A residence near the US Capitol on New Jersey Avenue, SE, being marketed as office space.
ANCs Push City on Illegal Use of Housing by Lobbyists & Others
by Larry Janezich
Posted November 14, 2023
Tuesday night, ANC6B joined ANC6C in sending identical but separate letters to the Mayor and other city officials asking for city action on the long standing issue of illegal use of residential buildings close to the Capitol by lobbyists, non-profits, and political organizations.
Last Wednesday, ANC6C Commissioner Joel Kelty called up a letter for consideration by ANC6C which voted 6-0-1 to send it to the Mayor and others. (Commissioner Jay Adelstein abstained because he wanted the letter posted on the ANC website for a brief period of time for constituents to see it and provide helpful comments before it was sent.)
On Tuesday night, in ANC6B, Commissioner Frank Avery introduced the same proposal for consideration by ANC6B. The Commission voted to support sending the letter by a vote of 8 – 1. The letter reads in part:
“The proximity of our neighborhood to the US Capitol and congressional offices makes the Capitol Hill neighborhood an attractive location for lobbyists, political campaigns and other companies and organizations seeking to influence Congress to establish offices and to host corporate events. These office and event uses are commercial occupancies as defined by the Zoning Regulations and are fundamentally incompatible with the designated uses in the RF and RA residential zones that make up the majority of our neighborhood.
Since at least 1985, residents of [ANC 6C/ANC 6B] have complained to the District government that residentially zoned properties in our ANC have been illegally converted to prohibited commercial uses. We again ask the Mayor to timely implement a coordinated, multi-agency approach to address existing illegal commercial uses and to develop systematic policies and procedures to prevent future conversions of residentially zoned properties to prohibited, non-residential uses.”
The letter requests immediate changes to address the non-residential use of residentially zoned properties and requests their immediate implementation…including revoking the certificate of occupancy for any unpermitted, non-residential use identified in a residential zone and ordering the immediate closure of any non-residential use that lacks the required certificate of occupancy.
Additional requests include:
- Evaluate properties being investigated for use violations, also for construction code deficiencies…
- Prevent the future conversion of existing residentially-zoned properties to non-residential uses…
- Modify the 311.dc.gov website and 311 mobile app to provide a trackable means for citizens to report zoning violations, including the illegal use of a residential property for a nonresidential use.
- Forward reports of properties that are misclassified as residential uses to the Office of Tax and Revenue for re-classification.
- Provide an online dashboard that allows citizens to search for zoning and tax classification complaints and to track their resolution.
- Verify all non-person permit applicants are entitled to do business in the District of Columbia…
- Require that all real estate sales transactions involving residentially-zoned property in the Capitol Hill Historic District and Capitol Interest Overlay Zone include a disclosure at settlement highlighting the allowable uses in the appropriate residential zone.
- Coordinate with OUC and DOB to re-classify properties being used for non-residential purposes to reflect their actual tax classification and reassess those properties to reflect their actual value based on their commercial use.
- Coordinate with DOB inspections to verify occupancy for residentially zoned properties. Reclassify any residential properties found to be unoccupied as vacant and tax at the vacant property tax rate.
Copies of the letters were sent to Councilmember Charles Allen; Director Brian Hanlon, Department of Buildings; Director Sara Bardin, Office of Zoning; Kathleen Beeton, Acting Zoning Administrator Glen Lee, Chief Financial Officer; Director Heather McGaffin, Office of Unified Communications.
The draft letter which was submitted for consideration by ANC6C included a list of 29 residentially zoned properties reported by constituents as being used for commercial purposes: See link below. ANC6B has a similar list of 22 properties and did not attach it to its letter but the list has already been forwarded to CM Charles Allen and to Brian Hanlon, Director of the Department of Buildings.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IBief7ir5EwNahtjvkTxY6CUc2Y7cq4mV1Ht5XvigNs/edit#gid=0
CAPITOL HILL CORNER 
It’s a shame these ANC letters have not been made public; I hope this will be rectified soon. This google document (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QsXP69PFKURd7IAGXhmLyeuwgGZLd_ht/edit) has about 50 such properties, ALL of which Capitol Hill neighbors have provided as places where they have observed corporate activity instead of residential activity. The extent of this problem is huge and one of a longstanding agency culture of non enforcement and looking the other way.
Related: A new service of renting out your house *by the hour* for meetings and events is apparently a new twist on corporate use of residences on Capitol Hill. It too seems completely UNregulated, and I am uncertain if DC leaders even know about it. Here’s an ad for such a house at 251 8th NE: https://www.peerspace.com/pages/listings/6442c56bab27a8000e58f6f8
The Peerspace listing for the house on 8th Street makes it appear like someone’s house, that is normally used as a residence.
If someone rents out their house for an hour for a 3-year-old’s birthday party, does that transform it to commercial use? (I have rented space some of my kids’ events.) I don’t know where the line should be drawn, but folks occasionally using someone else’s property for personal events do not strike me as particularly dangerous; neither does it threaten the CH residential fabric and zoning.
Event space on CH is expensive and particularly hard to find. Further, I am sympathetic to homeowners picking up some spare change; lord knows it is expensive to live around here.
Several longstanding non-profits such as the Capitol Hill Restoration Society and the Capitol Hill Community Foundation use residential town house locations on the Hill for their offices. These residences probably served as actual residences for former, or current, officers in their organizations — which organizations financially support hundreds of worthy local organizations. Would they be excluded from new rules?