Photo of the Farm at Walker-Jones. Courtesy Farm at Walker-Jones.
The urban farm at the Walker-Jones Education Campus will be relocated to make way for the city’s Northwest One redevelopment.
David Hilmy, the Walker Jones teacher who runs and funds the farm, said he was first notified of the city’s intent in September 2013. Since then, Hilmy says “not a single person has communicated” with him about any relocation plans, except to direct him to remove a letter of protest from the farm’s blog.
Chanda Washington, a spokesperson for the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, says the farm will be relocated — eventually. “However, development will not begin until after a development team has been selected and master planning for the overall redevelopment plan has been completed. DMPED intends to solicit a master developer for the site this spring, that process typically takes six months,” she continued. “Once the developer is selected master planning and deal structuring will take another one to two years.”
Washington says DMPED will identify a new location for the farm during the master planning process: “We will hold a series of meetings to get input from the community to understand how our planning can best benefit the community.”
Charles Allen, a Ward 6 Council candidate and former chief of staff to Tommy Wells, said in an email, “I’m glad to hear DMPED recognizes the value of the Walker-Jones farm, but this doesn’t sound like much of a relocation plan to me. It leaves the farm in place for the next two or three years, but it also leaves the community farm in limbo and without a clear future.”
In an email to supporters of the farm, Himly writes that, if the farm is indeed relocated to another space, it will still no longer be adjacent to the school and students won’t be able to work it during a regular class schedule. They “will be unable to gain the unique organic and sustainable agriculture education this learning lab afforded them,” he writes.
The Northwest One redevelopment plan, part of the New Communities Initiative, aims to replace the public housing units lost at Temple Courts with a new mixed-use development. The space along North Capitol Street between K and L streets NW is currently home to a parking lot, as a number of things have gone wrong with the development. The farm is located on K Street NW between New Jersey Avenue and First Street.
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Update: Hilmy says in an email he’ll leave DCPS in March to focus on green roofs (including one at Walker-Jones), living walls and biodiversity conservation habitat restoration. The future of the farm is now up in the air.
