From:
HistoricWashington@groups.io On
Behalf Of Kirby Vining
Sent:
Saturday, February 22, 2020 6:43 PM
To:
HistoricWashington@groups.io
Subject:
[HistoricWashingtonDC] Court Grants Injunction Friends of McMillan Park
Requested, Feb. 19
The
following is information that the Friends of McMillan Park sent out Saturday,
February 22 concerning the most recent court action on McMillan Park:
On
Wednesday, February 19th, the D.C. Court of Appeals granted the injunction we
requested to halt demolition activity at McMillan until our appeals case is
decided. Recall that the Court issued an administrative injunction on January
16th stopping demolition activity to allow the Court time to review our request
for an injunction, appealed from the Superior Court order of January 10th that
denied our injunction request. In this Feb. 19th order, however, the Court has
completed its initial review of the case and granted the injunction we
requested and explained why it did so, all consistent with the grounds we
presented.
BACKGROUND:
Recall that the D.C. Court of Appeals' May 16, 2019 order affirmed the order of
the Mayor's Agent for Historic Preservation that would allow demolition, but
imposed a condition on any demolition: "The applicants are not at liberty
to begin demolition or subdivision, however, unless .... the Department of
Consumer and Regulatory Affairs independently determines that they possess the
((financial)) ability to complete the project." The Court's Feb. 19th order says "Thus
far the Deputy Mayor appears to have relied almost exclusively on a presumption
that DCRA made the independent determination it was required to make, and the
existing record is apparently bereft of any direct evidence that DCRA in fact
did so." This is precisely our
argument and the Court clearly agrees with us.
The
Court's Feb. 19th order is an interim order, not a final decision, and it
states that there is one matter still outstanding: The Feb. 19th order states:
"We note that there has been uncertainty about whether DCRA's issuance of
the demolition permit is properly reviewable by the Office of Administrative
Hearings or instead by the Superior Court.
We do not decide that question at this juncture." The Court determined that this question does
not prevent the issuance of the injunction, but instructed OAH to quickly complete
its review to determine whether it regards the demolition permit as properly
issued. DMPED argues that the OAH has the authority to review the permit.
The
Court's order was silent on what it will do with the results of OAH's review,
saying only that it could not answer the question about whether OAH or the
Superior Court can properly review this matter.
So when OAH has completed its review, the Court of Appeals will continue
its proceedings on our appeal. This is complicated stuff, but recall that our
main argument is that the demolition order issued on August 16, 2019 was in
defiance of the Appeals Court's instructions in its May 2019 decision. The
Superior Court and thus far the Court of Appeals agree with our argument, but
the Court says it cannot decide the question of whether OAH or the Superior Court
have the authority to review the issuance of the permit. And that's where we
are now.
The
above information is available in URL form here:
https://mailchi.mp/6092424b88f4/injunction_granted_20feb20
Kirby
Vining
No comments:
Post a Comment