Bowser v. Dupont East Civic Action Assoc. Dupont East Civic Action Assoc. v. D.C. Office of Planning

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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS

No. 22-CV-0884

MAYOR MURIEL BOWSER, et al., APPELLANTS,

V.

DUPONT EAST CIVIC ACTION ASSOCIATION, et al., APPELLEES.

Appeal from the Superior Court

of the District of Columbia

(2019-CA-004130-B)

(Hon. Yvonne Williams, Trial Judge)

————

No. 20-AA-0693

DUPONT EAST CIVIC ACTION ASSOCIATION, et al., PETITIONERS,

V.

D.C. OFFICE OF PLANNING, HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICE, MAYOR’S AGENT FOR

HISTORIC PRESERVATION, RESPONDENT,

and

PERSEUS TDC, et al., INTERVENORS.

On Petition for Review of an Order of the

District of Columbia Mayor’s Agent for Historic Preservation

(2019-HPA-000497)

2

(Argued April 26, 2023 Decided August 24, 2023)

Graham E. Phillips, Deputy Solicitor General, with whom Brian L.

Schwalb, Attorney General for the District of Columbia, Caroline S. Van Zile,

Solicitor General, and Ashwin P. Phatak, Principal Deputy Solicitor General, were

on the briefs, for appellants.

Michael D. Hays, with whom Barry Coburn and Marc Eisenstein were on

the briefs, for appellees.

Gary M. Ronan, with whom Andrew Zimmitti and Joel E. Antwi were on the

briefs, for Perseus TDC as amicus curiae in support of appellants.

Before EASTERLY and DEAHL, Associate Judges, and FISHER, Senior Judge.

DEAHL, Associate Judge: These consolidated appeals concern the ongoing

construction of an apartment building behind the Scottish Rite Temple—a historic

landmark located at 1733 16th Street NW. The Temple occupies roughly half of a

single record lot that spans an entire block and straddles the 14th and 16th Street

Historic Districts, and that lot must be subdivided if this project is to proceed. The

developer, Perseus TDC, sought approval for this subdivision from the Mayor’s

Agent for Historic Preservation, who approved its application over the opposition of

several neighbors and neighborhood organizations, including the Dupont East Civic

Action Association, or DECAA. Case No. 20-AA-0693, which we refer to as the

subdivision appeal, is DECAA’s challenge to the Mayor’s Agent’s approval of this

subdivision.

3

In addition to opposing Perseus’s subdivision application, DECAA filed its

own application with the Historic Preservation Review Board, or HPRB, to extend

the boundary of the Temple landmark to encompass the entire block, including the

land where the apartment building is being constructed. As part of its consideration

of this application, the HPRB determined that the landmark’s site boundaries had

never actually been delineated. Accordingly, in its decision denying DECAA’s

request, the HPRB “t[ook] the opportunity presented by this application to clarify

and confirm” that the boundaries of the Temple landmark are coterminous with the

taxation lot occupied by the Temple at the time of its construction and for many

decades thereafter—i.e., the western portion of the present-day record lot, outside

the footprint of the apartment building project. DECAA filed suit challenging this

decision, and the Superior Court ultimately granted its motion for summary

judgment after concluding that the HPRB acted arbitrarily and capriciously in

defining the Temple landmark’s boundaries. Case No. 22-CV-0884, which we refer

to as the boundary appeal, is the District’s appeal from this judgment.

In both cases, we agree with the District. As to the subdivision appeal, the

Mayor’s Agent found that subdividing the property was consistent with the purposes

of the District’s historic preservation statute. Because that finding was supported by

substantial evidence in the administrative record, we affirm the Mayor’s Agent’s

4

decision. As to the boundary appeal, the HPRB’s finding that the Temple

landmark’s boundaries had never been established and should be set as coterminous

with the taxation lot occupied by the Temple at the time of its construction was

neither arbitrary nor capricious, and the ruling was supported by substantial

evidence. The Superior Court thus erred in vacating the HPRB’s decision, and we

reverse its order granting summary judgment to DECAA.

I.

The Scottish Rite Temple

Designed by famed architect John Russell Pope, the Scottish Rite Temple was

constructed to serve as the headquarters for the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite

of Freemasonry, 33rd Degree, Southern Jurisdiction. Upon its completion in 1915,

the Temple stood on Assessment and Taxation (A&T) Lot 800, which was

comprised of record lots 86 through 100, 1 running along the western corner of 16th

and S Streets NW. At that time, the Temple was “hemmed in by rowhouses and

1

A record lot is “a lot recorded on the records of the Surveyor of the District

of Columbia.” 11-B D.C.M.R. § 100.2. For convenience, the owner of multiple

adjacent record lots can consolidate them into an A&T lot, which allows for the

payment of a single tax bill for the entire parcel. See 9 D.C.M.R. § 352.3.

