INDUSTRIAL LAND IN A POST-INDUSTRIAL CITY District of ...

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District of Columbia Industrial Areas Study DC Office of Planning Prepared by Phillips Preiss Shapiro Associates, Inc. 4.6.4.2 Distributed Generation Distributed generation (DG) refers to using local sources of energy production and distribution for power, rather than large, centralized facilities like fossil fuel plants. While DG can utilize conventional fuels, its real potential lies with easily obtainable energy from renewable sources like solar, wind, biomass, and tidal currents. DG facilities can generally be installed on buildings, meaning that no additional space is required. Because power is generated close to its where it will be used, transmission losses are minimized. Further, DG eliminates the need for gigantic, highly secure power plants, like the peaking plants found at Benning Road and in Buzzard Point. Instead, these vast swaths of industrial land could be made now available for employment-generating PDR uses. Municipal landfills and sewage plants are man-made sources of methane, or natural gas. Some municipalities have looked at the potential for generating electrical power from methane evolved from landfills. The same potential may exist for a methane-driven power plant capitalizing on waste gas from the Blue Plains water treatment facility. The benefits are twofold—capturing a “free” source of energy, and combusting a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. This alternative energy source could further reduce the need for large “dirty” power plants. 4.6.4.3 Green Buildings, Green Planning Green building and planning standards and technologies are aimed at finding low-energy, more natural solutions to the problems common to all development: heating and cooling, disposing of liquid and solid wastes, managing stormwater flows. While this topic may seem unrelated to industrial land, it does in fact address directly issues related both the efficient deployment of municipal resources and the ability to accommodate future growth without overstressing the District’s infrastructure. As more and more people live and work in the District, demands on the District’s sewers and Blue Plains wastewater treatment plant will grow. Blue Plains has the capacity to absorb this demand, but large rainfall events flood the District’s older combined sanitary/storm sewers and runoff pours, untreated, into rivers. To alleviate this, WASA is retrofitting its system to separate water and storm sewers in the few areas where they are still combined, but additional storm water management and retention strategies should be pursued, especially in industrial areas where runoff tends to be toxic. The Office of Planning guidelines for “green” development in NoMa are important steps in the right direction. Recognizing that intense development could have considerable environmental impacts, OP notes that certain strategies should be investigated to reduce demand on an already overburdened water management system. Strategies could include rainwater collection and reuse (which has the potential to decrease costs for water-heavy PDR businesses), increasing permeable surfaces and decreasing hardscapes like parking lots (car sharing and transit would reduce auto use and space lost to parking lots), and using bioswales and green roofs and other buffers to control, channel, filter, and mitigate runoff. These strategies not only - 109 -
District of Columbia Industrial Areas Study DC Office of Planning Prepared by Phillips Preiss Shapiro Associates, Inc. have positive effects on the bottom line, they also help keep the region’s wetlands and rivers clean, and ensure that the District’s waterfronts remain amenities for residents and attractions for tourists. Riverbank State Park: A Locally Unwanted Land Use Becomes a Community Amenity There is rarely the opportunity to convert a facility such as a water treatment plant into a community amenity. Yet, with Riverbank State Park this is just what happened. As a concession to local activists in nearby Harlem who protested the construction of the North River Water Treatment Plant, the plant that treats most of New York City’s sewage, a rooftop park was sited on top of the sewage treatment plant. The state park, 69 feet above the Hudson River, provides local residents with spectacular views of the Hudson, New Jersey, and the George Washington Bridge. It is also a full-service recreational facility, consisting of five buildings that house an Olympicsize swimming pool, a covered skating rink, an 800-seat cultural theater and an athletic complex with fitness rooms. Outdoor facilities include tennis courts, basketball courts, a softball field, and an eight-lane running track with an artificial turf football/soccer field. At water level, there is a 900-seat amphitheater and boat docks. Currently, it is the only park in the United States using this rooftop model, which was inspired by rooftop gardens found in Tokyo, Japan. More possibilities may present themselves. As an example, green roofs help cool in the summer and insulate in the winter—what if they were combined with active recreation facilities and located on the roofs of large slab-like building such as bus and vehicle garages? 4.7 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE LAND USE DECISIONS While this plan provides a detailed set of land use recommendations based on current conditions in DC’s industrial districts, events will occur that will require decisions to be made regarding particular industrial parcels. This section first discusses the relationship of this report to the District’s forthcoming Comprehensive Plan, and then presents some criteria for judging the merits of future proposals to zone land away from PDR use. - 110 -
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INDUSTRIAL LAND IN A POST-INDUSTRIAL CITY District of ...

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