Three Scheme Discussed by Community -- Late May / Early June 2009
CM Graham Helped Get Consensus on Scheme G; DCPL Dismisses Renovation and Scheme
G
Detail of Scheme G:
This is the community's compromise with DCPL's huge Scheme F expansion plans
Scheme G allows a widening of fire safety access; It would help a fire truck
and safety officials access from Lamont Street in behind the library and all
of the apartments lining the Mount Pleasant Corridor.
DCPL's preferred option, Scheme F, blocks any entrance to fire safety officials
from Lamont Street. Chief Librarian Ginnie Cooper is putting her "Building
Program" before Family's lives. Her building program was never discussed
or developed in collaboration with any Ward One residents and community leaders
like ANC's and even CM Jim Graham himself.
Here's some depiction's of possible fire access lane to the rear of the library
~ also showing how Scheme G can provide for this lane without much impact to
expansion.
Remaining Concerns and Suggestions:
- Fire Safety Access: DCPL's preferred option, Scheme F, calls for
a huge expansion all the way from the current building to the library property
line -- pushing the expansion as close as eighteen feet from the surrounding
apartment buildings. Scheme F proposes to block the Lamont Street access point
to the apartment building corridor between 16th Street and Mount Pleasant
Street -- where almost one thousand residents live -- and thus further limit
already poor fire access (see the Deauville Fire).
Scheme G, the community's compromise plan, will allow for good-sized expansion
, and simultaneously keep the fire safety access point from Lamont Street
open. This compromise was formulated with the help of the community and CM
Jim Graham in late May but was dismissed by DCPL as not meeting their "Building
Program." The building program DCPL refers to was something never developed
in collaboration with Ward One library users, residents, and community leaders
like ANC's and even CM Graham himself.
Chief Cooper is putting her building program before that of Ward One resident's
lives.
- Dignified and Welcoming Access: DCPL's Scheme F expansion plans
propose increasing the length and height of the accessibility ramp almost
three times the current ramp, plus it would force library users to enter at
the rear of the library. Ward
One seniors and residents with disabilities are asking for dignified access,
looking at keeping the current ramp which is manageable and allows them to
enter the front of the building.
- Safety and Quality of Life: DCPL is proposing a small garden at
the northwest side of the building adjacent to the proposed accessibility
ramp. With DCPL's security budget shrinking, many library goers who have to
use the ramp will be subject to possible harassment, robbery, or worse as
the garden area provides plenty of places for needy homeless residents and
perhaps burglars to hide, sleep, and defecate. Instead we are suggesting that
DCPL plan to grade this area and allow for handicapped parking, which doesn't
exist at all currently, and to provide the opportunity for fire safety access
from Lamont Street to behind the library.
- Expanding Ward One Library Services: Many residents still feel the
proposed expansion is simply unnecessary. With
almost 3,500 square feet not being used at all or efficiently in the current
building, we want to see DCPL look at a more limited expansion and to
use the current space more wisely. This will allow for the needed safety access
behind the building but we can also use the construction dollars saved to
look at building satellite branches in the Ward. The Mount Pleasant Library
is the only library serving all of Ward One -- we need more buildings to provide
better service to Ward One residents.