6

Comm. on Landmarks of Nat’l Cap., 449 A.2d 291, 292 & n.4 (D.C. 1982). As one

of its first acts, the Joint Committee published Landmarks of the National Capital:

Preliminary List, a catalog of structures and places of significant historic or aesthetic

value. This list included the Temple as a Category III landmark—i.e., a landmark

“of value which contribute[s] to the cultural heritage or visual beauty and interest of

the District of Columbia and its environs, and which should be preserved, or

restored, if practicable.” As with all Category III landmarks, the Joint Committee

identified the Temple only by reference to its approximate address (“16th & S St.,

N.W.”); its list did not specify precise landmark boundaries for the Temple. As

noted, the Temple at that time still sat on A&T Lot 800, the same taxation lot it had

occupied since its construction in 1915.

In 1966, shortly after the Joint Committee added the Temple to its preliminary

list of District landmarks, Congress passed the National Historic Preservation Act,

Pub. L. No. 89-665, 80 Stat. 915 (codified as amended at 54 U.S.C. §§ 300100 et

seq.). Among its various provisions, this statute authorized grants to states that

prepared comprehensive historic preservation plans. Id. § 102, 80 Stat. at 916. The

District delegated responsibility for preparing its plan to the Joint Committee, see

A&G Ltd., 449 A.2d at 292, which in 1973 published an updated list and map of “all

the designated landmark buildings, places, and objects which comprise the District

7

of Columbia’s Inventory of Historic Sites.” As with its preliminary list, the Joint

Committee once again identified landmarks by their approximate addresses without

any reference to their precise boundaries. This updated list was then incorporated

into the District’s statewide preservation plan, which was published the following

year.

Meanwhile, the Masons had continued with their property acquisitions,

including purchasing the adjacent carriage house and obtaining the closure of the

public alley separating it from the Temple. The carriage house was located on its

own A&T lot (808), which in 1976 the Masons combined with A&T Lot 800 and

their other property holdings along S Street to create A&T Lot 820. This new

taxation lot encompassed the property located within the western two-thirds of the

block, as depicted below:

8

The following year, in 1977, the Joint Committee added the “Sixteenth Street

Historic District” to the District’s inventory of historic sites, defining it to include

the buildings on both sides of 16th Street between Scott Circle and Florida Avenue.

Unlike its treatment of Category III historic landmarks, the Joint Committee

identified this historic district by reference to its specific boundaries, which it set

using the rear lot line of every then-existing lot fronting 16th Street along this

roughly 14-block span (including, evidently, the boundaries of both record lots and

taxation lots). As a result, the historic district included all of A&T Lot 820, including

the Masons’ new property acquisitions that had been consolidated into this taxation

lot the year prior.

Unlike the preliminary 1964 list, inclusion in the Joint Committee’s updated

catalog of historic sites triggered additional legal protections, including those set

forth in the Historic Landmark and Historic District Protection Act, commonly

called the Preservation Act, D.C. Code §§ 6-1101 to -1115. That statute placed

various restrictions on the alteration, demolition, and subdivision of historic

landmarks and other properties within historic districts, defined in reference to the

D.C. Inventory of Historic Sites. Id. § 6-1102. As of 1979, when the statute took

effect, that Inventory included both: (1) the Temple itself, which was listed by

address only; and (2) the 16th Street Historic District, defined in relation to property

9

lines and which included all of A&T Lot 820. The Preservation Act also authorized

the creation of the HPRB, which in 1983 assumed the functions of the Joint

Committee. See Donnelly Assocs. v. D.C. Hist. Pres. Rev. Bd., 520 A.2d 270, 271

& n.2 (D.C. 1987).

In the following decades, the Masons continued with their property

acquisitions, and by the early 1990s they had purchased and razed the last of the

rowhouses along 15th Street (the carriage house, however, remains to this day). In

2011, they obtained the closure of the remaining portion of the alley running through

the block, and in 2013 they merged all of their holdings to create a new record lot—

Lot 108—that spanned the entire width of the block from 15th to 16th Street, and

was bounded by S Street to the north, and the alley to the south. The western two-

thirds of this lot (i.e., the former A&T Lot 820) remains within the 16th Street

Historic District, while the eastern portion was included in the 14th Street Historic

District when it was established in 1994.

