Zoning commissioners hear contested transportation review for Wesley Seminary campus plan; DDOT recommends conditions

The Zoning Commission held a continuation hearing on the Wesley Theological Seminary campus plan focused solely on the project’s comprehensive transportation review (CTR). Applicant consultant Daniel Solomon of Grove Slade summarized the CTR updates and the project’s transportation demand management (TDM) and performance monitoring plan (PMP). Erkin Osberg, development review program manager for the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), told the commission DDOT “is supportive of the applicant's proposal in our 05/01/2025 supplemental report.” Opponents including Tom Smith and Blaine Carter of neighborhood organizations urged the commission to require a new, campus‑wide CTR with current parking and trip data. Chair Anthony Hood closed the record except for a limited submission and set the case for the commission’s consideration on July 31 at 4:00 p.m.

The hearing mattered because the CTR and its mitigation commitments determine whether the campus plan meets Subtitle X standards for not creating conditions “objectionable to neighboring property” because of traffic or parking. Neighborhood representatives argued the record before the commission lacks current, campus‑wide data on commuter students and on parking utilization; the applicant and DDOT said the revised CTR, updated access plan and the TDM/PMP commitments address DDOT standards and local concerns.

Solomon told commissioners the transportation analysis shows no net increase in campus population relative to prior approvals once earlier and newer counting methods are reconciled. “As shown here, there is no effective change in the number of students or staff under the proposed campus plan as compared to the previously approved plan,” he said, explaining the shift from FTE to head‑count reporting. Solomon said the current CTR focused on new trips generated by a proposed residential building, and that the most recent submission (March 2025) removed ground‑floor retail, reduced parking and strengthened the TDM and PMP. He listed TDM commitments the applicant agreed to, including unbundling parking costs, EV charging, coordination to allow Wesley students and staff to use the American University shuttle to Metrorail, transit information displays in the new building, a campus transportation coordinator to work with DDOT’s GoDCGo program, free smart trip cards for residents, funding for a Capital Bikeshare station (including one year of maintenance), additional long‑ and short‑term bicycle parking, a scooter corral, and pedestrian improvements. Solomon also said the applicant has committed to a trip cap of “101 peak hour trips” and to include a signal‑warrant analysis at the Massachusetts Avenue driveway in the PMP; if a signal is warranted the applicant would “design, fund, and install it.”

DDOT’s review and conditions. Erkin Osberg summarized DDOT’s May 1, 2025 supplemental report and reiterated DDOT’s conditional support: “DDOT is supportive of the applicant's proposal in our 05/01/2025 supplemental report.” Osberg said DDOT’s recommended conditions include the TDM/PMP commitments listed above, construction of missing pedestrian facilities, adding a Capital Bikeshare station, studying the need for a future traffic signal at the Massachusetts Avenue driveway after the building opens, adding bike racks to the University Avenue playground entrance, and installing a scooter corral. He told the commission DDOT will continue design coordination during public‑space permitting.

Opposition concerns: data age, parking, commuter impacts. Neighborhood representatives led by Tom Smith (representing NLC and the Spring Valley‑Wesley Heights Citizens Association) and Blaine Carter told the commission the CTR is incomplete and relies on outdated counts. Smith argued the CTR “serves as evidence that Wesley’s campus plan is objectionable to neighboring property because of traffic and parking,” saying the CTR was prepared for a prior version of the campus plan and that much underlying data dates from 2020, 2012 or earlier. Carter called the applicant’s TDM “standard boilerplate” and said the PMP is based on old and limited data. They emphasized the absence of a parking utilization study and the lack of semiannual parking reports that Smith said were required by the current campus plan. In the hearing they cited historical figures: the campus currently has about 174 parking spaces; the applicant originally proposed roughly 391–394 spaces in earlier filings, then revised downward; the current proposal includes 295 spaces for campus use, and the proposed residential building would receive 187 of those spaces while other campus users would share 108. Smith and Carter also noted that commuter students historically have constituted the majority of Wesley’s student body and, citing the 2011 data used in the older campus plan, that commuter students drove alone at a high rate when that study was done.

Commission response and next steps. Commissioners thanked the parties for focused testimony and asked for documents and clarifications. Chair Hood directed the opposing party to file their written testimony for the record by noon the next day and said the commission would close the record other than that submission. Hood then scheduled the case for consideration on July 31 at 4:00 p.m. Several commissioners praised the applicant for consolidating transportation information in one record; others said they share neighborhood concerns about parking and that the PMP and TDM should be enforced as filed. No formal vote or final action was taken at the hearing.

What remains unsettled. The principal factual disagreements are (1) whether the CTR’s reliance on historical counts and extrapolated data is sufficient for campus‑wide conclusions, and (2) whether the proposed 295‑space parking program and the proposed TDM measures will prevent neighborhood spillover parking and reduce vehicle trips to the levels the PMP assumes. DDOT’s support and its supplemental conditions mean the agency accepts the CTR for purposes of its review, but the opponents asked the commission to require a new, updated CTR that collects current campus‑wide multimodal and parking utilization data before final action.

The Zoning Commission left the record open only for the additional written testimony that neighborhood representatives said they would file; it otherwise closed the record and put the case on the July 31 agenda for consideration. If commissioners reach further‑processing or final‑action stages, the record shows the commission intends to rely on the TDM and PMP commitments and on DDOT’s ongoing design review and public‑space permitting to resolve outstanding implementation details.