How Cleveland Park’s historic district cost the neighborhood 42 homes in one project

When ANC 3C passed a resolution this year in support of more density along Connecticut Avenue in Cleveland Park, it was a significant moment. The neighborhood is a textbook example of a wealthy area that has preserved its exclusivity through low-density zoning, which largely makes illegal anything but single-family homes—especially on residential streets.

The city’s population has grown over the last two decades, and is likely to continue to do so. Even if COVID stunts the inmigration growth rates cities saw pre-pandemic, the District’s population is increasing primarily because its existing residents are having kids.

But during these decades of growth, neighborhoods in Wards 2 and 3, like Cleveland Park, have added nearly no new homes at all, let alone subsidized or income-restricted affordable housing.

The Comprehensive Plan amendment supported by 3C’s resolution represents a first step to changing that exclusivity by proposing a revision to the Future Land Use Map (FLUM) for this corridor from low-density commercial to moderate-density commercial and high-density residential. (The latest edit to this amendment in Chair Mendelson’s draft softens that to moderate-density commercial and medium-density residential, which matches what Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh requested. Both versions represent increased density). If adopted by the DC Council, landowners in the area could apply to rezone their properties to allow for larger buildings that include more housing. The net impact could be more neighbors, more businesses, and more local customers for those businesses. (We, of course, acknowledge that some view the net impact of new buildings in their neighborhoods in nothing but negative terms—”more traffic,” “overcrowded schools,” “out-of-scale development” — but disagree with that viewpoint.)

Cleveland Park is one of several places in the District where the Office of Planning has proposed amendments to the Future Land Use Map to enable the potential future development of more housing in desirable neighborhoods, particularly those on major corridors near transit like Connecticut Avenue. If and when the Council adopts OP’s amendments to the FLUM, more housing will be legal (though not allowable without approval by the Zoning Commission) in the locations where residential density has been increased.

But, despite possible changes to the FLUM, new projects in Cleveland Park will face an additional hurdle. Even after navigating the zoning process to appeal for a higher-density allowance, new projects will still have to conform to the limitations of the neighborhood’s historic district, which, in addition to its goal of preserving history, was designed specifically to limit that exact kind of density.

How historic districts downzone

Ostensibly, historic designation in DC is supposed to have nothing to do with the land use regulations of a property. Seeking a historic preservation designation is an entirely separate legal process that is disconnected from comprehensive planning or changes to the zoning code. A designated property can have its zoning changed in the same way as a non-designated one. The difference for a historic property is that renovations or new construction on that property are subject to additional historic design review, where Historic Preservation Office staff and the Historic Preservation Review Board work with owners to ensure any changes are consistent with the character of the landmark or district in terms of materials and design.

The key, however, is that design review encompasses more than just stylistic elements. It also extends to “sizing and mass.” If a proposed new building or revision is larger than its neighbors or what is “characteristic” of the area, HPO staff and HPRB members can mandate that owners remove floors or overall square footage to bring it in line—regardless of what the relevant zone may allow. This is the reason historic districts are seen as a popular counter-measure for neighbors concerned about “pop-up” additions on rowhouse blocks. The district guidelines functionally overrule the zone and generally shrink the allowable additions to a size that is obscured from public view.

In effect, despite its nominal disconnect from land-use processes, historic designation can and does act as a separate veto point for new development, often permanently capping the density of a property below what zoning or the FLUM allows.

Three strikes and you’re out (of housing)

In Cleveland Park, we actually don’t have to wait for the proposed upflumming to become law to see how historic districts prevent more housing. The Cleveland Park historic district has already denied the neighborhood new potential homes from projects under the corridor’s existing zoning.

A clear example is the Macklin, an existing 17-unit apartment building on the Northwest corner of Connecticut Avenue and Newark Street, just two blocks from the Cleveland Park Metro. In 2019, the building’s owners proposed constructing an additional apartment building in the rear yard and replacing the front parking lot with townhomes and a new public plaza. Approved in June 2020, the final project is set to add 34 new housing units to the site.

But between initial conception and final approval, the building’s size and number of units shrank significantly, exposing the cost of conforming to the historic district. To see how that happened, it’s easiest to break it into three distinct cutdowns.

Cut #1: Custom zoning

The first reduction in the number of homes the Macklin could provide actually happened before a new design was even proposed. While historic districts normally sit on top of whatever standard zoning an area has, in Cleveland Park they are already woven together. The neighborhood’s commercial district is currently zoned NC-3, which is a custom Cleveland Park Neighborhood Mixed Use zone made to “encourage compatibility of development” with the historic district.

The zone does this by limiting heights of by-right projects to 40 feet and their maximum floor-area-ratio (a density measure) to 2.0. For the Macklin, that means that when they set out to design their additions, the approximately 30,000 square foot lot could permit about 66 units (or 49 new units accounting for the 17 that already exist) at the average unit size they ended up with.

