Mendelson renews push to split up DCRA amid criticism over slow action on demolition at Franklin School

Critics of the District’s building code enforcement pointed earlier this month to unauthorized demolition at a museum project downtown as evidence of a need for change. Last Tuesday, in an effort to improve the performance of the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, 12 of the 13 DC Council members co-signed legislation to transfer responsibility for code enforcement to a new agency, the Department of Buildings.

The legislation, introduced by Chairman Phil Mendelson, proposes to remove issuance of building permits and regulation of the building code from the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA), which has been long criticized for being unwieldy and in need of reform. Tasked with handling everything from issuing business licenses to investigating illegal construction, DCRA was the target of two critical reports last year from the Office of the DC Auditor, which recommended the agency improve management of vacant properties and enforcement of the housing code.

“The District can have an agency that will be less distracted by a long list of vaguely interconnect responsibilities and finally have the capacity to focus on one mission — to ensure the safety and inhabitability of structural buildings,” Mendelson said when introducing the bill on Jan. 22.

Ward 4’s Brandon Todd, a strong ally of Mayor Muriel Bowser, was the lone council member who did not co-sign the legislation. The Bowser administration has rebuffed Mendelson’s past proposals to divide up DCRA’s myriad responsibilities, urging a focus instead on making the existing agency more responsive and efficient.

Criticism of DCRA has continued unabated, however, with some of the most recent complaints focused on damage to the historic Franklin School building that regulators failed to prevent. One of 18 structures in the city with interiors protected under DC historic preservation law, the Franklin School is being transformed into a private language arts museum, Planet Word. Upon touring the site in late August 2018, historic preservation officials confirmed that construction workers had damaged and disposed of interior finishings.

During a Jan. 15 hearing on the destruction of historic materials inside the building last summer, Mendelson grilled DC’s chief preservation official on why the city failed to act more swiftly to stop work there once problems were discovered. The chairman expressed frustration that no one from DCRA was at the hearing to testify, but a spokesperson for Mendelson did not respond to a question about whether the agency had been asked to send a representative.

Testifying before the council, David Maloney, the District’s state historic preservation officer, said the project’s architect first notified preservation office staffers of damage to historic materials as early as the first week of August. The removed materials include historic wainscotting, furnishings of an arched opening, and other fabrics. Built in 1869 and designed by Adolf Cluss, the Franklin School was designated as a local landmark in 1964 and became a National Historic Landmark in 1996, with the interiors granted protection under local law six years later. A nomination document explains that it was one of seven modern school buildings built around that time; it also notably was where Alexander Graham Bell successfully tested a photophone, an early attempt at transmitting sound through light waves.

Maloney said his office notified DCRA in mid-August about the damage. A public inspection on Aug. 30 confirmed the extent of the unauthorized demolition, and Maloney’s office — part of the DC Office of Planning — issued a letter to the project team detailing the removal of historic materials. DCRA issued the stop-work order on Sept. 6, halting construction at the site.

Maloney said that the developer and the city reached an understanding on Dec. 10 that allowed construction to continue. The construction team agreed to restore three rooms and other interior finishings. The contractor resumed work on the site on Jan. 2, after a four-month halt.

The construction delays have pushed back the planned December 2019 opening of the museum, according to the Planet World project team. No new timetable has been announced.

In a statement on Jan. 15, Ann Friedman, the founder and CEO of Planet Word, apologized for the construction damage.

“As the developer, it is my responsibility to ensure that the work we are doing to rehabilitate and preserve the Franklin School is conducted with appropriate care and within the boundaries established by our building permits,” she said. “I sincerely regret that unpermitted work occurred and am committed to ensuring that these mistakes aren’t repeated.”

The federal National Capital Planning Commission, which reviewed the Franklin School rehabilitation project under its authority for DC government projects downtown, now plans to conduct monthly inspections of the construction site, Friedman said.

At this month’s hearing, Mendelson wanted to know why it took weeks after damage was first discovered for the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs to issue a stop-work order at the construction site. “We have a problem with illegal construction in this city,” Mendelson said near the end of the hearing.

DCRA did not return The DC Line’s request for comment.

Mendelson ultimately recessed the Franklin School hearing, saying he will seek testimony at a later date from DCRA officials. There will be multiple opportunities for him to raise the Franklin School issue at related hearings in the coming months. The bill to create a Department of Buildings was retained under Mendelson’s Committee of the Whole, which is expected to schedule a hearing. Mendelson has announced a Feb. 6 oversight hearing to obtain input from stakeholders and the public at large on the issues at DCRA that merit the committee’s attention over the next two years. The committee will hold its annual oversight hearing on the agency’s performance on Feb. 27 and a public hearing on the mayor’s forthcoming budget request for DCRA on March 27.

The Department of Buildings proposal and the Franklin School debate follow years of complaints from lawmakers and advocates over DCRA’s ability to enforce rules and regulations in buildings and construction sites. Amid repeated attempts at reforms and improvements spanning multiple mayoral administrations, critics often point to an ebb and flow in the effectiveness of their implementation.

Creation of the new department, Mendelson said last week, is a way to ensure a “more robust focus on code enforcement, clearer, consistent application of policies and standards, and more responsible culture of customer service.”