MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. It's one of America's oldest and most historic waterfronts. But, as Alexandria debates the future of its land along the Potomac River, that unique history sometimes feels more like very heavy baggage. Next week, the Alexandria City Council will consider a proposal to redevelop three properties along the waterfront area of Old Town, rezoning the neighborhood to allow new hotels, restaurants and other businesses.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIProponents say it will bring much needed tax revenue while expanding public space, bike lanes and pedestrian access. Opponents say it will create BRAC on the waterfront and ruin the unique historic character of Old Town. Joining us to discuss this is Michael Pope. He is the Northern Virginia reporter with WAMU 88.5 and Connection Newspapers. He's also author of the book "Hidden History of Alexandria, D.C." Michael Pope, good to see you again.

MR. MICHAEL POPEThanks for having me.

NNAMDIAlso in studio with us is Lynn Hampton. She's a member and spokesperson of the group Waterfront4All, which is a citizen group in favor of the proposed plan. Lynn Hampton, thank you for joining us.

MS. LYNN HAMPTONThank you very much.

NNAMDIAlso with us is Andrew MacDonald. He is co-founder of Citizens for an Alternative Alexandria Waterfront Plan. That's a group opposed to the plan. He's a former vice mayor of the city of Alexandria. Andrew MacDonald, thank you for joining us.

MR. ANDREW MACDONALDIt's a pleasure, Kojo.

NNAMDIWe'd be happy to have you join the conversation. Call us at 800-433-8850. Are you an Alexandria resident or frequent visitor to Old Town? Do you think the waterfront is sufficiently accessible and develop? What do you think about new plans for development? 800-433-8850. You can send email to kojo@wamu.org, send us a tweet, @kojoshow, or simply go to our website, kojoshow.org, and join the conversation there.

NNAMDIMichael Pope, I'll start with you. This is one of the oldest waterfronts in the country. George Washington sent off for his first inauguration from one of these sites, but most people seem to agree that the city has not taken full advantage of the acres of waterfront along the Potomac River. What does this plan propose to do, and where will it do it?

POPEPeople in Alexandria have been talking about the waterfront plan for so long, it almost seems like George Washington was part of the original process. It goes back quite some time, but it's going to come to a conclusion next weekend on Saturday when the city council is going to take the -- excuse me -- final vote. What's at -- really at issue here are three sites slated for redevelopment in the upcoming future, and so the plan would overturn a longstanding ban against hotels at these three sites, as well as increase density.

POPEAs processes move through the planning commission, and there was a workgroup that was appointed that looked at the issue and submitted a report -- there are four votes sort of leaning yes on the city council, two votes leaning no. There's one undecided vote. So it kind of looks like the majority is with adopting the plan next weekend. However, opponents of the plan are trying to push to require a super majority of votes on the plan. The...

NNAMDIWhat would be a super majority?

POPEWell, it depends on how you want to do the math, but I believe that the opponents who are seeking the super majority would say that they would need a six-to-one vote. Is that right?

MACDONALDNo. That's correct.

POPESo the -- so, in other words, the opponents of this feel like if they get two votes, that's not a super majority. However, the city attorney's stand on this is that what's being voted on is not a rezoning. It's a text amendment, and apparently, he was saying that there is no process for requiring a super majority on a text amendment versus a rezoning. So I don't think there -- he plans -- or the city's position is that they plan to accept that super majority petition.

NNAMDIWell, we'll avoid the legal weeds for a moment here. Andrew MacDonald, Old Town is arguably one of the most historic downtowns in our region and perhaps in our country. I've seen that many residents of Old Town worry that new plans will somehow change the way it looks, the way it feels. Is that why you oppose these plans?

MACDONALDYes. I think, fundamentally -- I mean, this is sort of you might say an urban renewal in 2012 and that, I think, a lot of the citizens that we represent and talk to and visitors, too, feel very strongly that what we should be trying to do here is develop -- we want to redevelop the waterfront. Everybody wants to do that, I think, but what -- we'd like to do in a more sensitive way and be much more careful to do something that is -- that fits in with the uniqueness of this national historic landmark district. So it's not about not rezoning. It's about how to do it and how to create that vision for that perspective.

NNAMDIWell, Lynn, your group is called Waterfront4All, and it has spoken up in favor of this proposed plan. I guess, from a tactical standpoint, it's easier to mobilize people against a plan that could have unforeseen consequences rather than in favor of a plan. Who exactly is Waterfront4All?

HAMPTONWaterfront4All is a group of citizens. In the June timeframe, when there was a fair amount of misinformation being promoted through the city, for example, they were comparing the changing of these three warehouses to making the waterfront National Harbor. They were having children walk around with signs that said, please don't make the waterfront BRAC. Both of those things have now been proven wrong.

