There’s something very fishy going on along the Georgetown waterfront, and it’s starting to smell really foul.
For at least a decade, Georgetown University has been trying to build a boathouse for its rowing program on the Potomac River just up stream from Key Bridge. The region needs a betterfacility for its burgeoning crew programs, both high school and college teams. Georgetown University wants to build a monster.
There are dozens of good reasons why every environmental group in the region has lined up to oppose the huge building. Hikers, bikers, boaters, birders — every group with any interest in the river and the park that lines it — have come together to oppose to proposed building.
I would pick three:
» Georgetown’s proposed boathouse is enormous. At 50 feet high, it would dominate the shoreline from the river and block views from the trails behind.
» It would block parts of the Capital Crescent Trail and bring vehicular traffic onto a path that has been the domain of bikers, walkers and baby carriages for more than a decade.
» The dealings between the National Park Service and Georgetown University are starting to reek of the same scent that came from the NPS arrangements with Redskins owner Dan Snyder and also its plan to close parts of Beach Drive.
Anyone who has driven over the Key Bridge has been able to gaze down at the Washington Canoe Club that sits to the left of the bridge. A historic building with a trademark green roof, it is a comforting sight that has housed canoes and rowboats for decades.
Now picture a McBoathouse right upstream that would make it look like a shed.
The Capital Crescent Trail has become a regular commuting route from Bethesda and a destination for travelers from around the world. It is one of the premier biking trails in the nation. It took years for community groups to negotiate with the Park Service to create the trail. Why obstruct it now?
The most offensive aspect of this proposed monstrosity is the way the Park Service has handled the process.
Like the deal that allowed Dan Snyder to chop down trees that obstructed views from his mansion, the boathouse involves a land trade. Georgetown would swap a piece of river frontage upstream for the chunk of land for its boat house.
Once again, the Park Service is acting in favor of a private concern, in this case a university, against the needs of the public.
“I don’t know why the needs of a university rowing program trumps the needs of everyone else,” says Eric Gilliland, executive director for the Washington Area Bicyclist Association.
Thousands of Washingtonians wrote letters to the Park Service opposing the boathouse in the public comment process that ended June 15. Hopefully, the Park Service will have the good sense to reduce the size of the building or move it to an alternative site.
Otherwise, we will see baby carriages in front of the bulldozers.
Harry Jaffe has been covering the Washington area since 1985. E-mail him at [email protected].