Perseus’s Subdivision Application

About five years ago, the Masons decided to construct an apartment building

on the eastern half of their property, hoping to use the money from this development

to fund renovations to the Scottish Rite Temple. Because they had merged their

10

property holdings into one record lot, and the District’s zoning regulations generally

limit record lots to a single principal structure, see 11-C D.C.M.R. § 302.2, this plan

required subdividing the property. Subdivisions of properties within historic

districts must generally be approved by the Mayor’s Agent for Historic Preservation.

See Friends of McMillan Park v. D.C. Mayor’s Agent for Hist. Pres., 207 A.3d 1155,

1161 (D.C. 2019) (“FOMP II”). The Mayor’s Agent, in turn, refers subdivision

applications to the HPRB for its recommendation. D.C. Code § 6-1106(b). The

HPRB, with the assistance of the Historic Preservation Office (HPO), advises the

Mayor’s Agent on an application’s “compatibility” with the purposes of the

Preservation Act. Id. §§ 6-1102(6A), -1103(c)(1). The Mayor’s Agent then makes

a final determination, which is appealable to this court. Id. § 6-1112(b).

Perseus TDC, the developer spearheading the project, submitted a conceptual

design of the apartment building to the HPRB for its review. Conceptual design

review is an optional (though highly encouraged) process for seeking the HPRB’s

advice on whether a project will likely comply with the Preservation Act before

formally applying for approval. Id. § 6-1108(b). The HPO reviewed Perseus’s

conceptual design, which it noted would require a subdivision, and concluded that it

was generally appropriate. Its report described the eastern half of the record lot as

“historically unrelated to the [T]emple” and stated that this property was “not part

11

of the [T]emple landmark and not recognized as contributing to the historic districts

in which it is located.” Based on this recommendation, the HPRB unanimously

approved the conceptual design. The following year, Perseus submitted its final

application to subdivide the property essentially along its 1915 border (i.e., the

eastern edge of former A&T Lot 800). The HPRB unanimously recommended the

application’s approval (subject to several minor design tweaks).

Because several neighboring property owners and neighborhood associations,

including DECAA, opposed a subdivision of the Temple property, the Mayor’s

Agent held a hearing on Perseus’s application. See 10-C D.C.M.R. § 3000.1. At the

hearing, both supporters and opponents of the project offered expert witnesses who

opined on the subdivision’s consistency with the Temple’s historic significance. The

Mayor’s Agent also received various public statements in support of and in

opposition to the project. Among these was one from the local Advisory

Neighborhood Commission, or ANC, which supported the subdivision and

development.

After considering this evidence, the Mayor’s Agent issued an order approving

Lot 108’s subdivision. The Preservation Act authorizes the subdivision of a historic

landmark or a lot within a historic district upon a finding that the subdivision is

12

“necessary in the public interest,” which is defined to mean that it is “consistent with

the purposes of [the Act].” D.C. Code §§ 6-1106(e), -1102(10). Describing the

arguments in favor of approving the subdivision as “straightforward and

persuasive,” the Mayor’s Agent identified four reasons for authorizing the requested

subdivision. First, because the eastern half of Lot 108 did not contribute to the

Temple’s historic significance, severing that property from the Temple would result

in no preservation loss. Second, the Mayor’s Agent found that the proposed

subdivision would produce meaningful historic preservation gains “because it

facilitates a ground lease to provide a revenue stream that will finance much-needed

restorations to the Temple,” a structure of historic significance. Third, the

subdivision was compatible with the character of both the 14th and 16th Street

Historic Districts, as it would retain the landmark site intact while “mak[ing] two

lots more consistent [with] the size of other lots in both historic districts.” Fourth,

permitting the development of the eastern portion of Lot 108 would improve the

character of the neighborhood, because letting it persist as vacant space would be

incompatible with the surrounding historic districts. The Mayor’s Agent further

noted the support of the HPRB, to which he generally gives deference, as well as

that of the local ANC, whose views are entitled to “great weight.” D.C. Code

§ 1-309.10. DECAA now challenges this decision in our court.