HAMPTONAnd so it's not really brought up again. But when that happened, there were a group of us that go down to the waterfront frequently and see that the waterfront is disjointed, see that there are warehouses, know that the warehouses have by-right development. And we wanted to -- and we think that the city's plan, by allowing 160,000 square feet of additional density does allow for five extra acres of -- five new acres of parks, allows for flood control, allows for a vibrancy connecting all of the areas of the waterfront.

HAMPTONAnd the tax revenues that are generated are generated to pay for this development. And the flood control, the city -- the waterfront floods 150 days a year. So that there would be no burden on the rest of Alexandria that the waterfront itself would pay for itself, and then that allows the rest of the city -- the west end is the area right now that is high in priority to build parks. And it would allow for the rest of the city to be able to benefit from other plans of the city.

NNAMDIBack to the legal weeds again for a second, Michael Pope, what is by-right development?

POPEWell, as I understand it -- and I'm not an attorney -- but by-right development...

NNAMDIWe're making you one today.

POPEBy-right development would be development that would happen outside of any kind of special use permit. So if you own a piece of land, you have rights as a landowner, and there is a certain envelope of development that you could do without having to gain a special use permit. And so that's -- all of these landowners have the ability to move forward with some kind of development on the land that they own, have that legal right.

POPEHowever, I think there was the waterfront work group recent report that pointed out that it's kind of economically not feasible for the landowners to do that because they could end up getting much more money with some kind of process that would involve a special use permit.

NNAMDI800-433-8850 is the number to call. If you're just joining us and you'd like to join the conversation, we're talking about redeveloping Alexandria's waterfront with Michael Pope. He is our Northern Virginia reporter at WAMU 88.5 News, and he reports Connection Newspapers. He's author of the book "Hidden History of Alexandria, D.C." Also in studio with us is Andrew MacDonald. He is co-founder of the group Citizens for an Alternative Alexandria Waterfront Plan, which is opposed to the current waterfront plan. He's a former vice mayor of Alexandria.

NNAMDIAnd Lynn Hampton is a member and spokesperson for Waterfront4All, a citizen group in favor of the proposed plan. You can also send us a tweet, @kojoshow, email to kojo@wamu.org. How would you change the look and feel of Alexandria and the waterfront along the Potomac? 800-433-8850. What, for you, Andrew MacDonald, would make a great waterfront? What do you want to see five, 10, 15 years from now?

MACDONALDWell, just -- first, I just want to say very strongly that, with all due respect to Ms. Hampton, we -- I disagree. We disagree with a lot of the points that she just made concerning the, you know, what their position is and what the benefits of this plan are. The city started out very simply seeking to gain the most revenue they could out of waterfront development, and that all sounds quite good because we all do want to keep our taxes down.

MACDONALDUnfortunately, they put the priority of revenue development above all other elements, including creating great public places on the Alexandria waterfront. So the debate really, for us, boils down to how do -- you know, what is a great public waterfront? And that's essentially what you have asked. And I think the citizens of Alexandria feel it should a number of things, one, that you protect the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay. It should allow public access, affordable public access for families and friendly -- families -- a very family friendly place.

MACDONALDWe feel that hotels essentially privatize the waterfront, as do townhomes and other things. We would like to see a plan that really helps us tell the history of Alexandria more effectively. So what we have done as a group, I think, is not to say we know exactly what the final look of the waterfront should be. We have asked the city -- and we've been doing this, I guess, for the last six months since we released our report. We've asked to have a discussion, a serious discussion about alternatives, and we have never had such a thing.

MACDONALDThe city has never considered anything, except hotels, townhomes and condominiums. And they have essentially said, if we give developers this increase in density, we will get all of these things. We strongly disagree with that position.

NNAMDIWe have heard the disagreements here, and I'm pretty sure -- well, Lynn Hampton respond, and then, I'll...

HAMPTONYes. I'd like to.

NNAMDI...go to Michael because it's my understanding that there are also broad areas of agreement, but go ahead please.

HAMPTONThere really are broad -- agreement. Let me talk about the disagreements.

NNAMDIPlease do.

HAMPTONOK. There are 8.5 acres of 350 acres that are in discussion. The waterfront is approximately 350 acres. Of that 350 today, 150 acres are parks. Fifteen percent of the parks in Alexandria are in 4 percent of the land in Alexandria, and that is on the river. The development that is in these 8.5 acres actually projects -- actually has an additional two acres right in those 8.5, but an additional five acres of parks that are added.

HAMPTONIncluded in the plan are history -- in fact, the historical society in Alexandria has supported the plan. The Parks Commission has supported the plan. The list of organizations that have supported the plan are very long. The current owners of the property have by-right to build office buildings, condos and restaurants. If they build those with their current right, the setback would be 50 feet from the river.

