{"id":536,"date":"2021-03-17T17:09:22","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T17:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/?p=536"},"modified":"2021-03-17T17:42:16","modified_gmt":"2021-03-17T17:42:16","slug":"release-zoning-head-crosses-ethical-bounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/dc\/536","title":{"rendered":"RELEASE: Zoning Head Crosses Ethical Bounds"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MARCH 17, 2021<\/u><\/u><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2018Zoning Head Crosses Ethical Bounds\u2019
\n<\/b><\/span>Grassroots Ask IG, Auditor, BEGA, AG to Intervene<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

The DC Grassroots Planning Coalition<\/a> (DCGPC), the main citywide group advocating for responsible and equitable development, is asking the District\u2019s top four accountability offices to examine a letter DC Zoning Commission Chair Anthony Hood sent to Council Chairman Phil Mendelson urging passage of Mayor Bowser\u2019s <\/span>thoroughgoing\u00a0changes to the DC Comprehensive Plan \u2013 a communication\u00a0that the Coalition says crosses \u201cethical boundaries and violates DC law and regulations\u201d by in effect lobbying the Council for the Mayor’s redevelopment agenda.<\/span><\/p>\n

The letter <\/span>(below<\/a>) sent by e-mail on March 15, asks Inspector General Daniel W Lucas, Rochelle Ford, Director, Office of Governmental Ethics (part of the Board of Ethics and Government Accountability, BEGA), Auditor Kathy Patterson and Attorney General Karl Racine to \u201cexamine, and render an opinion on\u201d Mr. Hood\u2019s letter. <\/span><\/u><\/u><\/span><\/p>\n

In communication on behalf of the DC Grassroots Planning Coalition, Parisa Norouzi, Director of Empower DC, alleges Hood goes beyond making a disinterested request for information about the Council\u2019s consideration of the Comprehensive Plan and urges rapid passage of the Plan so that the Commission, according to Hood, can clear\u00a0\u201ca\u00a0backlog of cases . . .\u00a0[and] counteract adverse decisions by the DC Court of Appeals.\u201d The Hood letter of August 5, 2020, implies that his Zoning Commission is declining to consider cases in anticipation of Council approval of the Mayor’s redevelopment-friendly changes to the Comprehensive Plan. DCGPC charges this is \u201cunlawful and unethical\u201d inasmuch as a Comprehensive Plan exists to guide the Commission’s timely consideration of projects that come before it.<\/u><\/u><\/span><\/p>\n

Adds Norouzi, \u201cMr. Hood\u2019s lobbying the Council on behalf of the Mayor and to reverse \u2018adverse\u2019 court decisions is particularly galling. It recalls the effort at the federal level under\u00a0the last president to subordinate our three branches of government to the executive, and shows that Mr. Hood and the Commission are hardly \u2018independent\u2019 of the Mayor, the Council and the developer class. We noticed that the Zoning Commission dismissed objections raised to the Hood letter by the Committee of 100 last October (<\/span>https:\/\/committeeof100.net\/download\/planning\/comprehensive_plan\/2020-10-13-C100-Letter-Zoning-Commission-Chair-Anthony-Hood.pdf<\/span><\/a><\/span>)<\/span>, and we think that when an agency fails to recognize its ethical and legal lapses, greater authority must be brought to bear.”\u00a0<\/span><\/u><\/u><\/p>\n

Anthony J. Hood has served on the District of Columbia Zoning Commission<\/a> since 1998. He first served as Chairman of the Zoning Commission in 2000 and has currently served as Chairman since 2007. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\"pdf Complaint-re-ZC-Chair-Anthony-Hood-3.15.21.pdf<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: MARCH 17, 2021 \u2018Zoning Head Crosses Ethical Bounds\u2019 Grassroots Ask IG, Auditor, BEGA, AG to Intervene The DC Grassroots Planning Coalition (DCGPC), the main citywide group advocating for responsible and equitable development, is asking the District\u2019s top four accountability offices to examine a letter DC Zoning Commission Chair Anthony Hood sent to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,41,1,67,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-citywide","category-comprehensive-plan","category-dc","category-planning","category-zoning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":540,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536\/revisions\/540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}