13

DECAA’s Landmark Boundary Application

Several months after the HPRB approved Perseus’s conceptual design,

DECAA submitted an application to the Board to “amend the existing [Temple]

landmark” boundaries. Claiming that the undeveloped land on the eastern side of

the lot had “enhanced magical sightlines to the magnificent Temple,” the application

requested that the landmark’s boundaries be extended “to include all of the land

behind the Temple”—i.e., the entirety of present-day Lot 108. Because the District’s

zoning regulations impose significant hurdles for work affecting historic landmarks,

see, e.g., 10-C D.C.M.R. § 303.1, defining the Temple landmark’s boundaries in this

way would have likely derailed construction of the planned apartment building (as

was DECAA’s avowed goal).

The HPRB referred DECAA’s application to the HPO, which in April 2019

issued a report recommending that it be denied. The HPO’s report reasoned that

“[t]he land that makes up the expanded boundaries has not been shown to have

played a significant role in the history or events tied to the temple,” and further noted

that it was not even acquired by the Masons until well after the Temple’s period of

historical significance (i.e., the early decades of the 20th century). However, in this

report recommending against an expansion of the Temple landmark’s boundaries,

14

the HPO described the landmark’s present boundaries as consisting of the former

A&T Lot 820 that was first created in 1976. That lot was “approximately 2/3 of

present-day Lot 108,” and was considerably larger than former A&T Lot 800

(compare the two depictions above), which the Temple sat upon from its 1915

construction through 1976. When this HPO report was issued, DECAA declared

victory, telling its supporters that, because these existing landmark boundaries

overlapped with the footprint of the proposed apartment building, “Perseus TDC will

not be able to build that building they had planned.”

The parties differ on exactly what happened next. According to the District,

the HPO “continued to study the history of the site” and eventually concluded “that

it was ‘an error’ to have treated Lot 820 as the Temple’s existing boundary.” Having

identified this error, the HPO took the “concededly unusual step” of issuing a new

report the following month. Contrary to its April 2019 report, this revised report

explained that the Temple landmark’s present boundaries were actually undefined,

as when the site was originally listed by the Joint Committee, it was merely identified

by address. Accordingly, the HPO recommended using DECAA’s application as an

“opportunity” to “clarify and confirm” the landmark’s existing boundaries, which it

described as “the extent of the property at the time of the Temple’s completion in

1915, which was [A&T] Lot 800”—in other words, the western half (rather than two

15

thirds) of the present-day record lot, outside the footprint of the proposed apartment

building.

DECAA puts a more nefarious spin on things. By its telling, after it became

clear that the boundary lines identified in the April 2019 report would disrupt the

developer’s construction plans, Perseus and its allies began pressing the HPO to

change its recommendation. “Kowtow[ing]” to this pressure campaign, the head of

the HPO removed the staffer who had prepared the April 2019 report from working

on DECAA’s application and took the “unprecedented” step of preparing a new

report himself. 2 As noted, that revised report recommended setting the Temple

landmark’s boundaries to correspond with former A&T Lot 800, which DECAA

claims was selected not on the basis of a historic evaluation but rather to avoid

triggering any additional permitting requirements, thereby paving over a major

hurdle to Perseus’s project.

This revised report was submitted to the HPRB, which held a public hearing

in May 2019. After hearing testimony from many of the project’s supporters and

2

At oral argument, the District expressly denied that this staffer had been

removed from working on DECAA’s application, accurately noting that she testified

in favor of the HPO’s revised recommendation at the HPRB hearing.

16

opponents (including a DECAA representative), the Board publicly deliberated and

then voted unanimously to adopt the HPO’s recommendation, clarifying the Temple

landmark’s existing boundaries and rejecting DECAA’s application to expand them.

In its subsequent written report, the HPRB further justified this decision, its

reasoning closely tracking that of the HPO. In a nutshell, it reasoned that the Temple

was constructed upon Lot 800 and then situated upon that lot for more than sixty

years, both during its period of historical significance and when it was first entered

in the preliminary list of Landmarks of the National Capital in 1964, so that former

Lot 800 demarcated the landmark’s relevant boundaries. Unlike with the

subdivision application, the HPRB’s decisions regarding an application to amend a

historic landmark are final and not subject to review by the Mayor’s Agent. D.C.

Code § 6-1103(c)(3); see 10-C D.C.M.R. § 400.1 (Mayor’s Agent has authority to

make the “final determination on the approval or denial of applications for

demolition, alteration, new construction, and subdivision subject to the Historic

Protection Act,” not landmark designation or boundary-line disputes).