HAMPTONThe entire property today is concrete property. The waterfront plan takes this and makes this into a number of areas that are open to the public and a hundred foot setback on all sides from the river. All of this can be done because of allowing the zoning for a hotel, and these are small boutique hotels. Small boutique hotels have the least traffic impact of condos, office buildings and restaurants because people come in at -- all during the day, and a lot of them come in cabs.

HAMPTONThey don't have two cars for the family. They don't have the car for the people that work for them. And so it's the lowest impact of traffic. As far as taxes from the waterfront plan, in the beginning, it has said that the taxes are generated to be able to pay. It's right in the report. And, in fact, at the council meeting on Tuesday, Councilman Krupicka asked that there be something in the plan that actually speaks and dedicates the -- any of the tax revenues to the waterfront plan.

NNAMDIMichael Pope, now, pray tell, what are these broad areas agreement -- of agreement to which I referred to earlier?

POPEOh, there's lots of agreement on things, like an art walk and some sort of historical interpretive plaques. And there is also broad agreement on doing flood mitigation, stuff like that. Essentially, there's lots and lots of things that are in the plan that people agree on. However, the points of disagreement are very important, and that's -- so the conversation gets focused on the points of disagreement because they really matter and they're very important.

POPEI want to back up just a little bit and look -- and sort of talk a little bit about why we're having this discussion. There are three sites on the waterfront that have long been industrial sites, and those land uses are sort of fading into the past. And so they're -- all three of these sites have redevelopment pressures on them. One in particular is in a parcel known as Robinson North, which is owned by the Robinson Terminal Company, which is, in turn, owned by The Washington Post Company.

POPESeveral years ago, the Robinson Terminal brought a lawsuit against the city saying that the current zoning was illegal and that they actually had a legal right to a larger amount of density, and they were basing that on a settlement agreement that dates back to the 1980s. And so they were saying the 1992 rezoning, which lowered their development envelope, lowered the density, allowable density of the site, was illegal.

POPESo what happened is that the city government, in response to this lawsuit -- the lawsuit ended up shaping a lot of what happened in the plan in terms of increasing this density, getting the potential Robinson Terminal lawsuit off of the backs of the city officials. And the city officials will say in response, for increasing that development, they have asked for all kinds of amenities, public spaces, money. And so it's really kind of a revenue, so the -- this whole debate has been largely shaped by what is going to happen at these three individual parcels.

NNAMDIAnd, of course, you mentioned one of those parcels. Two others of those parcels have to deal in a way with the decline, if you will, in the newspaper industry.

POPETwo of the sites are known as Robinson Terminal North and Robinson Terminal South, which are owned by the Robinson Terminal Company, which is owned by The Washington Post Company. For many years, they used to bring the large paper rolls. I -- when I used to work in a newspaper down in Florida, I loved going down to the basement 'cause that's where they store these gigantic rolls of newspaper.

POPEThey're really fun to sort of walk around, and so I'd love to see them sort of coming up and down the Potomac River as a newspaper person. But the truth is that that's not where things are headed these days and...

NNAMDISo they don't...

POPE...it's my understanding that Robinson Terminal Company has -- doesn't have much use for that anymore.

NNAMDIGot to take a short break. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation. Those of you who have called, stay on the line. We'll try our best to get to your calls as quickly as possible. The lines are filling up quickly, so if you now like to join the conversation, go to our website, kojoshow.org. Send us email to kojo@wamu.org, or send us a tweet, @kojoshow. How would you change the look and feel of Alexandria and the waterfront along the Potomac? I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back to our conversation about Redeveloping Alexandria's Waterfront. We're talking with Lynn Hampton. She's a member and spokesperson of the group Waterfront4All, which is a citizen group in favor of the proposed plan. Andrew Macdonald is co-founder of Citizens for an Alternative Alexandria Waterfront Plan, the group opposed to the plan. He's a former vice mayor of Alexandria.

NNAMDIMichael Pope is Northern Virginia reporter with WAMU 88.5 and Connection Newspapers. He's author of the book "Hidden History of Alexandria, D.C." Before we get to different sides of the issues, we go to a clarification required by Rosemary in Arlington, Va. Rosemary, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

ROSEMARYThank you, Kojo. My question is, I'd like to know where the funding is coming from for the citizen groups that are represented on the call today. That would be helpful in understanding the different positions.

NNAMDIFirst, you, Lynn Hampton.

HAMPTONEach one of the members of the Waterfront4All have written checks. It is not a tax-exempt organization. We've just written -- we don't have very many expenses. We've had a lot of donations of time and Internet talent and Facebook talent, but what expenses we've had, we've written checks.

NNAMDIAndrew Macdonald.

MACDONALDWell, our citizens group, made up of residents of all town and the rest of Alexandria, and so we've done a bit of fundraising just among ourselves to pay for all the things we've had to do.

