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EH: All people look at issues through the lens of their own preferences, so people who liked the outcome are probably going to be a lot happier with the process than those that didn't.

I definitely disagree about whether they should have factored in zoning. As a thought experiment, what if they had already gone to the Zoning Commission and gotten the property rezoned? Then, the zoning rule would say

Approval from HPRB does not mean it can be built. It means that it's not incompatible historically. If, theoretically, a building of a certain size is historically compatible but violates zoning, what is HPRB to do? They need to say that the thing is compatible but note, as they always do, that their permission does not bear on BZA or ZC approval.

DDOT's public space division has to rule on curb cuts. Should they be rejecting curb cuts if they think something isn't historically compatible? What if HPRB hasn't ruled and they don't know? Should the fire department, in its approval, look at whether a project's curb cuts work well for pedestrians?

The only way these disparate approvals work is if each approving authority looks at its own criteria and its own rules and not others, and makes clear that its decision in its own area of expertise does not mean they have to be okay with something that might bother another agency with a different purview.

HPO can say that they think the only historically appropriate kind of building is one with a 90' roof and nothing at all above, but they need to do that with reference to historic regulations and definitions alone, not the zoning, and board members like Pfaehler need to base their decision on history and not the zoning.

This is why rules set out in advance are so important. If there were written definitions of what is and isn't compatible, and then refer to each one when makign the decision. A vague note that "scale" is one of the characteristics of the historic district does not suffice.

And Beryl, the fact that the zoning regs mention zoning does not mean zoning is a responsibility of HPRB. I read that to mean that the regulations don't override the zoning. Which they don't, and that's why a project still needs to either conform to zoning or go through legally-defined processes to change zoning through the BZA or ZC.

by David Alpert on Jun 8, 2012 12:51 pm • link • report