That summer, DECAA filed suit in Superior Court challenging the HPRB’s

boundary decision as procedurally and substantively unlawful under the

Preservation Act, D.C. Administrative Procedures Act, and the Constitution’s Due

Process and Equal Protection Clauses. The Superior Court initially dismissed this

17

suit for lack of jurisdiction, but we reversed, concluding that most of DECAA’s

challenges were in fact justiciable before the Superior Court. See Judgment, Dupont

East Civic Action Ass’n v. Bowser, No. 20-CV-0315, at 2-3 (D.C. Feb. 15, 2022).

On remand, the Superior Court largely sided with DECAA on the merits,

granting its motion for summary judgment on the majority of its claims.

Substantively, the court concluded that contrary to the HPO’s revised report, “there

was no ambiguity” that the Temple landmark’s boundaries were the same as the 16th

Street Historic District’s boundaries (i.e., Lot 820), and that any other possibility

“belies explanation.” As such, the HPRB’s conclusions to the contrary were not

supported by substantial evidence and were arbitrary and capricious. Procedurally,

the court found that even if the HPRB had the authority to modify those existing

boundary lines, it was inappropriate to do so in response to DECAA’s application,

which sought only the expansion of the landmark’s boundaries. When adjudicating

this application, therefore, “[t]he HPRB only had the authority to expand the

boundary or not modify it at all.” Finally, on DECAA’s constitutional claims, the

trial court concluded that the HPRB’s action had denied DECAA equal protection

of the laws. Specifically, the court found that the Joint Committee had set Lot 820

as the Temple’s boundaries when it included that entire plot of land within the 16th

Street Historic District in 1977. And the HPRB’s “decision to disregard the Joint

18

Committee’s designation” when adjudicating the application was different than its

treatment of any other application, and that this differing treatment lacked any

rational basis.

Given its legal conclusions, the court issued an injunction that temporarily

stopped work on the portions of the apartment building that fell within former A&T

Lot 820. The District now appeals this result, with Perseus supporting the District

as amicus and seeking dissolution of the trial court’s injunction. The day after

hearing oral argument in these appeals, we granted Perseus’s motion to dissolve the

Superior Court’s injunction so as to permit work to resume on the relevant portions

of Lot 820 (outside of former Lot 800). See Order, Bowser v. Dupont East Civic

Action Ass’n, No. 22-CV-0884 (D.C. April 27, 2023).

II.

We begin with the District’s challenge in the boundary appeal. Our review of

the trial court’s order is de novo. U.S. Bank Tr., N.A. v. Omid Land Grp., LLC, 279

A.3d 374, 377 (D.C. 2022). After conducting an independent review of the record,

“[w]e apply the same standard the trial court was required to apply in considering

whether the motion for summary judgment should be granted.” Id. That requires us

to assess whether DECAA has carried its burden of establishing that the HPRB’s

19

actions were “arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion or contrary to law.” In

re A.T., 10 A.3d 127, 135 (D.C. 2010). Summary judgment is appropriate only if

there are no genuine issues of material fact and the movant can show they are entitled

to judgment as a matter of law. Super. Ct. Civ. R. 56(a).

The District argues in this appeal that the Superior Court erred by granting

summary judgment, as the HPRB decision was not arbitrary or capricious, but

instead well-reasoned, backed by substantial evidence, and procedurally proper. We

agree. The HPRB’s finding that the Temple landmark’s boundaries had never been

formally set was supported by substantial evidence in the record, and so the court

should have deferred to that finding. And because those boundaries were undefined

when DECAA submitted its application to amend them, there was nothing arbitrary

or procedurally improper about the HPRB using DECAA’s application as an

opportunity to formally demarcate them. We address each of these points in turn.

A.

The crux of the trial court’s order was its finding that “the Temple landmark

was—and is—defined by the boundaries of what was [A&T] Lot 820.” Recall that

the HPRB had concluded the opposite, explaining in its decision that when the

Temple was added to the Joint Committee’s 1964 preliminary list of historic

20

landmarks in the District, it was identified merely by its name and address. While

some properties on that list were later nominated for inclusion on the National

Register of Historic Places—a process that required the Joint Committee to identify

specific site boundaries—the Temple was not. Accordingly, when the Joint

Committee’s list was incorporated into the D.C. Inventory of Historic Sites after the

passage of the Preservation Act, the Temple landmark’s exact boundaries remained

undefined. The trial court rejected this finding, reasoning that the landmark’s

boundaries were made clear when the Joint Committee included all of A&T Lot 820

in the 16th Street Historic District in 1977, and that “it belies explanation what else

would have been part of the Historic District except the Temple landmark.”

