The Comprehensive Plan amendment process is lurching back to life and the DC Council’s first vote is scheduled for July 9, 2019.  As we noted last month, the District of Columbia’s Office of Planning (“OP”) launched its DC2ME survey to solicit input on the ‘values’ that District residents want to be reflected in the amendment process. Also, OP had a presence at the recent Capital Pride parade and 11th Annual DC Housing Expo and Home Show to obtain additional feedback on the ‘values’. According to agency staff, further outreach is scheduled for this summer but specific times and locations have yet to be made public. This outreach broke a long period of dormancy since the 12+-hour District Council hearing in…

Effective October 1, 2019, the transfer tax and recordation tax for real estate sales of commercial and mixed-used property on transactions of $2,000,000.00 or above will be significantly increased. On May 28, 2019, the Council of the District of Columbia unanimously voted to approve Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Fiscal Year 2020 budget.  This budget includes an increase of the current 2.9% transfer and recordation taxes to 5% on sales of commercial and mixed-use property valued at $2,000,000.00 or more.  The increase will also apply to transfers of a controlling economic interest in entities that own commercial real property. About The Author

It’s ALIVE!  The Comprehensive Plan amendment process comes back: Almost three years on, the District of Columbia’s Office of Planning (“OP”) wants District residents to identify key values to direct the Comprehensive Plan amendment process. As many of our readers know, the Comprehensive Plan is a 20-year framework that guides future growth and development.  As part of the ongoing amendment process, OP wants to know: “What are the ‘values’ of District residents?”  “How should those ‘values’ direct the District’s long-term planning?” Spearheaded by its new director, Andrew Trueblood, OP launched an online survey called “DC2ME” to find out.  The survey will be “live” only until June 30, 2019, so now is the time to act. The online survey asks participants…

The District of Columbia (“D.C.”) has a relatively long history of being known for its trees, stemming back to the planting of 60,000 trees initiated by the last Governor of D.C., Alexander “Boss” Shepard in the 1870s.  While his tenure was brief, his vision of D.C. being the “City of Trees” endured as tree planting efforts were continued by the Federal Government, National Park agencies, citizens, and leaders such as Lady Bird Johnson.  (See City of Trees by Melanie Choukas-Bradley 3rd Edition.) Today, the goal of preserving and increasing D.C.’s tree population continues.  One of D.C.’s top sustainability goals is to increase the tree canopy of the city from 35% to 40% by 2032.  (https://doee.dc.gov/service/canopy-3000.)  In furtherance of this goal,…

It all started in 1894, when the famous architect Thomas Franklin Schneider designed and constructed the Cairo.  At 164 feet tall, the Cairo was the first residential skyscraper in the District of Columbia (the “District”), causing an uproar among the District’s residents.  The concern was the safety of the structure of such buildings and the ability to fight flames in the event of a fire.  In response, the District’s Board of Commissioners passed a regulation limiting the height of all future residential buildings.  By 1899, Congress passed a law, amended in 1910, commonly known as the Height Act, limiting the height of District buildings to 130 feet. While the fear that skyscrapers in the District could cause the whole city…

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