On Thursday evening, December 11, 2014, the Zoning Commission voted 5-0-0 to approve the Zoning Regulations Review (08-06A) for Proposed Action. Based on Zoning Commission deliberations in October 2014, OP provided revised text for the following items for Zoning Commission consideration. Highlights include the following:

Code Structure and Zone Names
• Reorganizes information that was contained in Subtitles B and C to provide: general definitions; rules of measurement and definitions of relevant terms, as well as general relief criteria; and use groups and related use definitions.
• Subtitle C revised to contain regulations applied across the land use subtitles, such as parking, loading, bike parking, pervious surface, and Green Area Ratio requirements.
• Subtitle U created to consolidate use permissions in one Subtitle.

Green Area Ratio
• Revised the provisions to increase the tree canopy spread required to generate GAR credits.

Corner Stores
• Clarify that cellar space would not be included in the 1,200 square foot limit for corner stores.
• Clarify that storage space for beer and wine would not be included in the 15% limit.

Accessory Apartments
• Revised the provisions to allow an accessory apartment to occupy no more than 35% of the GFA of the house.
• Revised the provisions to allow an entrance on a street facing wall, provided the entrance is below grade.
• Included a provision to allow for an accessory apartment in an accessory building if the accessory building is located on a 15-foot wide alley and within 300 feet of a street.
• Revised the text to prohibit roof decks on accessory buildings, but allow balconies and projecting windows.

Alley Lots
• Included a provision to allow for camping on an alley lot provided that the individuals camping on the alley lot have a bedroom in the principal structure.
• Included a provision to allow for a residential use on an alley lot if the dwelling is located on a 15-foot wide alley and within 300 feet of a street.
• Revised the text to prohibit roof decks on residential alley lot buildings and to allow balconies and projecting windows.
More…

Last week (October 6 – 9), the Zoning Commission held four nights of public meetings on ZRR. Over the course of over 17 hours of deliberations, the Commission reviewed and took proposed action on many specific proposals. These discussions, of course, followed seven years of public hearings and meetings, so the issues themselves had been examined and discussed on numerous occasions by the public and by Commission members in advance of these meetings. However, the Commission did provide OP with instruction to re-examine or revise many of the proposed provisions, including ones related to parking for specific uses; parking for motorcycles and mopeds; use groups; corner stores; accessory apartment size and access; use restrictions for non-residential space in low density commercial zones; Green Area Ratio tree canopy; theatres in residential zones; and revised or additional definitions.

The Zoning Commission instructed the Office of Planning and the Office of Zoning to prepare a revised draft of the complete zoning regulations, for submission on November 3, 2014, incorporating the direction provided by the Commission at the recent public meetings. This will, as with all ZRR documents, be posted on the OP and OZ websites. The Commission will then take this draft up at a further public meeting on December 11, 2014 for proposed action on the entire text. The previous draft, submitted in September of 2013, was very much a working draft so we expect the final version to cleaner, tighter, and, yes, shorter. Thanks again to everyone who provided comments on the first draft.

The following maps prepared by OP for the Friendship Heights Neighborhood Association, provide an illustration of the ZRR parking proposal. The first map compares the current regulations to the proposal which was setdown by the Zoning Commission in September 2013, and the second map compares the current regulations to the alternative proposal setdown in June, 2014. While they are similar to maps that OP has already provided to the Zoning Commission and uploaded to this site, they specifically focus in on multi-family residential development. The difference between the two maps is that:
• under the 2013 proposal, a parking reduction of 50% would be permitted by-right for new development proximate (within ¼ mile) of a WMATA Priority Bus Corridor;
• under the 2014 alternative, OP is not proposing the 50% parking reduction for new development proximate to a Priority Bus Corridor.
(click to enlarge)


Like any map, there are some generalizations – for example, the maps do not take into account areas that are subject to site specific review and parking requirements, such as university campus plans or Planned Unit Developments. The maps also do not distinguish R-5-A zoned land that is not developed with apartments (in R-5-A, a new apartment building is permitted only by special exception so would receive BZA, ANC, and community review) – much of the R-5-A zoned land is developed with one-family dwellings or flats, where the parking requirement would remain 1 parking space per building, with no reduction for proximity to transit.

Of course, OP also proposed other alternatives to the September 2013 text as part of the June 2014 alternatives – a complete description is provided below, or you can read the OP report on the Office of Zoning website (link), case 08-06A, Exhibit 725. The Zoning Commission will be holding public hearings on these alternatives, September 8 – 11; you can attend an provide comments or submit written comments to the record via the Office of Zoning website, prior to September 15, 2014.

Check out the new blog post on OP-inions regarding proposed changes involving two issues impacting the District’s residential rowhouse neighborhoods – conversions of rowhouses to multi-family buildings, and additions to existing buildings, often called “pop ups” or “pop-outs”.

AARP recently released a study describing the community preferences of older adults. Highlights of the report include findings that “most older adults want to age in place. They prefer to stay in their current homes and communities.” The community preference survey also found that older adults valued having the following amenities close to home (within 1 mile or less):
• Bus stop (50%);
• Grocery store (47%);
• Park (42%)
• Pharmacy/drug store (42%);
• Hospital (29%);
• Church/religious (29%);
• Train/subway (23%);
• Big box store (18%);
• Entertainment (16%); and
• Mall (shopping) (13%).
You can read the full study online at http://www.aarp.org (http://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/public_policy_institute/liv_com/2014/what-is-livable-report-AARP-ppi-liv-com.pdf).