Deadline for Comment on Pop-up Legislation Extended, February Hearing Scheduled

At the end of a marathon January 15 public hearing about proposed rules that would limit "pop-ups" in many DC residential neighborhoods, DC Zoning Commission Chair Anthony Hood announced that the deadline for comment would be extended to 3pm on Thursday, January 29. Hood also announced that public deliberations on the proposal would take place at a meeting scheduled for 6:30pm on Monday, February 9, at a Zoning Commission hearing room on the second floor of 441 4th Street NW (metro: Judiciary Square).

Screenshot from video of January 15 meeting

A page here at the DC Office of Zoning website outlines two ways to submit comments to the Zoning Commission. One of the methods requires setting up a name and password to access the Office of Zoning's Interactive Zoning Information System (IZIS). The other, somewhat easier, method is to send an email to zcsubmissions@dc.gov before the deadline. In order to be part of the public record, an email submitted to the Zoning Commission must:

• be in the form of an attached .pdf document, signed by the author
• be less than ten pages long
• contain the case number and name in the subject line, in this case: 14-11 Office of Planning

At the hearing, Hood repeatedly expressed his desire to hear from all people who had come to testify, which in the end numbered about 100 people. To this end, a strict time limit on comments was made and enforced. With a few exceptions, current DC homeowners and Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners (ANCs) testified in favor of the proposal to limit popups, including ANCs from Wards One, Four, and Six. A smaller number of homeowners, plus several developers and attorneys for developers, spoke against the plan.

DC government representatives held public meetings in Columbia Heights last summer and fall to talk about the proposed regulations -- see SALM blog post of August 5 and September 29, 2014.

Read coverage of the January 15 hearing from the blog Urban Turf here.

You can both read public submissions of support and opposition (including a four-page letter of opposition by Harriet Tregoing, former Director of the DC Office of Planning) to the proposal, as well as watch an archived video of the January 15 hearing on this topic, at the IZIS portal here. Enter case number 14-11 in the search bar.