognized the
need for flexibility.
The
Department of Public Works (DPW) graffiti abatement team will host a live one
hour chat about graffiti in the District of Columbia on Thursday, July 25th
from 12:00PM – 1:00PM. Find out how to
end the graffiti cycle in your neighborhood!
During this live web chat session, residents will have a chance to
submit to DPW’s graffiti abatement team the address of locations that have been
spray painted with illegal graffiti.
Residents
can join or follow the discussion at dpw.dc.gov/livechat
once the chat session begins.
For more
information, please contact DPW at 202-673-6833.
Each year, Ward 4 hosts the CitiOpen Tennis
Tournament. This year’s tournament will be
held from Saturday, July 27th to Sunday, August 4th at
the William H.G. Fitzgerald Tennis Center located at 16th and
Kennedy Street, NW.
The opening day, July 27th, is also National
Parks Community Day. This day will
include a fun zone with activities and entertainment such as a moon bounce,
inflatable obstacle course, games, face painting, and much more. The first 3,000 residents to register online
or by phone will receive a free reserved ticket. The first 1,500 residents to register will
receive a lunch voucher. To register,
please e-mail Katie Muilenberg at kmuilenberg@lagardere-unlimited.com
or call 202-721-9574.
This year, for the first time in the tournament’s
history, a women’s draw will be added.
CitiOpen has added 1,100 off-site parking spaces at the
former Walter Reed Army Medical base.
They will provide shuttle service at 20 minute intervals. Coupled
with their existing off-site spaces at Van Ness and St. Johns College High School, this
brings the total to about 4,100 spaces.
For additional information about the tournament, players
and tickets, please visit http://www.citiopentennis.com.
To help educate and inform District residents and small
business owners about the affordable, high-quality health insurance options
available to them and their employees under the new health law through DC
Health Link, the District’s new on-line health insurance marketplace, the
Health Benefit Exchange will host a town hall meeting on Monday, July 29th
from 6:30PM – 8:30PM at the Takoma Education Campus located at 7010 Piney
Branch Road, NW.
For more information, please contact DC Health Link at
202-727-3448.
The District of Columbia Public
Schools (DCPS) will host Community Enrollment Hours for July and August where families will be able to enroll their children in DCPS
Schools at convenient locations in their community. On Monday, July 29th, Ward 4
residents can visit enrollment hours at the Petworth Library, 4200 Kansas
Avenue, NW from 9:00AM – 12:00PM.
Student enrollment forms will be
available, but families will need to bring documentation to verify
residence. Families will also
receive 1 FREE movie pass and other DCPS giveaways for each completed
enrollment form.
For more information, please
contact DCPS at 202-442-5885.
On Tuesday, August 27th, Ward 4 residents are invited to
the annual Ward 4 Night at Nationals Stadium to watch our home team, the
Nationals!
For more information and to obtain tickets for this game, please
contact Brandon Todd at 202-724-8052 or btodd@dccouncil.us.
No more than four tickets per household will be allowed. Please include your name, address, telephone
number, and e-mail address with your request.
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