A lesson in how not to "negotiate" with the Growth Machine

Image from the Holland and Knight website. In DC, arguably H&K has the leading land use practice focused on local development matters.

An email, not from me, about an H Street development issue:

On the dangers of "negotiating" with the developers

At the design guidelines meeting I took the position that we should offer design suggestions to the developer to show good faith before the BZA hearing. Everyone else was opposed to that idea.

It turns out that everyone else was right. Here is a practical argument against "negotiating" with the developers before they design a building that complies with the zoning and the design standards.

This group knows that the FAR in the C-2-A portion of the original design was over the permitted 2.5 and that the zero setback violated the 10-25 feet in the design guidelines. In the revised plans they now comply with these rules but they portrayed it as giving up density and lot occupancy as a result of negotiations with the neighbors. In exchange for what amounts to complying with the law, they are now asking for a 2514.2 exception to move the 9 story building and the associated FAR into the C-2-A zone.

Their argument is "We lowered our density to help the neighbors, so we should be rewarded". If we just stuck to the line, "comply with the zoning regs" they probably would have ended up in the same place but wouldn't have the "negotiations with neighbors" excuse as justification for the 2514.2 special exception.

I don't think this problem is unrecoverable, but it is much more important that we ask the Zoning Administrator for a ruling of the FAR aggregration issue. If we win that (and a plain reading supports our position) it will help undercut their 2514.2 argument.

I thought people were arguing the "no negotiations strategy before compliance" based on arguments like "we shouldn't have to do that", but there are even stronger practical reasons for not negotiating them into compliance -- your good faith negotiations will be used against you.

Index Keywords: Growth-Machine; negotiating; urban-design-placemaking