Photo by Cickatoes

D.C. is recommending meaningful changes to the Height Act to Congress, two days after the National Capital Planning Commission submitted its own proposal that the 1910 law stay essentially the same.

Under the Office of Planning’s recommendations, the Height Act formula based on the relationship between street width and building height would be changed within the L’Enfant City.

The District recommends using a ratio of 1: 1.25 for street width to building height, resulting in a new maximum building height of 200 feet for 160-foot wide streets in the L’Enfant City. This approach would apply an urban design-based standard reflecting the proportionality between individual streets and their buildings to ensure a pedestrian-scaled streetscape with lots of light and air without the strictures of late 19th century fire safety limitations.

The city is also recommending that it have more control over any proposed changes in height outside of the L’Enfant City. This would not eliminate the Height Act in any part of the city. But rather allow for exceptions to the rule with approval from the city, Council, NCPC and Congress.

The limits currently established in the federal Height Act should remain in place unless and until the District completes an update to the District Elements of the Comprehensive Plan where targeted area(s) that meet specific planning goals and also do not impact federal interests are identified. Under this recommendation, building heights in targeted areas may be proposed to exceed the maximums under the federal law; and these may be authorized through the existing Comprehensive Plan process, pending Congressional approval. Should such targeted exceptions be authorized through the Comprehensive Plan, the Height Act would remain in place for all other areas both inside and outside of the L’Enfant City.

This is, essentially, what the NCPC staff recommended in its final recommendation draft. A recommendation that was quickly stripped from the proposal NCPC ended up sending to Congress after Tuesday’s Commission meeting.

Now it will be up to Congress to decide the outcome. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, who started this whole process off, told Roll Call yesterday “We don’t expect to have a radical change or a significant change to the Height Act as a result of the study, but we do expect to empower the parties to bring forth future plans.” His committee will likely meet next month.