some info on the North Capitol Commons development project at North Capitol & K St NE

The new Washington City Paper Housing Complex reporter Aaron Wiener has penned an article on the reduced demand for required minimum parking for new development projects.
   

Not Asking for a Lot

Posted by Aaron Wiener on Oct. 3, 2012 at 7:47 pm  
          

In this article, he mentions the North Capitol Commons development project at North Capitol and K Street NE, just down the street from Bloomingdale. Here are the article three paragraphs on this project:          

North Capitol Commons, a planned 124-unit building at North Capitol and K Streets NE, is the latest example, having received a variance from the Board of Zoning Adjustment on Tuesday. The application that Be the Change, the developer, submitted for the variance demonstrates the lengths to which developers must go to receive an exemption from the parking minimum. It included a check for $8,320 to cover the application fee (not to mention the sums that Be the Change paid its law firm, Holland & Knight, to prepare the application) and a detailed explanation of why the variance was necessary and would ``not cause substantial detriment to the public good.`` Holland & Knight laid out the difficulty of constructing parking on the lot, and pointed to the site`s 92/100 rating on Walkscore.com as evidence that parking is not needed.

``We realized even going into this that the expected car ownership was going to be extremely low,`` says Chapman Todd, a consultant on the project. ``We are less than half a mile from two Metro stations. A bus stop is literally directly in front of our site. It`s about as transit-accessible as you can get.``

But it seems more than a little excessive that Be the Change was forced to fight for a parking exemption, given that all 124 units in the building will be dedicated to affordable housing, and 60 of them will be set aside for people exiting homelessness. The zoning code requires the building to include 31 off-street parking spaces, for a population that has very few cars.

Here is a rendering of the project from the website of the architecture firm, Sorg and Associates:
 

 

and here is a brief description of the project from the Sorg and Associates website:

Located in downtown Washington, DC on one of the main thoroughfares leading to the United States Capitol, this mixed-use residential community provides permanent supportive housing with a wide range of amenities, including conference space, management offices, lounge, fitness center, retail space, and social services. The design of this 13-story building with 111 residential units responds to the its historic context with its slim, modulated massing, which also serves to take advantage of monumental views to the north and south along the avenue and provides courtyards and increased daylighting to the interior units. The colorful window mullions and glass façade at the street front help to foster a sense of welcoming for the community as a whole.