Enhancing the W&OD Greenway, a Del Ray gem

By Bill Hendrickson, President
Del Ray Citizens Association

Humans have altered every square foot of Alexandria. Because of this, there is relatively little land within the city that bears a resemblance to nature. Fortunately, one small area is within Del Ray, and we now have a significant opportunity to enhance it.

This area is an orphaned section of the defunct Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) railroad, now a city-owned-and-managed public open space area called the W&OD Greenway.

This wild but lovely rail trail is only about four-tenths of a mile long. You can enter it near the corner of Route 1 and Custis Avenue or near the Mount Jefferson Playground at Raymond Avenue. Today, it is used primarily by people whose backyards border it, as well as by people who live nearby. The DRCA picks up trash in the area under the city’s Adopt-a-Park program, which helps to fund local park improvements.

The Greenway is a remarkably quiet area, given how close it is to the commotion of nearby Route 1. It effectively serves as a buffer between homes and the Oakville Triangle industrial park on the Greenway’s east side. I would guess that many if not most people in Del Ray have never visited or even heard of it.

In the coming months, however, the Greenway will become a topic of discussion, because of a large redevelopment plan being considered for the Oakville Triangle. A developer is proposing about 1.5 million square feet of retail, residential, and perhaps a hotel for about 13 acres of the twenty-acre industrial park.

Although only conceptual at this point, the developer’s plan shows relatively low-rise residential along the Greenway, so that it is in scale with the housing on the west side of the Greenway.

The landscaping of new residential developments is pretty standard and boring: a limited number of tree species and shrubs such as cherry laurels and nandinas.

But is the manicured nature of a new residential development compatible with the essential wildness of the Greenway? How could the two areas be connected in ways that preserve the “natural” character of the Greenway? Or is that even possible? Would it make sense to largely shut off the new Oakville community from Del Ray to preserve the Greenway’s inherent wildness?

To be sure, there may be those who favor turning the Greenway into a park that would be shared by residents of Del Ray and the new Oakville community.

In my own view, it makes more sense to retain the Greenway’s essential character and consider ways we can enhance it to make it more “natural” and ensure its longer-term sustainability.

If you walk the Greenway, you will realize that restoring it will probably require a lot of work—and a lot of money.

The land was greatly altered to build the rail bed, and the section of the bed near Route 1 is very elevated, with steep slopes. But much of the rail bed is not that much higher than the land on either side of it.

Today, there appear to be drainage issues in the area, perhaps significant, as well as non-native and perhaps invasive species of plants.

These and other issues would need to be studied and a plan developed with the aim of enhancing long-tern environmental sustainability.

How would such improvements be funded? Well, here’s the big opportunity I mentioned at the outset of this article.

The developer is seeking rights to build much more that it has the right to build. The city has been approving projects that included much more development than the zoning code allows, but it has insisted on a package of public benefits to capture some of the profits from the additional development.

There is likely going to be a significant pot of public benefits associated with this project. These could include affordable housing and undergrounding the power lines along Route 1. Or the money could be devoted to improvements to the W&OD Greenway.

The city, given its many other priorities, is unlikely to ever make the kind of investment that I’m suggesting we should make. We thus have a one-time opportunity to use developer money to make beneficial changes. We should seize this opportunity.

We also need to be thinking about how we can provide additional non-vehicle access from Del Ray to the Greenway and through it to the new Oakville community. Opening the city-owned right-of-way at the end of Stewart Avenue appears to be the only way to do this. The city began a discussion with residents about this even before the redevelopment proposal surfaced.

Opening this access point makes sense for a number of reasons.

First, it gives more people in Del Ray easier access to the Greenway.

Second, retail will be the major focus of the new development, with as much as 125,000 square feet of retail and restaurants proposed in the developer’s conceptual plan.

Many Del Ray residents will undoubtedly want to shop at these stores and eat at the restaurants. It makes sense to encourage people to walk or bike (not drive). A new Stewart Avenue access would also provide another way for Del Ray residents to walk or bike to Potomac Yard, its parks, and the area beyond.

At the same time, a new access point at Stewart would allow Oakville residents to more easily walk or bike to Del Ray attractions, including the shops and restaurants on Mount Vernon Avenue.

There will be much to discuss in the coming months, and I look forward to hearing the views of those who attend the community planning sessions.