Contrary to the Superior Court’s view, we conclude that the HPRB’s

reasoning was not only rational, but quite persuasive. Historic districts and historic

landmarks are distinct entities subject to separate designation procedures, and the

fact that all of Lot 820 was included within the 16th Street Historic District—

composed of many non-landmarks—says next to nothing about the landmark’s

appropriate boundaries. The Joint Committee when drawing the boundaries of the

16th Street Historic District simply had no cause to demarcate the Temple’s

landmark boundaries. See, e.g., 10-C D.C.M.R. § 200.2 (“The [Preservation] Act

protects historic landmarks and historic districts differently during the designation

21

process.”). This is why some historic landmarks are located entirely outside of

historic districts, and similarly why historic districts often include many properties

that are not themselves landmarks. Indeed, as the District points out, the 16th Street

Historic District itself cuts straight through the boundaries of another historic

landmark (the Carnegie Institution Administration Building), belying any notion that

the Joint Committee intended the borders of the district to delineate the boundaries

of the landmarks it encompassed. It seems, as the District posits, that the historic

district was drawn to include every then-existing lot (both record and taxation)

fronting the relevant stretch of 16th Street, including the then-recently formed A&T

Lot 820. We see no support for the trial court’s apparent view that in drawing the

historic district the Joint Committee designated landmark boundaries.

The trial court further erred by apparently giving weight to the fact that “there

is no evidence that the Historic District and Temple landmark had different

boundaries behind the Temple landmark.” There was in fact extensive evidence to

that effect. But more importantly, courts “are to presume the validity of agency

action,” and this is especially true where an agency is “draw[ing] heavily upon its

expertise.” Kamit Inst. for Magnificent Achievers v. D.C. Pub. Charter Sch. Bd., 55

A.3d 894, 899 (D.C. 2012) (citations omitted); see also Bradford Nat’l Clearing

Corp. v. Sec. & Exch. Comm’n, 590 F.2d 1085, 1104 (D.C. Cir. 1978) (“[I]n

22

reviewing the resulting decisions while not sharing that expertise courts typically

accord agency conclusions considerable respect.”). It was thus DECAA’s obligation

in this suit to prove that the historic landmark and district in fact shared a boundary,

not the District’s to prove that they did not. In other words, even if there were a lack

of clear evidence on this point, that would cut in favor of deferring to the HPRB’s

boundary decision, and it would not be a basis for vacating it.

Departing from the trial court’s reasoning, DECAA pivots to an argument that

the Temple landmark’s boundaries are coterminous with A&T Lot 820 because that

is the lot the Temple sat upon in 1979, when the District’s Historic Preservation Act

took effect and created the D.C. Inventory of Historic Sites (which included the

Temple). Essentially, it reasons that the Preservation Act defines the term “historic

landmark” as including “a building . . . and its site . . . [l]isted in the District of

Columbia’s inventory of historic sites.” D.C. Code §-6-1102(6)(B) (emphasis

added). And when that statute took effect in 1979—which DECAA maintains is

what created the D.C. Inventory—A&T Lot 800 no longer existed, having already

been incorporated into the larger Lot 820. Thus, DECAA argues, the only “site” that

could have been associated with this landmark at the time of its addition to the D.C.

Inventory was A&T Lot 820, which effectively became the Temple landmark’s

boundaries by operation of law.

23

We are similarly unpersuaded by DECAA’s argument. Even accepting the

premise that the Preservation Act requires that landmarks be associated with a

specifically defined “site,” the record contains no support for DECAA’s claim that

these sites are necessarily coterminous with the tax lots the landmarks were situated

upon when they entered the D.C. Inventory. That is no doubt “commonly” the case

and perhaps it is a “reasonable [starting] assumption,” as DECAA maintains, but

there is no reason to think as a matter of law that it is invariably true. To be sure, in

many instances, landmarks sit on the same lot from their construction to the present

day, making their present property lines a useful rule-of-thumb when determining

the landmark’s site boundaries. But in other cases—such as here—property owners

may reconfigure their land holdings after a landmark’s period of historic significance

but before its addition to the D.C. Inventory, enlarging or shrinking them for reasons

entirely unrelated to the site’s history. This is particularly true when it comes to

taxation lots, which are assembled by the property owners purely as a matter of

administrative convenience and rarely, if ever, as a reflection of any sort of historical

judgment. Relying solely on these newly configured lots to determine a landmark’s

boundaries would poorly serve the preservation goals at the heart of the Preservation

Act, particularly when the statute itself merely refers to a landmark’s “site” rather

than its “lot.”