But, under Cleveland Park’s current FLUM designation, the area could support a taller-denser zone. The MU-4 zone is also consistent and would increase the height limit of by-right projects to 50 feet and the floor-area-ratio to 3.0 (with inclusionary zoning units). Under that zoning the Macklin lot could have permitted about 93 units. That means that just from the custom zoning alone, the historic district is already blocking 27 new units.

Total lost units: 27

We should note here that 27 units accurately describes the cost given the current FLUM, but if the proposed Comprehensive Plan change passes (either the high-density version ANC3C supported or the medium-density proposed by the Chair), the opportunity cost will skyrocket threefold. Either new map would be consistent, for example, with an MU-7 zone, the same zoning currently applied to the neighboring Van Ness area one stop up the Red Line.

In an MU-7, buildings are allowed to be up to 65 feet tall and have a floor-area-ratio of 4.8 with inclusionary zoning units — that’s over double the density of what Cleveland Park’s current zone allows. Under those rules, the Macklin’s footprint could allow a project of about 154 units, which means that going forward, Cleveland Park’s custom historic zoning would be responsible for blocking 88 otherwise allowable homes in a future Macklin-sized project.

Cut #2: Pre-emptive concession

Despite already having a restrictive custom zone meant to control for historic compatible height and density, project designers suspected that a by-right building would still face pushback. To preempt an anticipated cut from the historic board, they proactively designed the project to be 19% smaller than zoning allowed. That 13,000 square feet cut represents approximately 14 more units, two of which would have been required to be affordable by the city’s Inclusionary Zoning regulation.

Total lost units: 41

Cut #3: The board takes its cut

The preemptive concession, however, proved insufficient. Despite the support of ANC 3C, the proposal was met with resistance during historic review, where both the staff and the board pushed to shrink the project further.

In their December 2019 report, HPO staff complained about the height and massing of both new buildings. At subsequent meetings in January and May, board members agreed and asked for another ~3,000 square feet to be cut, the equivalent of another seven units.

The cuts demanded in May even went beyond HPO’s suggestions. The board requested setbacks on the apartment building that would have cascaded through the interior to make the plan unbuildable. They also requested a facade reorientation that compromised the townhome layouts so dramatically that the developer wrote in their submission, “Applicant will not build the project if un-leaseable residential layouts are mandated.” Fortunately, strong testimony from ANC Commissioners and advocates convinced the board to relent on some of its demands: At a follow-up meeting in June, the project was finally approved with a loss of just one more unit. (The board’s change in position in response to public outcry also belies its formal separation from politics and the land use process.)

Total lost units: 42

If the Macklin was not considered compatible with the height and density allowed for by Cleveland Park’s current, highly-restrictive zoning, there’s little reason to believe FLUM changes allowing taller, denser development would make a difference. Further, the proposed FLUM changes don’t even touch the much larger area of residential blocks immediately adjacent to Connecticut Avenue that are even more exclusionary.

The lesson is clear: advocating for higher-density FLUM designations is essential, but adding housing to historically designated neighborhoods like Cleveland Park will take more than a new FLUM.

There are examples from historic districts across the city of HPRB cutting floors, shrinking masses, and denying second-unit entrances to conform with historic precedent. For all intents and purposes, the board’s preferences in these areas are the true zone, and they have no legal obligation to change their standard just because of changes to the FLUM or future zoning.

For residents who are opposed to zoning changes, discovering that historic districts are a trump card even if they lose the legislative and regulatory fight over the Comprehensive Plan could prove irresistible. Combined with HPRB’s exceedingly broad definitions of what qualifies as historic, it’s reasonable to expect a flurry of specious applications could be in our future.

Opponents who attended ANC 3C’s February 17 meeting certainly expect the historic district to put a ceiling on these changes. Barr Weiner, the president of the Cleveland Park Citizens Association, asked whether OP considers all zoning categories consistent with the historic district, or whether certain zones would create an internally inconsistent set of planning designations (1 hr, 9 mins).

And Commissioner Nancy MacWood said she opposed the upFLUMing in part because she did not want to rely on the Historic Preservation Review Board to “right-size” density (2 hrs, 9 mins). According to Commissioner MacWood, DC’s Historic Preservation Plan and Comp Plan had traditionally required zoning in historic districts to permit no more density than what was already built on the ground. HPRB is inexperienced with a “tension” between zoning and the built density of a historic district, and Commissioner MacWood said it would be too much to ask them to resolve that tension.

At the conclusion of a post like this, we’d typically say something like, “The District needs to decide whether more housing, or the preservation of neighborhood character, is more important.” But the reality is, it already has. In a situation like this, there is no possible compromise between or balance of historic preservation as it is currently carried out and adding more housing.

Preservation is winning out at a considerable expense, costing the District more sorely needed homes (even pricey ones in high-income neighborhoods), and setting back its goals to desegregate its neighborhoods. The only way to change that outcome is to deprioritize some elements of historic preservation.