“Disrespect” was a word that was used liberally last night, as D.C. Department of Transportation officials tried to sell a skeptical group of Ward 5 residents on the value of a 15,000-square-foot streetcar storage and maintenance facility that city officials want to put on the campus of Spingarn High School along Benning Road NE.

So what was everyone feeling disrespected about? The residents at yesterday’s meeting griped they’re only being consulted now about the car barn, which is among the final pieces that need to fall in place for the H Street NE streetcar to roll next summer. A $50 million contract for the car barn’s design and construction was finalized late last week, and DDOT officials at the meeting spoke of the new facility as if it were fait accompli. One agency representative went as far as to say that construction could even start as early as the next few weeks.

A rendering of the proposed car barn at Spingarn High School.

Not if Ward 5 can stop it. While some residents worried that the car barn would negatively affect the students on the academic campus it would be located on, most complaints were procedural. Why was DDOT coming to present plans after those plans had already been seemingly approved? And why was a decision made at the exact time that Ward 5 had no representative on the D.C. Council? And yes, there were arguments that this was all about dumping the city’s unwanted assets in Ward 5. “If this was Sidwell Friends, you wouldn’t have had this type of approach,” said one resident.

There wasn’t much that representatives from DDOT could say to calm the crowd; no amount of talk of higher property values, job opportunities and economic development potential could overcome the impression that Ward 5 was getting stuck with another quasi-industrial site. (It didn’t help that a site near a historic school was recently proposed as parking depot for Bolt Bus.) Ultimately, the residents at the meeting pledged to stop the car barn’s construction, drawing upon the memory of the successful community outrage that had sunk a proposed Metro station at nearby Oklahoma Avenue over three decades ago.

Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (D-Ward 5) seemed inclined to agree with his constituents. “I take my cues from the community,” he said. Corey Arnez Griffin, McDuffie’s chief of staff, told me that their concern wasn’t over the streetcar writ large, but rather with the choice of location for the car barn. He said that McDuffie had only been caught up on the plans last week, and that DDOT didn’t provide enough justification for rejecting eight other sites, including a portion of a parking lot next to RFK. (DDOT said that the land isn’t owned by D.C. and is zoned solely for recreation, adding time, cost and complexity to its use.) The $50 million contract, Griffin said, didn’t specify a location, so there’s still room for negotiation.

Maybe so, but not much—Gray has pledged to have the streetcar running by July 2013, putting all remaining work on a fast track to completion.