Friends of McMillan Park: McMillan demolition permit issued; challenge underway

From: HistoricWashington@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2019 9:30 PM
To: HistoricWashington@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [HistoricWashington] McMillan Demolition Permit Issued; Challenge Underway

A note from the Friends of McMillan Park on recent activity at the McMillan site Tuesday, August 20. 

On Friday, August 16th vehicles and personnel from a prominent local demolition/excavation company were seen on the McMillan south service court doing something -- the only visible work was their laying down of a patch of large-sized gravel near the gate. Then on Saturday, August 17th FOMP found that a demolition permit had been issued for McMillan -- the same permit number and prose as the December, 2016 permit, but the new date of August 16th and a new signature (DCRA permits are posted online at 3am the day FOLLOWING issuance of a permit, so it wasn't visible online until Saturday).  Dump trucks and a bobcat (small bulldozer) were visible again on the site starting Monday.

FOMP immediately started to work gathering information relevant to a challenge to this permit issuance on Sunday, after finding a copy of the permit (which wasn't easy!) but because of the weekend those initial challenge materials were not sent until Monday.

The May 16, 2019 D.C. Court of Appeals decision states at the very end that 

"The applicants are not at liberty to begin demolition or subdivision, however, unless the appeal of their PUD approval is favorably resolved and the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs independently determines that they possess the ability to complete the project."  FOMP does not believe that the court's condition has been satisfied, and this is one key part of the challenge to the issuance of the permit.  At this time further details on that challenge are best kept quiet until we see how this goes and what steps are useful in all this. We'll keep you updated as we learn more about what's going on.

Kirby Vining