City Again Rules to Save Historic Mt. Vernon Triangle Houses

The DC government has ruled three nineteenth-century row houses in DC's Mount Vernon Square Historic District must be preserved, giving some resolution - at least for now - to a long-running saga that spotlighted tensions surrounding urban church parking and historic preservation.

1232, 1234, and 1236 New Jersey Avenue, NW. Image: HPO

On Thursday, the city released its most recent ruling that the Third Street Church of God, located in DC's Mount Vernon Square Historic District, must continue to preserve three nineteenth century row houses it owns at 1232, 1234, and 1236 New Jersey Avenue NW.  Last year the Church petitioned the Historic Preservation Office (HPO) for permission to totally demolish the homes, built in the 1860's, to make way for parking.  It argued saving the buildings would constitute an "economic hardship."  The HPO rejected the permit, so the Church requested that the office of the Mayor's Agent hear the case.

The Church first announced plans to demolish the structures last year, but the HPO recommended only partial demolition, as it stated in a staff report that parts of the houses still had structural integrity to justify saving.  The Church changed its plans to comply with the HPO's recommendation, and the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB), the HPO's decision-making body, approved that permit.  The church went forward with the demolition, but then decided to make the case for a full demolition permit again.  It was that permit that the city again rejected on Thursday.

Mayor's Agent hearing officer J. Peter Byrne wrote in the ruling released Thursday that historic preservation trumped the Church's economic hardship argument.  Byrne wrote that the church's plans to use its property to serve its programming deserved "great respect," but that the Church "must pursue its facility goals within the constraints of the Historic Landmark and Historic District Protection Act, which benefits both the surrounding neighborhood and entire District of Columbia."

According to public record, the Church bought the row houses over 20 years ago for $98,400, but their 2011 assessed tax value was more than $500,000 - almost the exact same amount as the church's annual revenues.  In any case, the city ruled, the church's economic hardship argument doesn't stand, as securing the buildings for the Church's original estimated cost of $77,420  "does not seem prohibitive in light of the Church's revenues and assets."  The best option, the city suggested, might be for the church to avoid any expense to itself at all and just sell the row houses.

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Full Raze Petition Rebuked by HPO for New Jersey Ave Houses

The Third Street Church of God will now plump for a full demolition of three historic rowhouses on New Jersey Avenue, a turnaround from their original plans to only partially raze the structures. The Church got a preliminary okay from DC's Historic Preservation Office (HPO), then got support from the Historic Preservation Review Board in June, both for a partial (not full) demolition of its property at 1232-1236 New Jersey Avenue, NW. After HPRB approved the partial raze request, the Church immediately asserted it would fight for a full raze, as the Church seemed to have felt pressured into partial preservation.

Making good on that promise, the Church is seeking to fully demolish the property by petitioning the Mayor's Agent with the plea of economic burden, a move that the HPO has just opposed.

The three rowhouses next to the Church on New Jersey Avenue date back to 1866, but have become severely decrepit in the last few decades of life. Still, HPRB determined that the front façades and brick party walls of the rowhouses maintained their integrity and could be braced and retained, resulting in the call for partial preservation this summer.

The most recent HPO report opposing the Church's full raze petition says "The conditions at 1234 and 1236 can largely be blamed on 20 years of deferred maintenance...the Board has always stood against approving razes of buildings brought to a state of dilapidation by lack of maintenance, as approval would not only result in the loss of historic fabric and character in the particular, but would reward and encourage such neglect in general."

If the Mayor's Agent does approve the Church's petition for a full raze, then the cleared site would be incorporated into the Church parking lot, in order to offset the 15 spaces (in the 32 space lot) that will be lost due to the addition on its property at 1208 3rd St.

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Partial Preservation Prevails Over Parking

The request submitted to the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) for partial preservation of three historic rowhouses at 1232-1236 New Jersey Avenue NW, was unanimously approved by the HPRB Board on June 30th. The applicant, The Third Street Church of God, had petitioned for a full raze of the properties to make way for 5-7 parking spaces.

