continuation of the Zoning Commission's hearing on the remand of the McMillan case from the DC Court of Appeals -- Wednesday, 04-19-2017

From: HistoricWashington@yahoogroups.com [mailto:HistoricWashington@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2017 6:08 PM
To: HistoricWashington@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [HistoricWashington] Final (?) McMillan Zoning Remand Hearing - Wednesday, 5 pm
                                                           

           This Wednesday, April 19, at 5 pm, the Zoning Commission will hold another (and perhaps the final) hearing on the remand of the McMillan case from the D.C. Court of Appeals.  This time only the parties to the case will present -- VMP and Friends of McMillan Park.  

           VMP is scheduled to go first and present arguments relevant to the remand questions from the court.  Then the Friends will do the same, and there will likely be considerable cross examination of the two parties' expert witnesses.  The public will not be permitted to speak, though the public is welcome to attend and watch.  

        If there is time for both parties to conclude their presentations on Wednesday, this will likely be the last in this series of Zoning hearings.  The next step likely will be for Zoning to issue an order based on these hearings (date of course unknown).  Then the Mayor's Agent for Historic Preservation will hold similar 'limited scope hearings' on the preservation aspects of the court's remand, probably sometime in late June or so (date not yet confirmed)

       On March 23 individuals and public organizations had the opportunity to testify, but Zoning refused to allow submission into the record of testimony by persons who did not testify at the hearing (and was rather picky about admitting even the testimony of some of those who DID testify).  On April 6th the Friends' legal counsel cross examined representatives of the Office of Planning and the Department of Energy and the Environment.  The Zoning Commission decided at about 10pm to postpone the next step -- presentation by VMP -- until April 19th so that both parties to the case would appear during the same hearing and have the opportunity to cross examine on the same night.  Wednesday's hearing will begin unusually early, at 5pm, in order to accommodate that. 

        This Wednesday's hearing starts at 5 pm at 441 4th St. NW, room 220 South.  The hearing will be broadcast live and you can watch it live here.  The hearing will also be archived for later viewing here, where you can also see the video of the March 23rd and April 6th hearings. 

     If you're interested in the documents and exhibits for this case, you can see them all here.  Click on the blue "view full log" button in the bottom right, and that will bring you to the first page of case documents.  There are 24 pages of exhibits in the case, all in chronological order based on the filing date.  The documents submitted for this remand hearing are all on pages 23 and 24 of this list of case documents, following the documents submitted for the original hearings for the case in 2014. 

Kirby Vining