DC's Sky-High Penthouses One Step Closer to Reality

• September 5th 2014

by Lark Turner

A law that should make DC’s rooftops a friendlier place to live came closer to being a reality on Thursday.

As we’ve previously reported, a mid-May change to the Height Act allows DC developers to add residential penthouses on rooftops up to the height that mechanical penthouses are currently allowed; in briefer terms, to allows penthouse to be built 20 feet above what the Height Act dictates. The idea behind the law change was to take advantage of rooftop space in sought-after neighborhoods. Currently, those vantage points are often populated solely by unsightly stair towers, elevator shafts and other utilities.

But developers can’t take advantage of the law until the Office of Planning (OP) and the Zoning Commission (ZC) actually make it a reality, which has required months of work. Developers, according to OP, are anxious to get started on the penthouses; no surprise there, given how lucrative the new rules may prove.

On Thursday, the ZC voted unanimously to set down a body of rules regarding the penthouses as well as an alternative to those rules, both proposed by OP. That means the public will have the chance to weigh in and the rules will likely change before they are eventually adopted.

But the ZC is approaching this issue with caution. At a previous meeting to set down the rules for public comment, the commissioners asked OP to go back to the drawing board and be more specific about regulations. They also came at OP with some requests: They want the lucrative new housing to fall under inclusionary zoning requirements, or be even more stringently tied to developer contributions to public housing. That might mean that when a penthouse is built, a developer has to donate or include in a project an equal amount of affordable housing, rather than a percentage as is the case for regular housing. Commissioners continued to express concerns about the proposed rules on Thursday.

The rules proposed will also be subject to the keen eye of Commissioner Peter May, who, as the commission’s National Park Service designee, is not exactly excited about the change to the Height Act. In hearings, May is generally dogged about protecting the Act and excoriating designs that fail to respect it. On Thursday, he made his dislike of the new law pretty obvious.

“Anything we can do to tighten it up would be an improvement,” he said.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/dcs_penthouse_height_exception_one_step_closer_to_reality/8938.