Rendering of the Rear of Rose’s Luxury and Proposed Enclosed Roof Deck with Sliding Glass Roof. The Near Image Shows the Roof in the Open Position. The Far Image Shows It Closed.
Owner and Chef Aaron Silverman Tells ANC6B’s Planning and Zoning Committee of His Plans for Rose’s Luxury.
First Look at Rose’s Luxury’s Sliding Glass Roof
Owner’s Presentation to ANC Committee Prompts Squabble Over Process
by Larry Janezich
Rose’s Luxury owner and chef Aaron Silverman presented his plans for enclosing his roof top dining area complete with a sliding glass roof to ANC6B’s Planning and Zoning Committee last night.
Silverman told the Committee that the plans had already been approved at the staff level by the Historical Preservation Office (HPO), which came as a surprise to the Committee since the plans had not been submitted to them for their review. Oldenburg characterized the proceeding as “bizarre.”
The presentation was described as a “courtesy” by ANC6B Chair Kirsten Oldenburg at last week’s Executive Committee meeting where it was placed on Tuesday night’s agenda. Last night, Oldenburg told the Committee “Maybe we made errors in how we processed this.” She said it had been handled at the Single Member District level, implying that it was the responsibility of the appropriate Single Member District commissioner to request the issue be placed on the ANC’s agenda. The entire west side of Barracks Row where Rose’s Luxury resides is represented by Commissioner James Loots, who was not present at tonight’s meeting.
Commissioner Chander Jayaraman said he was troubled that the sliding glass roof for Rose’s Luxury had not received the same scrutiny as the controversial sliding glass roof for The Ugly Mug. See here: http://bit.ly/17gR4hY
Resident Member Ivan Frishberg sought clarification about the intent of the Executive Committee in putting the presentation on the agenda tonight and said he thought the Committee should be proactive in weighing in on the issue.
Oldenburg offered to call HPO the next day and ask what the status of the Historic Preservation case is and determine whether the case should go through the regular approval process. Frishberg said that the Committee should decide now – either recommend that the ANC review the case or say “this is done.” Commissioner Chao wondered whether the ANC is setting a precedent by how it handles this case, noting the ANC may have more cases like this.
Chair Nick Burger said, “We are setting a precedent. HPO should have sent us the case, but we’ve got to decide this tonight.” (See * below)
Commissioner Jennifer Samolyk summed up what came to be the consensus of the Committee, saying, “I don’t think we need to take action tonight. This was a courtesy presentation and Rose’s Luxury and the Ugly Mug are two entirely different situations – apples and oranges.”
With that, the hour being late, the Committee threw up its collective hands and agreed no action would be taken when the full ANC6B meets next Tuesday.
Earlier this month, Silverman announced he would open a second Barracks Row restaurant in the space next to Rose’s – that space currently occupied by the popular quirky art, gift, and notions shop, “Homebody.” Open weekdays only, and in a departure from SOP at Silverman’s yet unnamed new place will take reservations and feature a $100 price fixe menu.
*Editor’s note: Committee chair Nick Burger subsequently clarified what his thinking and intent had been, as follows:
CAPITOL HILL CORNER 
And just to clarify my comments on this… a la Chair Burger, my concern was just that this presentation was not on the agenda as a formal case and so we needed to be clear about the process going forward. It is not fair to the community or the applicant to have people show up if there is no expectation of action, or conversely to take action when it was assumed to be just informational. Thus my request last night that the committee be clear about how it wanted this handled at the full commission meeting.
Also, FWIW, many cases are made at a staff level and with delegation by HPRB. Some times that is done to the detriment of the community, sometimes it is totally appropriate. This is where the SMD rep has to be clear with the commission, HPRB staff and the community about what is happening and what kind of review they want to have. The confusion last night about this was in part created because Commissioner Loots was home sick and could not attend the meeting. Thus you had the Committee trying to figure this out in his excused absence at the end of a long night. Personally I think Commissioners Oldenburg and Burger handled my request for clarity well, even in a challenging moment.
What’s not fair is that there were two separate processes for the two restaurants. I think the way this was handled his open the door for ugly mug to come back and get their rooftop deck and sliding roof approved by sidestepping the ANC.
I’m not a fan of the ugly mug proposal, however, the ANC Open the door to this when they failed to uniformly apply Set the standard for the approval process.