NNAMDIAnd we will soon, Rosemary, be talking with another individual who is chairman of the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce, which brings me to the question, Michael Pope, of what relevance is this conversation? Are people seeking to determine whether or not these citizens groups or anybody else are in this to win it because they're going to make money off of it?

POPESome people are definitely going to make a lot of money. And those are the land owners of the parcels that will be -- the zoning will change on land that they own. For these three sites that are in question as well as arguably other sites, when this text amendment is made to the zoning, the value of these land parcels will increase very dramatically. And so there are people that stand to gain from this decision.

NNAMDIBut it raises an interesting question for understanding and reporting on local politics like you do. Sometimes the potential financial relationships and interests of leaders are unknown. On the other hand, transparency could also violate privacy, can it not?

POPEWell, transparency is very important in local government. And all the members of the Alexandria City Council are required to file personal financial disclosure forms that lay out their holdings and their financial ties. I've taken a look at these, and the documents don't seem to indicate that any of the members of the city council have any direct financial interest in the properties that we're talking about on the waterfront.

MACDONALDKojo, can I respond to that?

NNAMDIPlease do.

MACDONALDI mean, I think, recently, as you probably know, we, the citizens group, asked the city council and Waterfront4All and planning commission to identify, disclose any financial interest they might have personally with anything to do with the waterfront. And I think it is a very important question to ask because the -- it's clear now from recent -- some recent articles, including the Examiner yesterday, that both the mayor and the vice mayor, who's a vice -- who is a member -- a vice president of the Virginia Commerce Bank, have made significant loans that involve waterfront properties.

MACDONALDAnd so I think there is a real concern among the community that, unfortunately, the private interest of some of our elected officials are coming into play in terms of public policy decisions.

HAMPTONKojo, I'd like to respond to that. I think you heard from Michael that all of the city council fills out these forms and files them with the city. There's transparency. Well, also so anyone that is on a board of the city, including me and others that are on board, also fill out these forms. Transparency is there.

HAMPTONAndrew and their group are trying very hard -- or not very -- they are successfully doing mudslinging, accusing our very dedicated city council and very dedicated planning commission of acting in their own interest and not interest of the community. That is truly an insult to people that work as hard as they do.

NNAMDIThere seem to be -- and believe you -- believe me, Andrew Palmieri, I'm coming to you in a second. But you seemed to be hinting at the possibility, if not of outright corruption at the very least of conflict of interest here. And from what I'm hearing, there is no evidence of that so far.

MACDONALDWell, that's actually not exactly true. I mean, the -- as the Examiner piece pointed out the other day, the vice mayor has had to recuse himself numerous times from...

NNAMDII wish they'd make that assistant mayor instead of vice mayor, but you held that position so you know. But go ahead.

MACDONALDI think the problem is that we have not accused anybody of anything. What we have asked is that for people to disclose carefully and unequivocally that they have no relationship with any of these development projects, that they are not investing things that have -- that overlap with public policy. And I guess the reason we feel that way and a lot of people feel this way is that this entire process began with sort of this idea of how do we generate the immense -- the maximum amount of revenue we can on the waterfront.

MACDONALDAnd what will happen on the 21st, very simply, is that we're going to be giving developers, property owners increased flexibility, increased density with very little control. So essentially what we're doing is we're saying to these folks, you develop the waterfront. You make a lot of revenue. Of course, we'll get some tax base. And you essentially determine the public benefits.

MACDONALDSo, effectively, what's happened is we're abdicating control of our waterfront. We're giving it up. And, unfortunately, the feeling is this has a lot to do with business interest and so on and less to do with creating a waterfront that's...

NNAMDIIn that case, let me bring somebody into the conversation who does have business interest, if you will, because Andrew Palmieri is chairman of the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce. He joins us by telephone. Andrew Palmieri, thank you so much for joining us.

MR. ANDREW PALMIERIGood afternoon, Kojo. It's my pleasure to be here.

NNAMDIThe Alexandria Chamber of Commerce has lined up behind this proposal. Tell us a little bit about why.

PALMIERIWell, Kojo, I think the first thing that I should do, given the conversation you had is in the interest of transparency, inform you that I'm a resident of Old Town Alexandria. And I live within throwing distance of the Potomac River. So I guess as an Old Town resident who lives close to the river, I have a vested economic interest in what happens along the riverfront as do most of the people who are participating in Andrew MacDonald's group. So I think that the conversation has really gotten muddied by that whole conflict of interest discussion.

NNAMDIWell, let's get to some more salient points. What is wrong with the current zoning rules from a business perspective?

PALMIERIWell, first of all, I think it's important that we look at the process that we've gone through in terms of developing the city's waterfront plan or their proposed waterfront plan. And Andrew has brought up on at least two occasions the fact that, you know, the city has developed this plan with revenue as the driving factor. And what I haven't heard in the discussion thus far is the fact that this plan has been the result of over 100 citizen group meetings throughout the city for over two years.

