CM Allen Intros Bill to Fine Developers Up to $100,000 for Unauthorized Demolition of Historic Homes
By Larry Janezich
Posted November 14, 2023
In the past five years, two historic townhomes* in ANC6B Commissioner Jerry Sroufe’s Single Member District have been demolished by developers who exceeded the scope of their building permits – with minimal consequences. The one pictured above at 326 A Street, SE, was demolished in 2019. A second demolition earlier this year at 639 A Street, SE, prompted Sroufe to seek a legislative remedy to prevent future demolitions. Tuesday night, at its monthly meeting, ANC6B voted to send a letter to CM Charles Allen urging stricter enforcement of Historic Preservation regulations and stronger penalties for unauthorized demolition.
It seems Allen had already gotten the message.
On Wednesday, Allen introduced legislation to protect historic homes from unauthorized destruction and demolition, enabled in part by existing fines with too low a maximum penalty to serve as a successful deterrent and with little ability for existing fines to allow for significant differences between small and severe violations.
The bill comes out of an examination of demolition records and fines for historic buildings, which made clear the existing fine structure was not deterring construction companies. In reviewing violations and infractions, few contractors were required to pay more than $3,000 for violations – a small fine for a project costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Notably, the fine is the same for something smaller, such as repointing, as it is for larger, near-full scale demolition.
The bill from Councilmember Allen proposes a stronger and more flexible fine system to allow the Office of Planning and the Historic Preservation Review Board to take decisive action. The Protecting Historic Homes Amendment Act of 2023 would create scaled, higher fines for significant violations of the Historic Landmark and Historic District Protection Act of 1978, the legislation that created the District’s current framework for historic preservation. The new bill provides that penalties assessed by the Historic Preservation Board must vary by degree of severity of the damage, up to $100,000 per violation. Current violations are capped at a daily fine of $4,716 regardless of the severity of the infraction.
“Earlier this year a historic home in Ward 6 was nearly demolished when a construction project to add onto the home went way beyond the scope of the original permit. It drew attention to the fact that existing fines just aren’t enough to truly deter that kind of activity in historic neighborhoods,” said Allen. “This legislation will give the District more flexibility to enforce against bad actors for significant violations of historic preservation law. Right now, these companies can skirt the law and tear down history just by writing a small check to the city. And even excellent enforcement can only go so far, if the ceiling on fines for the worst behavior is about the same as the price of a few new doors and windows.”
The ANC letter passed Tuesday night offered two recommendations for addressing the current fining and enforcement procedures:
1) A legislative hearing would provide an opportunity to seek full understanding of the process of assigning fees, moderating them, and collecting them.
2) OP should be required to provide data about penalty violations, and the resulting consequences of discovered violations, to the Council annually.
It was not clear whether Allen’s bill addressed these additional concerns or whether Allen agrees they are necessary.
*“Embarrassed” Historic Preservation Board OK’s Rebuild of Illegal Demolition https://bit.ly/43cnQwV
*Demolition at 639 A ST SE – a “tragic and unfortunate development “– Gets Stop Work Order https://bit.ly/3nuZ6jk
*You Have to Watch Them Every Minute…. https://bit.ly/3lLBHtH
CAPITOL HILL CORNER 