Cropp pledges to move city’s long-range plan despite council objections

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - D.C. Council Chairman Linda Cropp pledged Tuesday to end “paralysis by analysis” and move the city’s long-range revamped roadmap to the full council despite objections from at least three members who questioned the timing as one administration makes way for another.

The revised Comprehensive Plan, known as the “comp plan,” has been under development for four years and is required under the Home Rule Act. The draft document, which was delivered to the council in July, is designed to deal with the city’s expected job and population growth through 2025.

“The city has relied on a plan set in 1984—and last updated in 1998—that addresses a shrinking number of residents and jobs, outgoing Mayor Anthony Williams said.

The new plan projects as many as 57,000 new housing units and 125,000 new jobs within the next 20 years.

“Last year, the city captured 10 percent of the region’s job growth, when in the 1990s we were losing jobs,” Williams said. “Our various agencies need a clear roadmap for where this city is going. Our residents have waited four years for this plan, and I don’t think they should wait any longer.”

The plan already has been delayed four times, District Planning Director Ellen McCarthy said.

“I don’t think we need to have paralysis by analysis,” Cropp said.

But Council member and Democratic mayoral nominee Adrian Fenty, D-Ward 4, said before the primary election that he thought the plan’s adoption should be delayed once more—until January. Fenty did not attend Tuesday’s day-long hearing. Democratic Council member and incoming Chairman Vincent Gray, D-Ward 7, and Council member Phil Mendelson echoed those concerns.

Mendelson, D-at large, said he didn’t think a “lame duck” council should tackle the legislation when it already has “an enormous crush of business this fall.”

“The comprehensive plan is unlike any other legislation we’ve had before us,” Mendelson said. “We are able to take this up in January when we have much more time to devote to it.”

Mendelson’s comments caught Council member Marion Barry’s ire. Incoming members already have had the chance to weigh in on the comp plan and would have more chances to do so later, he said.

Of the “lame duck” comment, Barry said “I would hope that we never use that word about anything.”

cmabeus@dcexaminer.com