PALMIERIAnd so there has been a substantial amount of process. I have attended those meetings. Andrew has attended those meetings. Other people in his group have attended those meetings. And everybody brought their issues and opinions to bear. And the plan that we're all looking at right now is what you would expect to come out of a process where competing interest are discussed. And, you know, it's not a plan that any one group would say we love 100 percent of that plan. It's a consensus plan.

PALMIERIIt's something that, as a community, we directed the city staff to come up with a program, and this was the program they came up with. Now, in terms of the question that you asked about how zoning could be better for these properties, one of the things that the chamber has held very strongly about is that any development of the waterfront should be economically sustainable. And if we were to go forward without this waterfront plan, each property owner would develop their property by right.

PALMIERIThere wouldn't be the enhancements that Lynn described earlier, many of which Andrew's group agree with. And the support of the infrastructure along the waterfront would not be there because we wouldn't be generating the extra revenue that the density would create to make the waterfront economically sustainable.

NNAMDIWell...

PALMIERIWell, from a chamber perspective, we're very concerned. We don't want to have a situation where we're creating more parkland along the waterfront to the detriment of citizens who live in the West End or Del Ray, who are clamoring for parkland, and we don't have a way to pay for it.

NNAMDIAndrew MacDonald, we've heard the point made that there have been more than 100 public meetings held that you continue to make the argument that this is not -- this Waterfront4All does -- that this is not necessarily transparent. Are you saying that there's a difference between holding a meeting, and in order to say, well, I held a meeting, or holding a meeting, were you actually take participant feedback? Are you saying that?

MACDONALDI am exactly saying that. And I think exactly lots of meetings don’t, by themselves, make a democratic process. And there were two -- there were really two meetings going on. There was one between the city staff, developers and property owners dealing with zoning issues, and there was another meeting with citizens where they said, what would you like to see happen? Well, as long as you agree to sort of have hotels on it and other things like that.

MACDONALDSo, in fact, there were really two meetings go on, and so I think what the real root of the problem here is not that we don't want to see redevelopment, not that we're not interested in the economic sustainability of Alexandria. We feel that this initial point where we sat down and said, what do you want on the waterfront? What would you like to see? And it isn't -- it shouldn't begin with what it'll cost. How much money will you make? Is there a by-right zoning? Those are secondary questions.

MACDONALDAnd I think that the point that we're trying to make -- and with great difficulty against all of the business interest -- is that there is another way to make a great deal of money here long term. In other words, the long-term asset is the historic character of Alexandria. If we develop properly, tourists will come. Tourists have told us time and time again, as they've been signing our petitions, they don't want to see this kind of thing happen on the waterfront. Some of the organizations called the project for public places that do national waterfront development say, the worse thing you can do, so...

NNAMDIOK. We don't have a lot of time, and we do have a lot of callers. What you seem to be suggesting is that we should -- is that the process should start all over again, and what, I guess, I'm going to ask Lynn at this point, is that it seems that if you've had over 100 meetings and if you have evidence that participants in this meeting have had an impact on how the plan has evolved, that the more open you make it, the more meetings you have, the more levers you create for opposition and ultimately the greater likelihood that nothing at all will happen.

HAMPTONYou're exactly right. The tactic of the -- appears to be delay, and delay is a tactic. The first ones of these meetings were literally open mic meetings where citizens of Alexandria came in and said, what do you want on the waterfront? Again, there's 40 acres, right -- I'm sorry, 40 percent of the waterfront right now is parks. We are talking about three parcels. People in Alexandria said they wanted to have vibrancy on the waterfront.

HAMPTONBy giving this boutique hotels 150 room each hotel permission, that gives -- or the zoning authority, that gives the city the ability to control the development, to be able to tell the developers what we need, to be able to control the type of buildings, to be able to control the open spaces. You know, process, due process has an end. Due process doesn't mean I keep processing until you get to my answer, you know?

HAMPTONThis thing, this process has been going on since April of 2009. The planning committee brought the city a recommendation in May of 2011. The city took another step to add more process in June of 2011, and so now we are at the point where we've got a very good plan. It adds vibrancy to the city. It allows the city to be united all, so you can walk all along the waterfront and provides the revenue for flood control and really gives a vibrant waterfront to the city of Alexandria.

NNAMDIMichael Pope, a two-part question. We will get back to the telephones. But, one, what's the difference development and redevelopment? Obviously, a lot has happened in Alexandria since 1791, and a lot of the billings we see along Duke Street today were put up in the '60s and the '70s, when older buildings were torn down. You see that more recent history as being relevant to our current debates, do you not?

POPEWell, I love going through this history of the first public meetings that took place several years ago, and it was a kind of open mic. I like to think of the waterfront plan as dating back to 1791, which is what you're referring to. That was a time when Maryland ceded a portion of the territory to the United States for the creation of a permanent seat of government.