The partial raze compromise was reached in the "11th hour," as HPO Staff Reviewer Brendan Meyer stated during his testimony; HPRB Chair Catherine Buell explained that the role of the HPRB is to preserve "contributing structures in a historic district." With that said, Buell then acknowledged that the Church could revisit the Board with a new (full raze) request, or petition the "Mayor's agent" using the plea of economic burden.

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Historic Rowhouse Façades Likely to Remain

A plan by the Third Street Church of God to raze three historic rowhouses at 1232-1236 New Jersey Avenue NW in the Mount Vernon Square Historic District (MVSHD) has been changed. The new plan, after recent consultation with the Historic Preservation Office (HPO), is for the church to retain the sound façades and demolish the decrepit rear, and is detailed in the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB)'s staff report, published Friday, in advance of the upcoming Board meeting this Thursday, June 30th. If the Board grants approval, the HPO will then wave forward the Third Street Church of God's new plan for partial demolition.

The three rowhouses were originally four, however the southernmost one was demolished before the designation of the MVSHD in 1999. All three are flat-front, brick rowhouses built in 1866-1867, and according to the HPRB staff report, are "representative of the speculative housing built on the outskirts of the city in the boom years immediately following the Civil War."

The HPRB staff report, prepared by staff reviewer Brendan Meyer, outlines that "large portions of the three rowhouses are in extremely dilapidated condition... specifically the rear masonry walls and one-story ells are compromised structurally by numerous trees that have taken root in the walls." The staff report, released Friday, states that "[a]fter recent consultation with the HPO, the church has agreed to revise the raze application and now wish [sic] to pursuse a concept approval that would allow them to demolish only portions of the buildings not visible from New Jersey Avenue."

Although the rowhouses have suffered from longstanding exposure to the elements at the rear, resulting in extensive mold, a flourishing termite colony, and "nearly total loss of interior finishes... [and] structural integrity [of the back portions]." The front of the buildings are in "relatively good condition" and show "only typical wear for 150-year-old masonry," explains the staff report.

Because the façades of the rowhouses are salvageable, while the rear is impassable, the HPO is recommending that the Board approves this new, compromised solution to save some of all three historic structures - which front New Jersey Avenue. This new plan would restore the historic face of the property, and retain the "possibility that the current or a future owner may be able to incorporate the historic structures into a future development," as is stated in the staff report.

In the meantime, if the plan is approved and the church follows through with demolition of the back portion of all three rowhouses, the newly created space will be used for 3 to 5 churchgoers to park.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Raze Request for 1860s Rowhouses

Three historic row houses, at 1232-1236 New Jersey Avenue, NW, in the Mount Vernon Square Historic District, are up for demolition. The raze request submitted in February by the property owner, the Third Street Church of God, will be reviewed by the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) next week, on June 30th. The HPRB will decide the fate of the badly decrepit row houses, vacant now for over two decades.

At first glance, the property looks unimpressive. Upon further inspection, and considering the 140-year history, the three residential row houses can be seen in a new light, or at least given a nod. However, the property is the worse for its 14 decades.

Director of Church Operations at Third Street Church of God, Theodore (Ted) Daniels, says that demolition is "one of the options" being pursued by the Church and if this route is pursued that the created "space will be used for parking" for church attendees. The Third Street Church of God has been at its location - next door - at 1246 New Jersey Avenue, NW for over a century.

Rob Amos, chair of the ANC 6C Planning, Zoning, and Environment (PZE) Committee, and president of Mount Vernon Square Neighborhood Association (MVSNA), says that the amount of parking that would be created is unimpressive, and that the PZE moved to oppose the raze request at the PZE meeting on June 1st. The full ANC 6C Commission meeting, however, split 3-3-1 and the ANC "took no action on the request [of the PZE]."

Bobbi Kengel, concerned citizen, says she was "shocked to discover that there could still be a real possibility of demolition of historic rowhouses within a designated historic district."

But, the "real story," according to Kengel, is that "churches and universities are still being allowed to commit demolition by neglect in large numbers, and they aren't even being taxed at the vacant or blighted rates." Rebecca Miller, Executive Director of the DC Preservation league, agreed that property owners should not be able to commit demolition by neglect. According to Amos, "Pastor Sanders [of the Third Street Church of God] testified that [the property] had been vacant for at least 20 years. The Church has been using them for storage for quite a while now."

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