1248 Fairmont Street: One ANC1B Committee for, One Against

When Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 1B/U Street has its regular monthly meeting at the Reeves Center (14th and U Streets NW) on Thursday, May 1, at 7:30pm, it will be faced with an unusual situation. Two separate ANC1B committees have considered a request for the same project. One voted to approve it, the other voted to oppose it.

1248 Fairmont Street (Google Street View)

Jennifer Fowler of Fowler Architects and Brian Smith of Coldwell Banker are asking ANC1B to endorse a request for a curb cut on the street next to 1248 Fairmont Street. This is a one-family house on the southeast corner of 13th Street and Fairmont. It is being converted into five units "by right". The curb cut will allow access to the two spaces of enclosed off-street parking the developers are obligated by zoning regulations to provide.

On April 17, ANC1B's Transportation Committee voted to endorse the request -- see SALM blog post for April 21. The vote was 2-0 with one abstention. On April 21, ANC1B's Design Review Committee voted not to support the request. The vote of the Design Review Committee was 7-0 with one abstention.

Fowler presented to the Design Review Committee at the very end of a 3-1/2 hour meeting. She was told there was no community support for the project, only opposition.

ANC Chair James Turner (Commissioner for district 09) said he had sent an email requesting the developers do outreach to the neighbors about the planned expansion of the house. There had not been any outreach.

"Brian's been doing outreach," Fowler said. Smith was not present, and Fowler didn't know anything about what Smith might or might not have done.

Turner explained that, although the project itself is in the district of Commissioner Sedrick Muhammed (district 03), the neighbors across the street from the project were in Turner's own district. At the April 17 meeting, Smith said he had been in touch with abutting neighbors only -- implying Turner's constituents had not been contacted.

The committee also disputed the contention, made by Smith in his April 17 presentation to the Transportation Committee, that the curb cut would remove only one space from the street. With the addition of a two-car parking garage, this would result in a net gain of one parking space for the area.

The Design Review Committee maintained that, even though the curb cut might be the length of one car, legally-mandated no-parking areas on each side of the cut, plus the inexpert parking methods of the average on-street car parker, would mean that, in practice, two on-street spaces would be lost. On top of that, committee members said, it seemed likely that five units would bring more than two cars into the neighborhood.

Members of the committee further redefined the situation. What the developers were doing, they said, was removing two public parking spaces and making them private.

Fowler said it might be possible to design a garage with three spaces. 

A committee member also noted that the design for the ramp from the street to the enclosed garage included a five-foot-high wall on the property line. This meant that pedestrians and bicyclists coming down Fairmont Street would be invisible to drivers backing out of the planned garage, and visa versa. Fowler suggested the developers could put in a mirror.

A representative of the project may present some new ideas at the next ANC meeting on May 1, when the full ANC may try to reconcile to two conflicting recommendations.

1248 Fairmont Street: Curb Cut Helps Turn Single-Family House to Five Units

1248 Fairmont Street NW is being converted from a single-family home to five units by an addition to the rear. If you are a neighbor and stand to lose sunlight and air from the rear expansion of this house, you still have a chance to make your displeasure known. There is a meeting of the Design Review Committee of Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 1B/U Street scheduled for 6:30pm tonight (Monday, April 21) at the Thurgood Marshall Center (1816 12th Street). The developers converting the property have said they will be there.

As seen from Fairmont Street (Google Street View)

This conversion is a "matter of right", which means that the developers do not have to ask for zoning variances or special exceptions from the D.C. government. A publicly-available letter from D.C. Zoning Administrator Matt LeGrant (.pdf here) confirms no zoning variances or special exceptions are necessary. Nevertheless, the developer told the Transportation Committee of ANC1B on April 17 they would be at the Design Review Committee. They will probably present to the committee as a matter of courtesy.

