30-Unit Building Proposed For Long-Vacant Columbia Heights Lot

• 10:49 AM EDT

by UrbanTurf Staff

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A Columbia Heights lot that has sat empty for more than a decade could soon be home to one of the taller residential buildings on its block.

A zoning map amendment application has been filed with DC to rezone 1327 Girard Street NW (map), along with the neighboring rowhouse properties at 1337 and 1339 Girard Street, from RF-1 to RA-4. The rezoning would clear the way for a nine-story apartment building with more than 30 units on the vacant westernmost parcel, which has been unoccupied since around 2012.

The proposed building would deliver an unusually family-sized unit mix: nearly every apartment is a two-bedroom, with four two-bed/two-bath units on floors two through nine, plus a handful of units in the cellar and on the first floor. The jump from RF-1 to RA-4 is a significant one, raising the maximum height on the site from 35 feet to 90 feet and lot coverage from 60% to 75%. The project would also be subject to Inclusionary Zoning, adding affordable units to the mix.

The applicant is pitching the rezoning as a logical extension of the block's existing zoning pattern rather than an outlier. The parcels immediately west of the site are already zoned RA-4 and improved with multifamily buildings, and the application argues the change would eliminate an isolated pocket of RF-1 sandwiched between RA-4-zoned land. 

Per the application, an earlier concept contemplated a substantially lower-density project under the existing zoning before those community discussions pushed the plan toward the current transit-oriented approach. The application now awaits a public hearing date from the Zoning Commission.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/30-unit_building_proposed_for_long-vacant_columbia_heights_lot/24808.