I am speaking tonight on behalf of the Georgetown Neighborhood Alliance.
Undoubtedly, there will be many neighbors speaking to the problems with the proposed building at 511 S. Main. I will not repeat their issues. But to be clear, the Georgetown Neighborhood Alliance fully supports HARC and City Staff’s position to deny the proposed construction.
I do want to speak to the process. For reasons unimportant to GNA at this point, the COA including demolition and building/infill was submitted to HARC as 1 initiative. I suspect it was to save time for the applicant and/or at the applicant’s request. The result, however, was to create confusion regarding the process and procedure HARC was to follow in reviewing a COA with inter-dependencies. That is, you can’t discuss the building/infill without addressing the demolition.
I appreciate the applicant’s position regarding the process but want to highlight the bottom line.
During HARC’s preliminary review, HARC clearly shared concerns on 1) mass – height and the size of the new building in relation to the existing, structure and surrounding buildings, 2) height of the wall, and 3) historical consequence of the building – the June HARC presentation included very small adjustments in response to the feedback. As such, the issues expressed by HARC at the June meeting were essentially the same as discussed earlier with the applicant. And importantly, The City Staff – trained on our UDC which governs COA, development, infill, etc. recommended against the building for the same reasons.
In other words, HARC and City Staff have been consistent with their issues and areas of non-compliance based on the UDC. The Applicant has essentially dismissed the direction of HARC and not made substantial adjustments to their plan to comply with the UDC.
If HARC is Dad, you are Mom and the applicant at 16 is trying to buy cigarettes. That is, they are attempting to circumvent Georgetown’s UDC, City Staff, and the Mayoral appointed HARC and its process.
While City Council approved the SUP, it doesn’t give the applicant a pass on the UDC guidelines. And without guidelines, we have no guidelines. . .
Appeals to HARC decisions have occurred 2-3 times in the last 4-5 years (including tonight’s appeal). Previously, City Council upheld the decision of HARC and the developer came back with a better design. GNA urges you to support City Staff and HARC and deny this appeal.