Hearing Set for Permanent Streateries
Now after the COVID pandemic is long gone, the Mayor proposes making temporary structures permanent. Moved by economic hardship restaurants suffered from distance requirements during the pandemic, DC residents extended a helping hand to allow dining in the streets of the city. Needless to say, we always expected to get our hand back. On Thursday, without fanfare or much notice, the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) will hold hearings on guidelines making streateries a permanent part of our city’s landscape.
Streateries are part of the Bike Plan-Road Diet to slow traffic and reduce fatalities by removing traffic lanes and indeed causing congestion. DDOT is searching for novel uses for our asphalt streets. Responding to pressure from the restaurant lobby, streateries allow restaurants and bars to avoid the market rate cost of space by moving the dining area into the streets of the city. Retail stores that do not serve food, on the contrary, will not be allowed to open up shop in the streets. On street parking is also reduced.
Streateries are a health hazard creating breeding spaces for rodents which are already an acute problem in DC. Our guess is that the DC Health Department was not consulted, as it was not consulted on the purchase of plastic trash cans which rodents regularly gnaw through.
Without authorization from DC citizens or the DC Council, DDOT has been quietly preparing its guidelines for three years. Noticeably absent in the regulations is a procedure where residents can reject the plan.
Sign up for testimony today – 48 hours before the hearing Thursday. Please email the PSC Secretary Courtney Williams at Courtney.Williams@dc.gov to register to testify.
What: public hearing on Guidelines for Permanent Streateries
When: Dec 5, 9 am – 5 pm
by Zoom
https://www.gotomeet.me/PSRA-DDOT/public-space-committee
DDOT is using the rulemaking process, which includes a 30-day public comment period and a 45-day Council-review period. The proposed regs will appear in the DC Municipal Regulations (DCMR).
Information on the PSC Hearing is found on its website here: https://pschearing.dc.gov/events/special-hearing-on-the-streatery-program.
Nick DelleDonne
703 929 6656