NNAMDI1791 watermark.

POPE1791. So they were doing surveying at the time to figure out exactly where the spot was between the boundary of Maryland and the boundary of Virginia. So they created this watermark, which incidentally was later used by the Nixon administration and a series of lawsuits against landowners to open up public space up and down the waterfront. And most of those lawsuits were settled. There was a series of settlements. I think there were 34 different lawsuits. There were four different individuals that did not settle in those series of settlements -- one of whom, by the way, is the Old Dominion Boat Club.

POPEWe haven't talked about this yet in our discussion.

NNAMDIYeah.

POPEBut the Old Dominion Boat Club owns a very controversial parking lot at the foot of King Street, and it's also a boat launch. It's a parking lot and a boat launch. So the plan envisions a park there, which is a very controversial part of the park because, last summer, the city attorney suggested that the city might use eminent domain to acquire some of the property at the foot of King Street and has since backed down on that. And so now, I know at least one of the no votes, potential no votes, is sort of aimed at that concern over the city might use eminent domain against the Old Dominion Boat Club.

NNAMDIThe second part of my question was, what's the likelihood of this plan being walked back to the beginning and starting all over again? What are the chances, slim and none?

POPESlim to none. There are people -- anti-people, opponents, I guess you would call them, who argue that it should be brought back to the beginning aside from the disagreements that we talked about today. But there's another thing we haven't talked about, which is there was a coal-fired power plant on the waterfront that will be closing sometime soon.

NNAMDIGot that in my notes.

POPEThat's a 25 acre site. That is within the boundaries of the small area plan that the city council members will be voted on. That is not part of the discussion about text amendments or rezoning or what's going to happen with that. The city's position on that is that the coal fire powered plant property, this 25 acre site, should have separate process that's different from the small area plan that will be voted on next week.

NNAMDIGot to go to the phones before I go to break. So here is Ray in McConnellsburg, Penn. Ray, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

RAYYeah. I grew up in Alexandria. I used to take piano lessons on King Street. I mean, I would take -- I would wait till -- well, I'd go to a restaurant in King Street waiting for piano lessons. And that was George Washington's lawyer's office. There was wainscoting there. There was a raised platform. They tore it down for urban -- you know, this is back in the late '50s, early '60s, under Mayor Mann.

RAYThere was a silver shop that was built in the early 18th century, gingerbread all over it. They tore that down for urban renewal. I -- Alexandria does not have -- I mean, this goes back 60 years or so, but it doesn't have a very good record of urban renewal. I was -- in my early teens, I was just astounded.

NNAMDISo you would say just scrap all these plans and, well, leave Old Town the way it is?

RAYI'm sorry? I'm sorry. I can't...

NNAMDISo you're saying scrap all these new plans and leave Old Town the way it is? That would be a yes.

RAYYeah. I -- you know, I think it needs to be done, you know, with some thought. I mean, you know...

NNAMDIOK.

RAY...I don't know about this present plan. I just, you know -- but I, you know, in the -- you know, what I know of Alexandria and its urban renewal, it was terrible.

NNAMDILet me have Andrew Macdonald respond 'cause I do have to go to a break very shortly. Andrew?

PALMIERIWell, I guess there is the question, did Alexandria think long-term when urban rule took place? I don't think they did. They were thinking revitalization. And, unfortunately, I guess not -- well, not unfortunately. What we realize today is that there -- that the most unique aspect of Alexandria is this historic core, and so we don't want to be repeating sort of the lessons of urban renewal, which is quick, thoughtless short-term redevelopment rather than really thinking it out.

NNAMDIIn the ongoing -- and, Ray, thank you for your call. In the ongoing issue of questioning motives, we got an email from Allison, who says, "In today's Washington Post, Patricia Sullivan has a story about Alexandria City Council hopefuls gearing up for elections. City Council elections will be held Nov. 6. As you mentioned, Andrew Macdonald is a former vice mayor of Alexandria. He resigned before the end of this term. Is he planning on filing to run for City Council again? Might he be using the waterfront issue as a platform to run for office? If so, will he disclose that interest today?

PALMIERII have made no decision about running. I doubt very much that I will, and I certainly am not using this as a platform. I grew up in Alexandria. I love the river, and I love the waterfront. I only got involved in this because I could see what was happening, which -- that we were running down a ramp to something that I think will harm Alexandria irreversibly forever.

NNAMDISo much for motives. Michael Pope has mentioned a bunch of issues that we haven't discussed just yet. We'll try to get to some of those and you're phone calls when we come back. 800-433-8850 is the number. You can send us a tweet, @kojoshow, or email to kojoshow.org. And go to our website, kojoshow.org. You'll find all kinds of interesting links there about the sites we're discussing and what's proposed for them. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back to our conversation on redeveloping Alexandria's waterfront. We're talking with Andrew Macdonald. He's a co-founder of Citizens for an Alternative Alexandria Waterfront Plan, a group which opposes the plan. He's a former vice mayor of the city of Alexandria. Lynn Hampton is a member and spokesperson of Waterfront4All, a citizen group in favor of the proposed plan. And Michael Pope is Northern Virginia reporter with WAMU 88.5 and Connection Newspapers.