24

Moreover, DECAA’s argument mistakenly assumes that the D.C. Inventory

was created only in 1979, when the Preservation Act took effect. As discussed in

Part I, the D.C. Inventory dates back to at least 1973, when it was published as part

of the District’s first comprehensive historic preservation plan. And even that

Inventory had its origins in the 1964 list assembled by the Joint Committee—a body

specifically chartered to “[c]ompile and maintain a current inventory of significant

landmarks in the District of Columbia.” Latimer v. Joint Comm. on Landmarks of

Nat’l Cap., 345 A.2d 484, 487 n.16 (D.C. 1975); see also 900 G St. Assocs. v. Dep’t

of Hous. & Cmty. Dev., 430 A.2d 1387, 1388 (D.C. 1981) (describing a building as

having been included in the D.C. Inventory “since the Inventory was first established

in 1964”). The Preservation Act did not scrap this existing Inventory wholesale and

replace it with a new one. Rather, the statute simply conferred a new legal status to

the existing Inventory while shifting its oversight from the Joint Committee to the

newly created HPRB. See D.C. Code § 6-1103(c). 3 Thus, even if the boundaries of

a landmark were coterminous with the lot it sat on at the time of the creation of the

3

DECAA’s contrary view seems largely premised on a single sentence in the

HPO’s final report, which described the Joint Committee’s 1964 list as “the

predecessor of the current D.C. Inventory of Historic Sites.” But as that report went

on to explain, the Preservation Act “incorporated the[se] already designated

landmarks and districts,” bolstering the District’s position that the statute did not

create the Inventory anew, but rather adopted the Inventory that had already been

assembled by the Joint Committee.

25

D.C. Inventory, that would still be Lot 800 for the Temple landmark—not Lot 820,

which was created years later in 1976.

DECAA makes two more arguments in a similar vein, neither of which is

persuasive. First, it cites to a draft HPO report and a snippet of testimony from the

office’s director as evidence that the 16th Street Historic District’s boundary

“acknowledged by implication that Lot 820 was also the site of the historic landmark

designation for the temple.” But while DECAA claims this evidence shows an

attempt by the District “to disavow its own expert agency’s conclusion,” neither a

draft report nor an (out-of-context) statement by a single official is anything of the

sort. Even the HPO’s final report—which rejected these preliminary views and was

authored by that same official DECAA quotes—did not constitute the final agency

action in this case. It was merely a recommendation to the HPRB, which made the

ultimate decision to reject DECAA’s application and clarify the Temple landmark’s

existing boundaries.

Next, DECAA points to several pieces of evidence that the HPRB supposedly

ignored when concluding that the Temple landmark’s boundaries were undefined.

These include: a private bill enacted by Congress to exempt the Masons’ property

holdings (including those outside the Temple’s original footprint) from taxation, see

26

Priv. L. No. 92-23, 85 Stat. 842 (1971); the draft HPO report, discussed above; and

a 2010 application to close the public alley behind the Temple, which described

A&T Lot 820 as the “Main Temple Site.” But the first and third of these records

have nothing to do with historic preservation, and so we see no error even if the

HPRB did fail to consider them. As for the second, we have already explained that

the Board was under no obligation to credit the preliminary views of the HPO,

particularly when its final report recommended the opposite.

B.

Because the HPRB reasonably, and backed by substantial evidence, found that

the precise borders of the Temple landmark had never been properly delineated,

most of the trial court’s remaining objections to its actions fall by the wayside. This

was not, as the court reasoned, a “reduc[tion] [in] the boundary line of the Temple

landmark.” Because that boundary line was never established in the first place, there

were no boundaries to reduce. It thus does not matter whether the HPRB had the

authority to undertake a boundary “reduction” as part of its adjudication of

DECAA’s application because it did not do so; and it is irrelevant whether it would

have been a violation of DECAA’s equal protection rights to reduce the boundaries,

as the trial court concluded, because that did not happen. Rather, the question in this

27

case is whether the HPRB, upon identifying an ambiguity in the Temple landmark’s

existing border, acted properly when it “t[ook] the opportunity provided by this

application” to “clarify and confirm” the boundary of the landmark. We answer that

question in the affirmative, and likewise conclude that its identification of former

A&T Lot 800 as the existing border was reasonable.

1. The HPRB’s Actions Were Procedurally Proper.

As the HPRB’s regulations explain, an application to amend the designation

of an existing historic landmark is evaluated by using “the same procedures” as an

application to designate a landmark in the first instance. 10-C D.C.M.R. § 221.4.

