On Monday, we looked at a spat between two neighbors that the city wouldn’t touch. In Shaw, a case of neighborly discontent has gone even further: 60 people in the vicinity of a former crack house at 605 P Street are up in arms against the building’s conversion into a 9-unit “non-transient boarding house.” On [...]

As someone who writes about housing, I often hear from people who are upset about something that their neighbors, or the city, or both, are doing that affects their quality of life. Howard Wilson is a good example.
In December 2008, the unoccupied three-story rowhouse next to Wilson’s house in the 1400 block of Belmont Street [...]

Via H-DC via Richard Layman, I recently got wind of a handy new tool for snooping on buildings from the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs–a fairly user-friendly web application that looks up permits on any given address, and includes easy links to Bing maps, Google street view, inspections, remodels, most everything you'd want to [...]

Last week, it was the con artist posing as an inspector from the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs who made D.C. residents wary of authority figures. Today, a tipster sent DCist a picture of a bright orange notice from the "Department of Land Regulation Administration," with the address blacked out. Sketchy, right? Turns out [...]

At last night's Zoning Commission hearing to consider an emergency text amendment to the Uptown Arts Overlay, area businesses got a bit of a reprieve: Commissioners took emergency action to boost the 25 percent cap to 30 percent, effective immediately. According to a ZC spokeswoman, for the next 120 days, businesses can apply for their [...]

Let's end this Housing Complex Day down at 941 North Capitol Street with nod of credit to where credit is due—that is to the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs for making some undeniable strides in how they deal with the city's permit seekers.
The centerpiece of that is the new permit center, which spokesperson Michael [...]

Jim Conner strolled out of the permit center today at about 4 p.m., and he says he's just "tickled to death" by how easy it was.
The 20-year-veteran electrical contractor says he's averages five visits a week to 941 North Capitol, and he says the new permit center is a big improvement over the old process, [...]

Lance Robinson came down to 941 North Cap today to get his new business in order. It's called LRL Services—a home-based operation to sell various merchandise, jewelry and gifts and such online. Getting such an operation in the good graces of government means (a) registering a trade name, (b) procuring a business license and dealing [...]

The older gentleman exiting the permit center with a thick roll of plans looks like he might have been through this a time or two.
Indeed he has: "You know who you're talking to? You talking to someone who's been doing this since 1958." In fact, he says, he's the original architect of record for Ben's [...]

Sometimes, it's all about perspective: Ask Melvin Crenshaw.
A draftsman, he's been dealing with D.C. permitting since 1985. Today, outside the newly refurbished DCRA one-stop permit center, he says, "It's a whole lot better than it used to be." The customer service, in particular.
He would know: He remembers hanging out for hours in the agency's old [...]