NNAMDIHe's author of the book "Hidden History of Alexandria, D.C." First -- and also joining us by phone is Andrew Palmieri, chairman of the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce. Andrew Palmieri, according to Waterfront4All, this waterfront has currently configured floods roughly 150 times a year. In your view Andrew, how would these plans address this issue?

PALMIERIWell, Kojo, the waterfront plan has a flood mitigation component to it and, you know, Alexandria, poor Alexandria, anytime there's a threatened hurricane or storm, we all have the news of vehicles and satellites appearing at the foot of King Street. And it's our hope that someday we won't have that type of storm damage on a routine basis. It's our hope that we'll have a more vibrant waterfront and not one that floods 150 days a year.

PALMIERIAnd in terms of the property owners that are operating along the waterfront, they routinely sustain property damage that, you know, interrupts their business. Everyone is familiar with the Starbucks at the foot of King Street, and, you know, when the water gets high enough, they have to close. And that's just not a good reliable way to do business. And the plan has a mitigation component that will try to take care of that.

NNAMDIMichael, you mentioned earlier the coal plant. One centers -- one of the centers of the disputes here is on the future of the coal plant -- power plant formerly operated by Mirant. It's now known as the GenOn plant. What's that about?

POPEThe coal-fired power plant dates back top the 1940s, I believe, very old coal-fired power plant owned or I should say operated for many years by the company known as Mirant. A few years ago it became acquired. The operation of the facility became acquired by GenOn, which owns lots of other properties and made the financial decision last year that it would cease operations. And so that's a huge site.

POPEIt's on the waterfront, 25 acres, as I said earlier, within the boundaries of this small area plan. But it's not part of the discussion in terms of what will happen at that site in terms of rezoning or how it relates to these other parcels that we are talking about.

NNAMDIOpponents are warning that this is BRAC on the waterfront, those of us who remember the base realignment and closure plan of the military and the density it's caused in parts of Virginia. The opponents say there'll be a dangerous increase in density or lead to gridlock and a loss to the unique character of Old Town. The slogan is Don't BRAC the Waterfront. What's your argument against that, Lynn Hampton?

HAMPTONThe BRAC buildings are off of 395, and they're office buildings, a few office buildings with over 3,000 cars. And there might even be a lot more than that. The proposal for the waterfront is 350-acre -- 350-room hotels in addition to some apartment buildings, some condos, some smaller condos. The lowest impact of traffic on the waterfront are hotels. Hotels, people come in taxicabs, and they come at off-hours.

HAMPTONOffice buildings, people come in the morning and in the afternoon. In homes, they have one and two cars and other people servicing the areas. So the city study shows that the lowest impact on traffic is the hotels. The information of Don't BRAC the Waterfront was really false information. It was put out early. And, really, one of the reasons that Waterfront4All was created was to make sure that we were able to get out correct information. So in the last few months, that Don't BRAC the Waterfront has really kind of left the bullet points of the...

NNAMDIAndrew Macdonald, one of the bigger questions lurking here you brought up earlier, how should cities maximize their tax revenues? And everybody wants to maximize their tax revenues. There seems to be general agreement on that, but how does that imperative balance with more intangible values like walkability or livability or historic accuracy, for that matter? Can you, in fact, quantify the values of those other things?

MACDONALDI think it's -- I think that's a great question, and I think it's one of the heart of the debates. And I would say about BRAC, and I think it's quite apropos because it refers, essentially, to spot planning, not thinking things out carefully -- for instance, not thinking about traffic impacts or the environment or things like that, all of which seem to be the case here. So...

NNAMDIWell, what I've heard earlier here is that boutique hotels would bring less traffic than either large hotels or, say, other kinds of housing development...

MACDONALDWell, I think, one, we don't know that to be the case, and, secondly, it's kind of a false question because, at the moment, you basically have no development on the waterfront. So you're going to increase it 162 percent from what exists there today. We have terrible traffic problems and parking problems as it is, so to say that a hotel is a little better than a townhome is really not the relevant question.

MACDONALDIt's sort of like saying -- which they do, the city and Waterfront4All -- that townhomes, that hotels will make a more public waterfront, which I think is the most -- is quite a ridiculous sort of argument. But how do we maximize things? And I think your point is well taken. It's that you have to look at all sorts of things. If you look simply at the -- how much revenue a hotel will bring each night, that's one sort of calculation.

