HILL TOP REALITIES

SWaN Investors have done a masterful job orchestrating an “echo chamber” of positive media.  Countless Letters to the Editor purportedly from Harpers Ferry “residents”, news releases, and unsubstantiated assertions, have flooded local media.

SWaN’s goal is to stampede four of the seven voting Members of the Harpers Ferry Town Council to ignore, bend, and invent rules in order to give the out-of-state billionaires everything they desire as quickly as possible.

Facts and laws must drive the decision that will shape the next century of Harpers Ferry. 

The first reality check is to remember that the Hill Top Hotel was fully operational the day SWaN bought it.  Tour groups filled its rooms, hungry customers lined up for Hill Top’s famous fried chicken and buffet, and community groups regularly met there. 

The second reality check is to remember that it was SWaN, no one else, who closed the Hill Top Hotel. They asserted that Hill Top must be completely torn down.  To validate their assertion, SWaN allowed Hill Top to become derelict.  No repairs occurred, windows were broken, and water seeped in, collapsing the hotel’s front facade.  Those saddened by Hill Top’s current state of disrepair should remember who is responsible.

The third reality check is that the Town of Harpers Ferry owns the roads and undeveloped paper streets that SWaN so desperately craves.  These streets were laid out by War Department engineers under President George Washington.  They were officially documented in the 1869 War Department plat.  These streets are not “fake”.  They contribute to the integrity of Harpers Ferry’s Historic District, which was established by the Department of Interior in 1976.  Harpers Ferry’s Town Ordinances do not allow for the sale or transfer of these streets to anyone. The 2016 Ordinance amendment was only intended for disposing of Personal Property. No street has ever been given, sold, or ceded to anyone since 1790.  No amount of undocumented assertions changes this.

The fourth reality check is SWaN’s heavy-handed efforts to control public access to the Promontory.  Armed thugs brandishing guns have accosted members of the community when they are on paved portions of East Ridge and Columbia Streets.  In one instance, Harpers Ferry police had to order a SWaN thug to “stand down” and retreat to actual SWaN property.  SWaN refuses to release its “Security and Safety” Policy that will dictate when the community can access the Promontory.  Their secret policy could all but eliminate access. 

SWaN’s proposed land swap of their nearly vertical property for all the adjoining paper streets would bankrupt Harpers Ferry.  Accessing the Promontory using a massive zig-zagging wooden stairway would generate lawsuits and costs for making the 45% incline comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.  No-one in a wheel chair, on crutches, or infirm may be able to enjoy one of our region’s greatest vistas.

The fifth reality check is that the number of Harpers Ferry visitors has increased since Hill Top Hotel closed in March 2008.  That year 260,000 visitors entered the Park.  In 2017, there were 342,534 Park visitors, an increase of 31.7 percent.  Since Hill Top closed, Harpers Ferry has been listed as one of America’s top tourist destinations in countless travel magazines and websites.  Harpers Ferry is certainly not a dying ghost town portrayed by SWaN’s acolytes.

The final reality check is about the true nature of SWaN and its proponents.  None of those appearing at Town meetings, or writing as “residents”, were involved, in any way, with the thirty preservation initiatives, since 1988, that saved the historic and scenic resources of the Harpers Ferry area from being destroyed. None of SWaN’s “community” proponents helped with the 50^th Anniversary of the Park, the Centennial of the Second Niagara Movement, or any of the Sesquicentennial commemorations of the John Brown Raid or the area’s Civil War battles. 

No one from SWaN even had the decency to attend the funeral of Bill Stanhagen, the person who sold Hill Top to SWaN.

These are the realities of the Hill Top project, and its supporters. 

Hopefully, they will be aired during the March 9 Town Workshop on the Concept Plan.

Scot Faulkner is President of Friends of Harpers Ferry National Historical Park and co-chaired the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Park.

HILLTOP BOOGEYMAN

By Scot Faulkner

Published at http://www.journal-news.net/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/2017/03/harpers-ferrys-hilltop-boogeyman/

There are many scary issues surrounding the long running battle over the future of the Hilltop House property.  The collapsing Hilltop House structure is a favorite spooky site on Youtube.  Neighbors worry about the 81 police incidents that have made the Hilltop House the center for drugs, vandalism, and worse.

The latest scare is “by right”.  Spokespeople for SWaN Investors, the Hilltop owners, have used their ominous voice to threaten that terrible things will happen if they do not get their way.  Their current boogeyman of choice is that SWaN will build a new hotel on a 1.25 acre commercial site “by right”.

“By right” sounds scary, but it is just the legal term for “grandfathered”, a right granted to any property owner.  “Grandfathered” does not sound as scary, which is why SWaN avoids it.  The better to spook Harpers Ferry’s elected officials and townspeople.

In 2015, a major fire destroyed three commercial buildings in the lower town of Harpers Ferry.  These buildings are slowly being rebuilt “by right”.  It is totally legal to build “like for like” when something needs replacing. 

Harpers Ferry is a National Historic District, administered by the Department of Interior and the President’s Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.  In order to comply with these national organizations, the town has very strict and detailed ordinances governing what can be built or rebuilt.  Architectural style and building materials must be approved to preserve the integrity of the Historic District.  The three buildings destroyed by fire are being rebuilt within these guidelines, even though they are “grandfathered” in terms of commercial use and their overall dimensions.

