Opinion ID: 2164332
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Office of Planning, the Advisory Neighborhood Commission, and great weight.

Text: The Zoning Regulations provide that [b]efore taking final action on an application for use as a college or university, the Board shall submit the application to the District of Columbia Office of Planning... for review and written reports. 11 DCMR § 210.6 (1987). The University complied with this requirement and, as we have noted, OP expressed reservations regarding the placement of the new law school at the Cassell Center site. Although no statute or regulation expressly so provides, the FGCA argues, and we agree, that the Board is required to demonstrate in its findings that it considered OP's views, and must provide a reasoned basis for any disagreement with them. See, e.g., Committee for Washington's Riverfront Parks v. Thompson, 451 A.2d 1177, 1193-94 (D.C.1982). The BZA is also required to give great weight to the concerns of Advisory Neighborhood Commissions. Levy, supra, 570 A.2d at 746; see D.C.Code § 1-261(d) (1987); 11 DCMR § 3307.2 (1987). As we explained in Kopff v. District of Columbia Alcoholic Beverage Control Bd., 381 A.2d 1372, 1384 (D.C.1977), An agency must elaborate, with precision, its response to the ANC issues and concerns.... [T]he agency must articulate why the particular ANC itself, given its vantage point, doesor does not offer persuasive advice under the circumstances.... [W]e believe that great weight implies explicit reference to each ANC issue and concern as such, as well as specific findings and conclusions with respect to each. (Emphasis in original). ANC 3-E objected to the use of the Cassell Center as the proposed site for the law school and urged the Board to consider and adopt the arguments submitted by OP. [9] The FGCA maintains that the Board failed to give ANC 3-E's recommendation the requisite great weight. In its findings, the Board failed to make any mention of the fact that OP opposed the selection of site 4 for the new law school. The University presents only a perfunctory defense of this omission, claiming that the OP position can best be described as equivocal. The sequence of events described in Part I D., supra, establishes to our satisfaction that OP continued to adhere, throughout the course of the case, to its initial opposition to the proposed site. The BZA should have explicitly acknowledged and addressed OP's reservations. The Board did, however, discuss in some detail the concerns of ANC 3-E regarding the proposed site for the law school. [10] The Board specifically stated that it had accorded great weight to the views of ANC 3-E and of ANC 3-D and, while the assertion that this has occurred may not necessarily make it so in every case, we have no reason to question the Board's assurance here. The FGCA also contends that the BZA violated the great weight requirement by not responding to ANC 3-E's suggestion that the law school be constructed on site 5, the Nebraska Avenue parking lot. We conclude that the Board dealt adequately with this suggestion. The Board found that site 5 was initially considered a viable location for the law school, and that an analysis was prepared for this site (and others) to determine whether it would be suitable. (FF ¶ 25). When the site evaluation criteria were applied to each of the apparently feasible locations, it was determined that site 4 was the only one that could accommodate both the needs of the University and the interests of the community (FF ¶ 27). The topography of Site 5 would create a taller building facing the Westover Place and Embassy Row townhouses, [and] forty of the residents who now face an open parking area would face a building where none has existed. ( Id. ) Moreover, testimony during the hearings revealed that Westover Place and Embassy Row residents were opposed to construction on site 5 ( Id. ). The Board thus not only responded to the ANC's views, but also indicated why the ANC's suggestion was unsound. See Bakers Local Union No. 118 v. District of Columbia Bd. of Zoning Adjustment, 437 A.2d 176, 180 (D.C.1981). Since the Board sufficiently addressed ANC 3-E's concerns, and since ANC 3-E largely adopted OP's objections, the Board's failure to make any explicit allusion to OP's position was harmless. We recognize that where both OP and the ANC have objected to a proposal, their combined opposition may merit greater weight in the decision-making calculus than the opposition of only one of these organizations standing alone. In this case, however, the Board has sufficiently responded to the substance of the objections, and reversal would not be appropriate.