MACDONALDBut if you look at how it will affect traffic, how it will affect small businesses in the town, how it will affect the Torpedo Factory, how it will affect visitors to Alexandria -- in other words, you look at a much broader range of questions when you do your cost-benefit analysis -- you're very -- you'll come up, most certainly, with a very different answer. So I would argue part of it, part of that question, is we don't know the answer to that because we haven't explored the questions carefully and thoughtfully.

HAMPTONKojo, I have to correct Andrew on his 162 percent arguments. There is 8 million square feet of development currently on the waterfront. The 160,000 square feet of additional development that is proposed is a 2 percent increase over what is there now.

NNAMDIOn to the telephones. Here's Andrew in Washington. Andrew, your turn.

ANDREWThank you. Well, this is (unintelligible) on the show all of a sudden. But I used to live in Alexandria. I live in D.C. now. And I have two questions. The first one is how much, if any, public money, the City of Alexandria's money, is going into the rezoning process and licensing and all that stuff? Does anybody know that number?

NNAMDIMichael Pope.

POPEI'm not sure that I understand the question. Could I get him to rephrase that? Is he still on the air?

NNAMDIHow much of Alexandria's money, how much of the city's money, is going into this process, taxpayer dollars is going into this process?

POPEWell, about a year ago, I looked at the amount of money that was paid for consultants leading up to the original plan, which was rolled out about a year ago, and that was half a million dollars at that time. Since then, the city has hired a facilitator, and, you know, there's additional staff time. I think the cost to the city is, from what I understand, closer to $1 million right now. That's just sort of in the planning and the consultants and...

NNAMDIBut most of this building and development is going to be done with private funding and not at any cost to the city. Is that correct?

POPEThat is correct, yes. As a matter of fact...

NNAMDI'Cause this dispute is really more about zoning than anything else.

POPEThe -- from the city government's perspective, the real debate is how much money and amenities they can extract from the developers.

NNAMDIOK. Andrew, thank you very much for your call. We move on now to Lee in Alexandria, Va. Lee, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

MS. LEE CALBETYes. Hello. I assume that I'm on the air now. My name is Lee Calbet. (sp?) I'm a resident of Alexandria. I do live in Old Town. However, I also have many other friends that care about the same concerns that I share about this waterfront plan that live outside of Old Town, but in other parts of Alexandria. My position is that the key issue surrounding the whole waterfront development controversy concerns the rezoning aspect. And I think that we need to really focus on that, and that council has a chance to potentially present a compromise that does not include the rezoning aspects.

NNAMDIOK. Allow me to raise that question in a briefer manner because we're running out of time. What would happen if the waterfront is developed under current zoning, without the benefit of a comprehensive plan, Michael Pope?

POPEWell, under the current law -- the way the zoning currently works, hotels would not be allowed. So you would get something like residential or commercial, perhaps some sort of mixed use, and there would be a smaller density than is proposed under the plan. So the rezoning the caller was talking about is allowing hotels and increasing density. That's kind of what's at stake with this vote next week.

NNAMDIOK. Thank you very much for your call, Lee. We got an email from one Robert Siegel. (sp?) Why, that name sounds familiar. "Under the plan, would the public have access to walkways between the boutique hotels and the river? Or would the hotels control that space? I'm an Arlingtonian," says Robert Siegel, "and my wife and I take walks in Founders Park very often." Lynn Hampton, can you help Robert?

HAMPTONYes. That's -- actually, that's a very important part of the plan, is to make a 100-foot minimum, a 100-foot walkway that will go all the way along the waterfront in Alexandria and to make it inviting to the public. We do have some smaller walkways in front of some of the townhomes in Alexandria, but they're smaller. And although they're open to the public, they do close at 10 o'clock at night. And it is not really an inviting type of thing for people to walk, or for the people that own it to have people walking on those walkways. So this plan actually opens up the waterfront with a large, wide walkway.

NNAMDIIt was done with you in mind, Robert. I'm afraid that's all the time we have right now. But, Lynn Hampton, thank you very much for joining us.

HAMPTONThank you very much, Kojo.

NNAMDILynn Hampton is member and spokesperson of Waterfront4All, a citizen group in favor of the proposed plan. Andrew Macdonald, thank you for joining us. Andrew Macdonald is co-founder for Citizens for an Alternative Alexandria Waterfront Plan, a group opposed to the plan. He's a former vice mayor of Alexandria. Andrew Palmieri, thank you for joining us. Andrew Palmieri is chairman of the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce. Michael Pope, always a pleasure.

POPEThank you. Thank you.

NNAMDIMichael Pope is Northern Virginia reporter with WAMU 88.5 and Connection Newspapers. He's author "Hidden History of Alexandria, D.C." This is an issue we'll be following because the date to watch, the 21st.

POPENext Saturday.

NNAMDINext Saturday, the 21st of January. We'll tell you what happens after that. Thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.