A proposed development in Capitol Hill that has been scaled back (and scaled back and scaled back again) over the past year is just an example of local residents bullying developers, says one urban planning expert.
On his Greater Greater Washington blog, David Alpert applauds the city’s Historic Preservation Review Board for “standing up” to residents and substantially approving a mixed-use development for the old Hine Junior High School site near the historic Eastern Market. In so doing, the board made “a clear statement that while they’ll push to improve the quality of development, they’re not going to bow to neighbors’ demands to substantially shrink it down,” Alpert wrote.
The project has hit snag after snag, as The Washington Examiner has chronicled. Tenants backed out of the original project and the development had to be reworked and scaled back as a result. Then through community meetings, developers again made tweaks. At its first meeting, board members made several requests of the project developers, including making the tallest part of the project (six floors) less imposing. Note: that doesn’t mean shorter — designers can do all sorts of fun things like setting back the top floors and reworking the building’s facade to make a building appear smaller than it is.
At last week’s meeting, the board approved the changes made to the tallest part of the project on Pennsylvania Avenue. Two other buildings will be up for approval from the board later this month.
The HPRB’s role is to make sure a building fits into a historic district, Alpert said — “Their role isn’t to lop off several floors entirely.”