The Hilltop House owners can proceed, right now, with a “by right” or “grandfathered” hotel on their one and a quarter commercially zoned acres.  SWaN tries to make this sound terrible.  They are proposing an alternative that will develop an area nearly seven times larger, turning private residential lots into commercial space, and taking over three public streets.

SWaN’s “overlay district” is the real boogeyman.  Their “overlay” creates an area devoid of all ordinances and restrictions, which govern the town’s Historic District. 

Once approved by the Harpers Ferry Town Council, this seven times larger “overlay district” will become the new “by right” area where SWaN can tear down historic structures, clear cut trees, blast, jack hammer, take over public land, alter streets, and bulldoze with impunity. 

SWaN’s “overlay district” will allow them to build whatever they want in any style, shape, and size they want.  SWaN and its Town Council allies are already pushing for expedited permit approvals, some of which would be issued administratively without public notice or comment.

It is very scary in Harpers Ferry.  People shouldn’t worry about the ghosts of old, but fear the demons being created.

[Scot Faulkner has been an active member of the Harpers Ferry community since 1987]

‘Let’s be truthful’ on Hilltop House

BACKGROUND:

Steven Ramberg has been Harpers Ferry’s most vocal advocate for giving SWaN Investors everything they desire for developing the Hilltop House properties.  As Chair of the Planning Commission, Ramberg was relentless in making sure SWaN’s Overlay District became a reality. 

Ramberg’s wife, Betsy Bainbridge, is the most vocal SWaN partisan on the Harpers Ferry Town Council.  She has been the driving force behind the new ordinances, and the Overlay District.

Together, Ramberg and Bainbridge have used strong-arm tactics and intimidation to make sure SWaN’s project moves forward, no matter how many oppose it within the Harpers Ferry community.

It was no surprise that on February 15, 2017, Ramberg wrote a blistering Letter-to-the Editor of the Spirit of Jefferson assailing the National Park Service for raising federal concerns by letter and in remarks before the Town Council.

The following response was published in the Spirit of Jefferson on February 22, 2017.

It is unfortunate that the nine-year struggle over the Hilltop House project has been plagued by lack of valid information and an abundance of disinformation.  The recent letter sent by National Park Service to the Town of Harpers Ferry was an attempt to sort reality from rhetoric.

The National Park Service has a legal responsibility to protect the historic integrity of Harpers Ferry.  Without the Park Service, Harpers Ferry would be under 200 feet of water from a proposed Potomac River Dam in the 1940s. Without the Park Service, the C&O Canal would be a four-lane highway proposed in the 1960s.  Harpers Ferry is now facing another fundamental threat from an oversized project that would loom over the town and the Park.  The National Park Service is obligated to step forward to raise concerns and probe for answers.

The Park Service letter contains a well-established check list of issues arising from the National Environmental Protection Act, Section 106 of the Historic Preservation Act, and laws governing National Historic Districts.  These federal issues can be raised at any time, and must be fully resolved. There are additional regulatory issues affecting CSX, Amtrak, MARC, Maryland Transit Administration, and the Chesapeake Bay that must also be addressed.

The Park Service has a substantial investment in Harpers Ferry and has a legal responsibility to assess the impact of SWaN Investors’ Project on these federally funded operations.  This includes the Park’s annual funding for Harpers Ferry’s Police. Town documents pledge police to support SWaN’s construction.  The Park Service is the largest ratepayer to Harpers Ferry Water Works.  From 1988-1990, the Park directly funded and project managed the rebuilding of the Water Works’ intakes, pumps, mainline pipes, and water tanks.  Town documents pledge to meet all of SWaN’s water requests.

The federally funded Potomac Street rehabilitation project, managed by the Town, has also impacted the Park.  Federal funds were diverted from the original approved grant to enlarge the storm water system to handle the anticipated runoff from SWaN’s properties.  One result has been storm water now bubbling up onto Park property.

Mr. Ramberg’s Letter-to-the-Editor asserts, “no one has proposed any blasting to my knowledge”.  This is interesting, because in a December 7, 2015 letter, Mr. Ramberg wrote to Gordon Associates, a SWaN contractor: “I am wondering about an issue that keeps arising.  Did SWaN ever contemplate blasting for the garage or elsewhere on the site in the original concept proposal?”  Gordon Associates responds to Ramberg, “Blasting was expected for the construction of utilities, garage, and hotel.” 

On March 28, 2008, Gordon Associates sent Mr. Ramberg their “Surface Exploration and Geotechnical Evaluation for the Project”.  It clearly identifies multiple locations for blasting of the bed rock and outlines warnings for proceeding.

Harpers Ferry sits primarily on shale.  Most of Harpers Ferry’s structures are all or part masonry.  Any reverberations from blasting will affect the structural integrity of basements, foundations, and walls in buildings dating to 1748.  Harpers Ferry National Historical Park has more historic structures than any other Park unit in America.  The August 2011 Virginia earthquake caused over $1 million in structural damage throughout the Park.  It is therefore prudent for the Park to be concerned about blasting.  A reasonable approach would be for the U.S. Geological Survey to conduct a blasting impact analysis before the Harpers Ferry Town Council approves their Ordinance.

In his letter, Mr. Ramberg questions the integrity and motivations of Park officials, while dismissing valid concerns as hysteria. He insists that the Town’s Ordinance must be enacted so we will know what needs to be changed.   This is why the SWaN project destroyed public trust and divided Harpers Ferry long before the Park’s letter.