Politics & Government
City Offers Waterfront Compromise to Old Dominion Boat Club
A nine-point plan was offered and made public for the two often quarreling groups to reach consensus on appropriate waterfront redevelopment.
The City of Alexandria has extended an olive branch to the Old Dominion Boat Club in the form of a nine-point plan that the city says is comprised of significant concessions to the members-only boating group located at the foot of King Street.
The two parties have been at loggerheads over property rights and other issues as the city moves forward with implementing its renovation of the riverside.
The city said its compromise proposal is the culmination of reviewing nearly eight years of negotiations and is based on a framework solution reached in late 2011 when the club and city officials agreed on eight of nine points.
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“The city believes this proposal addresses these issues in a fair and equitable way,” according to a city statement. The boat club has not yet offered comment on the matter.
The proposal offers that:
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Wales Alley and the Strand remain public thoroughfares with the city determining the traffic and other usage regulations while ODBC has the same rights and restrictions as the general public.
ODBC’s parking lot will connect to the Strand, which will remain connected to the city’s street network.
The city would like to acquire the parking spaces on the Strand from ODBC at a fair market value rate.
The ODBC parking lot would be regraded with flood control structures in line with the flood mitigation measures in the city’s Waterfront Plan area.
That parking lot also would be altered to a footprint of 11,500 square feet so the public could better acces the Potomac River and a public plaza can be constructed on the Strand side of the club parking lot. Boat storage would be moved to an off-site storage facility.
ODBC will help in repairing the storm sewers nearby.
The chain link fence will be removed from the parking lot area with new, more appropriate fencing installed after its approval by the Board of Architectural Review.
Change in ownership and land and all transfers between the city would be fee simple “to make land ownership clearer for all in the future.”
Landscape and hardscape treatment would be used in public space areas including the land between 0 and 2 King St.
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