Plans for Petworth Hop-Back Filed With Zoning

• May 10, 2017

by Nena Perry-Brown

A rendering of the proposed development

Last month, UrbanTurf reported on a proposed hop-back in Petworth, where two adjacent rowhouses at 429 and 431 Quincy Streets NW (map) would be turned into six townhouse-style units. Now, the plans have been filed with the Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA).

The development team filed one application for each house, showing an interior configuration for each that will create one street-facing and one rear-facing four-bedroom, three-bath unit with the existing structure and a third four-bedroom, three-bath unit in a three-story rear addition constructed at the end of the lot.

The trellis-covered footpath.

The existing structure and the new addition will be connected by a 34-foot “hop-back” courtyard with a covered trellis walkway, which should allow the structures to count as a single building. However, the plans still show a single walkway despite each house now being treated as an individual three-unit project. It will be interesting to see whether this becomes an obstacle to acquiring zoning approval or whether a second walkway will be required.

The application also requests a nearly 9-foot extension at the rear of each existing house. Instead of five alley parking spaces, there will be four.

A rendering of the rear addition

Treating each house as an individual development allows the project to move forward without needing to set aside dwellings or provisions for inclusionary zoning. The development, designed by James Foster of Arcadia Design, is a partnership between developer Eric Hirshfield and builder Matt Shkor of Potomac Construction Group.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/plans_filed_with_zoning_board_for_petworth_hop-back/12552