A representative of the developers of 1248 Fairmont Street NW appeared before the Transportation Committee to ask for ANC1B endorsement of a curb cut. The curb cut is necessary to provide access to the two parking spaces that the zoning will require for the five units. The developers received a conditional endorsement of the curb cut. Now their request moves to the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) for final approval.

The building is on the southeast corner of Fairmont and 13th Streets. The proposed curb cut will be on the Fairmont Street side, about 85 feet from the corner of 13th. It will provide access to a two-car covered garage. The representative said LeGrant told him surface parking would not be permitted -- only garage parking.

The curb cut will remove one on-street parking space.

Members of the committee asked if more than two spaces for the five units were possible. The developers' representative said it was not.

How happy are the neighbors?

Commissioner Ricardo Reinoso (district 05) asked if the developers had been in touch with ANC Commissioner for the district Sedrick Muhammed (district 03). The developers had not.

Reinoso also asked the representative if he had been in touch with the neighbors. The representative said he had been in touch with abutting neighbors only. He did not report any complaints from the abutting neighbors.

A person who says "[m]y townhouse is connected to 1248 Fairmont Street", in a March 3 post in a forum of the blog Popville, said that the proposed development will block views and sunlight. The neighbor wished to discuss the situation with the developer. The neighbor, identified on Popville by the user name "comerte", also said he/she could not find contact information about the developer online.

(Google searches for the developer on April 18, 2014, yielded addresses, but no phone number or email.)

It is possible that, in the time between the March 3 Popville post and the April 17 Transportation Committee meeting, all the parties met and came to a mutually satisfactory arrangement.

Other details about the project

The additions are all on the rear of the building.

"The building will look as it is," the representative said. "It will look like it was built in the early 1900s."

The architect is Jennifer Fowler of Fowler Architects.

Plans for the renovation are available online -- six-page .pdf here. In addition to the garage, more basement space will be dug underneath the existing ground-floor patio. Two additional floors will be added over the rear part of the existing house and the proposed garage. The roof of the addition will have a deck. The total square footage of the house will increase from about 3,800 square feet to nearly 6,900 square feet.

On-line information says this house was sold in December 2103 for $990,000.

About the parking

The Transportation Committee was concerned that the placement of the curb cut was too close to the property line. It voted to recommend that the full ANC endorse the request to DDOT for a curb cut, on the condition that it be moved a few feet off the property line to allow optimal street parking. The vote was two in favor and one abstention.

2712 11th Street: Dry Cleaner Joins Mid-block Laundromat

JK Enterprises LLC, owner of a mid-block laundromat on 11th Street NW, wants to open a dry cleaner in the adjoining building. To do so, they will need a use variance from D.C.'s Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA), because the lot is zoned residential. The Design Review Committee of ANC 1B/U Street voted unanimously to endorse the use variance request of JK Enterprises.

(Google Street View)

2712 11th Street is located on a public alley between Fairmont and Gerard Streets.

No dry cleaning will be done on the premises -- only pick up and drop off. There will also be alterations and shoe repair available.
 
Although it is zoned residential, documents submitted to the BZA indicate there has been some type of business there for more than 40 years. Before 1968, a grocery store operated in the location. From 1969 until the 1980's, it was also a dry cleaner, with cleaning done on the premises. At the meeting, a representative of JK Enterprises said an upholstery shop operated there before he bought the property in 1998. More recently, the building has been used as storage for the laundromat.

There are three parking spaces behind the laundromat. However, documents submitted to the BZA indicate most of clients of the laundry go there on foot, and JK Enterprises thinks the dry cleaner will be largely the same.

At the meeting, the presenter claimed neighbors supported the opening of the dry cleaners.

Documents relating to JK Enterprise's BZA case can be viewed at the Interactive Zoning Information System of Office of Zoning by entering case number 18699 into the search bar.

The full ANC will probably vote on the Design Review Committee's recommendation at the next meeting of the full ANC, scheduled for Thursday, March 6, at 7pm, at the Reeves Center (14th and U Streets).