Group Seeking Alternative Waterfront Plan Urges Broader Look

Citizens for an Alternative Alexandria Waterfront Plan is urging the new mayor-appointed Waterfront Work Group to consider options to a plan calling for up to three hotels and has moved to generate its own alternatives.

“CAAWP and its members believe that the city’s preferred waterfront plan, with its emphasis on three 150-room hotels, does not create a great public riverfront and is not right for Alexandria,” said a letter sent July 20 from the CAAWP to the Waterfront Plan Work Group.

The group said that the main plan currently under consideration by the city “assumes incorrectly” that commercial development is inevitable, public improvements must be paid for by the development, that parks and museums have “no real economic value” and that there are no good long-term alternatives.

CAAWP urged the new workgroup, which is scheduled to hold its inaugural meeting Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the City Council workroom, to “begin your meetings by challenging the validity of these facts."

Additionally, the CAAWP said it has formed 12 working groups looking into other waterfront strategies put together by other cities in the United States. It intends to present a report this fall to “citizens of Alexandria."

“We urge the committee to begin its work by developing a vision for the waterfront that reflects the comments of one thousand or so citizens who spoke against the plan at several earlier hearings, signed the “Don’t Rezone the Waterfront” petition, and have sent emails to the City Council. Perhaps the city should hire a facilitator like the Project for Public Places (PPS) to help define what the objectives of this plan should be,” reads the letter, signed by CAAWP Co-Chairmen Andrew Macdonald and Boyd Walker.