With the city running into trouble with the feds for leaving seats open too long, the Historic Preservation Review Board nominations are flowing again. This time, with a familiar face: Andrew Aurbach, who served on the board as an historian from 2007 to 2009, and still serves on its sustainability committee. According to his resume [...]

At last week's confirmation hearing for Historic Preservation Review Board nominees, preservation groups and hyperlocal elected officials—even the board's former chairman, Tersh Boasberg—lined up to support the appointment of Nancy Metzger, who's been the Capitol Hill Restoration Society's point person on preservation for 16 years now. She's a fierce advocate for historic districts around the [...]

Back in November, we heard that Mayor Vince Gray had finally nominated two people to stick around past their already-expired terms on the Historic Preservation Review Board and two more to fill pending vacancies. It was a relief, given that only two members of the nine-person board haven't had their terms expire.
Well, turns out two [...]

Way back in April, I received word that Mayor Vince Gray had picked his nominees for the Historic Preservation Review Board. And then...nothing. No official nominations, to the tremendous frustration of the historic preservation community, as all but two of the board members' terms expired, and board meetings sometimes even went without a quorum. I [...]

The Historic Preservation Office has had to deal with some gnarly demolition-by-neglect cases recently. In deciding whether to grant a landlord's request to take down their decrepit building, staff have to weigh how much historical integrity the structure retains, how egregiously the owner has allowed it to deteriorate, and whether it would be possible to [...]

Well, Walmart and Foulger Pratt can breathe a sigh of relief: Staff at the city's Historic Preservation Office have recommended that the Historic Preservation Review Board not designate the old streetcar car storage barn at Georgia and Missouri Avenues NW as a landmark, after activists nominated the structure in a last-ditch attempt to kill plans [...]

Every five years, D.C.’s Historic Preservation Office has to come up with a plan for the next five. A couple weeks ago, with another deadline looming, the staff called a public meeting to figure out what to do next.
This gathering, like many chitchats about safeguarding old buildings, was heavy on activists whose own ages also [...]

In a classic last-ditch anti-development tactic, the "Brightwood Neighborhood Preservation Association," headed by Ward 4 Thrives member Verna Collins, has submitted a landmark application for the Car Barn that now sits on the site of the Walmart planned for upper Georgia Avenue. The D.C. Preservation League had previously gone to bat for the century-old brick [...]

Hoagie House: The red building on the corner of 4th and N Street NW in Shaw that's been vacant and boarded up as long as most people can remember. Finally, the top tax rate for blighted property taxes is kicking in, and the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission is supporting the owner's bid for a break [...]

Whenever you hear about some ridiculous form of historic preservation overreach, it's probably from the Old Georgetown Board, the three-member panel that reviews and approves every significant architectural change and new development in that historic district. There was the long, drawn out process of getting an Apple Store design that would look no different from [...]