Opinion ID: 2326822
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Specifics of KCA's and the ANC's Challenge

Text: The regulatory definition of basement is at the center of KCA's and the ANC's challenge to the BZA's ruling on the basement issue. As already noted, a basement  the area of which must be included in gross floor area  is that portion of a story partly below grade, the ceiling of which is four feet (4 ft.) or more above the adjacent finished grade. 11 DCMR § 199.1. The gist of the challengers' argument is that, to implement the foregoing regulatory definition as part of determining a building's gross floor area, in all . . . cases it is necessary . . . to measure how much, if any, of the floor area on the ground floor has ceiling more than four feet above the adjacent grade, and to include that amount in `gross floor area' and thus FAR; and that if the adjacent grade and the ceiling height above it are impossible to observe and measure, there must be another way of arriving at the required measurements. KCA and the ANC accept that the perimeter wall method can be used to apportion lower-level space between basement and cellar for a freestanding building, because the grade adjacent to all of the building's perimeter walls can be observed. They contend, however, that the perimeter wall method cannot be used in cases such as this, where the grade adjacent to the subject building's side walls cannot be observed, because it is impossible to complete the method's step that entails measuring that portion of the perimeter . . ., the ceiling of which is four feet or more above the adjacent finished grade. See note 17, supra. Because the Zoning Administrator did not and could not make that measurement, KCA and the ANC argue that the method that he used to calculate the square footage of lower-level space includable in the subject building's gross floor area was not actually the perimeter wall method, but instead was an unprecedented and unauthorized front-wall-only method. The front-wall-only method, they argue, not only fails to take into account the adjacent grade at the building's other walls (as they assert the regulatory definition of basement requires), but also contravenes what they assert is the intent of the zoning regulations. That intent, they say, is to make the amount of a ground floor area that a builder must count against density limits dependent on two variables: the amount of floor area and grade of the lot  the steeper the grade, the greater the proportion of `cellar' space is likely to be; and the greater the total floor area of the ground floor, the more floor area will be apportioned to each type. KCA and the ANC contend that the BZA should have required the Zoning Administrator to use the grade-plane method, which entails estimating the level of the grade adjacent to the subject building's side walls. As KCA asserts, the whole point of the grade plane method . . . is . . . to approximate what the grade would look like if you were able to see the grade because you had no obstructing buildings on either side, enabling the Zoning Administrator to arrive at a reasonable approximation of the actual grade of the ground on which the building sits. Under the grade plane method as the challengers apply it, the entire lower level of the subject building must be treated as a basement and thus must be included in gross floor area.