Photo by mosley.brian

Marc Fisher has the big news that the years-long fight between historic preservationists and the congregation of the Third Church of Christ, Scientist at 16th and I Streets NW appears to have been resolved by the District.

D.C. planning director Harriet Tregoning has ruled that historic preservation zealots trying to force the church to keep its concrete bunker of a building on 16th Street NW near the White House were wrong and that the city must grant the church a permit to demolish its faceless, spiritually deadening 1971 building so that the church’s members can afford to build a new downtown church more suited to expressing and celebrating their religious faith.

“The Mayor’s Agent finds that the denial of the [demolition] permit would result in the inevitable demise of the Third Church as a downtown congregation, and therefore concludes that the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs may consider the demolition permit application cleared for historic preservation purposes,” Tregoning wrote in her long-awaited decision on the church’s appeal of a pro-landmark ruling by the city’s historic preservation board.

Fisher’s long written about the church battle from the point of view of his bias against the Brutalist architectural style of the building. Historic preservationists argue that the whole point of preservation is to avoid destroying things that may have gone out of fashion today, but might once again be cherished in the future. With her decision, Tregoning has come down on the side of the congregation, who have long argued that they could not afford a new church anywhere downtown unless they are allowed to tear down the existing structure and put up a revenue-raising office building in its place. By framing her reasoning in terms of the health of the downtown neighborhood and the economic hardship on the church, though, Tregoning managed to steer clear of most of the controversial aspects of this fight. It’s not about whether the building is ugly or historically significant, it’s about making sure we don’t end up with a giant, abandoned building right near the White House.