Champlain Street Neighbors: Hotel Study Group is an unincorporated nonprofit association located in the heart of Adams Morgan. We are residents who live on Champlain Street who will be directly affected by a proposed 85 foot high luxury hotel right on our block, directly next to and across the street from our apartments.
We are largely immigrant families who have invested blood, sweat, and tears to make Adams Morgan the hip spot it is considered today.
We have lived through the rough times of this neighborhood and persevered despite crime and poverty so to forge a foundation of diversity and vitality that very few, if any other DC neighborhood possesses. Yet, despite our rich history and investments here, we have been left almost entirely out of the process and discussion of one of the biggest projects in recent Adams Morgan history. Whether purposely or not, our voices have not mattered to local decision makers at all.
The treasured diversity of Ward One and Adams Morgan has already been under attack, but now this luxury hotel project will be take displacement issues to new heights, literally, with a proposal which seems to defy logic for a residential community and threatens our very existence in the neighborhood we helped to build.
There are countless problems with a project of this size and of this proposed use for our families, some of whom have lived here for thirty years.
- A luxury hotel will increase our rents or put pressure on our landlords to evict us and sell their buildings.
- It will bring traffic of major proportions to a street full of kids who attend the two local schools within two blocks.
- Taxis will be streaming up and down our narrow residential street effectively reducing pedestrian safety while giving rise to more exhaust pollution as vehicles idle at the hotel entrance on Champlain Street.
- Hotel waste will pour into our collective sewers and other hotel uses will seriously tax our residential water, gas, and electric utilities.
- The small businesses we patronize will face increasing rents and taxes, forcing them to close and be replaced with chain stores.
- The noise of the 18th Street Party Zone will come further up into our residential community and hotel rooftop shenanigans will keep our families up at night.
- The multi-year construction will literally shut down our street and disrupt our lives in a major way — essentially harassing us out of our homes with nasty construction noise and dust.
We do not want this luxury hotel which has been discussed without any heed of the concerns for our families which will be directly impacted.
We need help! We want to protect what affordable housing and diversity we have left. Can you help us?
Please contact us by email at >>
champlainstneighbors@mailbolt.com
We want our city to adopt these policies, “A Local Officials Guide to Immigrant Civic Engagement“