This means that after “accept[ing] written comments from affected property owners

and any other interested persons,” id. § 213, soliciting a report and recommendation

from the HPO, id. § 216, and providing appropriate public notice, id. § 211, “[t]he

Board shall hold a public hearing to receive information and public comments on

each application,” id. § 217.1. At the conclusion of this hearing, “[t]he Board may

vote to designate the property, deny or defer the designation, or designate the

property with reduced boundaries.” Id. § 218.4. Once this decision is reached, the

HPRB issues “a written decision with respect to the proposed historic landmark,”

28

and this decision must “identify the property” and, as relevant here, “specify its

boundaries.” Id. § 219.1.

The HPRB’s actions were consistent with these procedures. The

administrative record shows that in March 2019, DECAA submitted an application

to “amend the existing landmark to include all of the land behind the Temple just

described.” The Board responded to this application by following “the same

procedures” as an application for designation: it solicited an HPO report, which

recommended disapproving DECAA’s application; it accepted public comments,

which included a resolution adopted by the local ANC opposing the application; and

it conducted the required hearing, at which a DECAA representative presented the

group’s case. At the end of this hearing, the HPRB voted to deny DECAA’s

application, a judgment it subsequently reiterated in its written decision. As required

by regulation, see 10-C D.C.M.R. § 219.1, that written decision also specified the

boundaries of the existing Temple landmark, which the HPRB—upon determining

that those boundaries had never been formally delineated—voted to clarify as being

coterminous with former A&T Lot 800.

While the trial court deemed this process deficient, its only specific finding

related to 10-C D.C.M.R. § 218.4, a regulation permitting the HPRB to designate a

29

landmark property “with reduced boundaries” compared to those identified in the

application. This provision, the court found, relates to applications to list landmarks

anew and “is not about amendments.” But that is contrary to the text of the

regulations themselves, which state unambiguously that applications to alter existing

landmarks are evaluated using “the same . . . procedures” as applications to newly

designate them. Id. § 221.4. Thus, even if the HPRB had resolved DECAA’s

application by reducing the existing boundaries of the Temple site, it appears that

still would have been consistent with the agency’s procedures. But we need not

definitively opine on that question because, in any event, the HPRB did not in fact

reduce the landmark’s boundaries; it merely established, or clarified, what they were.

Though its reasoning on this point was less clear, the trial court further

suggested that the HPRB failed to provide the required notice of its actions, an

argument that DECAA presses in this appeal. As we understand the trial court’s

reasoning, it thought that because the HPRB only noticed a hearing on “Scottish Rite

Temple amendment (boundary expansion),” that was the only action the HPRB was

permitted to take. As DECAA subsequently put it, “the notice of a ‘boundary

expansion’ does not provide ‘reasonable notice’ that the opposite[, a boundary

reduction,] may occur.”

30

This argument fails for multiple reasons. First, “the opposite” did not, in fact,

occur. As we have discussed at length, the HPRB’s decision simply clarified the

Temple landmark’s existing (though formally undefined) borders. It is therefore of

no moment that the Notice of Public Hearing did not explicitly state that the HPRB

might “reduce” the borders of the Temple landmark at its May 2019 meeting; the

HPRB did not take that step.

And regardless of how one frames the HPRB’s decision, DECAA had actual

notice of exactly what the Board was likely to do, so DECAA is poorly positioned

to raise this procedural complaint. The record shows that throughout these

administrative proceedings, DECAA closely followed the proceedings of the HPO,

and it was aware of both the HPO’s April 2019 recommendation and the subsequent

revisions thereto. As a result, it came to the HPRB’s public meeting fully prepared

to press its case, where it argued forcefully against the HPO’s final recommendation

and in support of its application to expand the landmark’s site to the entirety of Lot

108. Particularly since the HPRB’s decision closely tracked that HPO

recommendation, DECAA cannot now claim to have been prejudiced by any

deficiencies in the agency’s Notice of Public Hearing, and it does not contend to the

contrary. This is fatal to its claim of insufficient notice. See Friends of McMillan

Park v. D.C. Zoning Comm’n, 211 A.3d 139, 145 (D.C. 2019) (“FOMP III”) (lack

31

of notice does not warrant reversal where the parties “have not identified concrete

prejudice they suffered as a result”). DECAA’s contrary argument that any

procedural violation is enough to overturn an agency action, regardless of prejudice,

is at odds with our case law. See id. And while DECAA raises the possibility that

“other concerned citizens” may have been prejudiced by the HPRB’s notice, no such

aggrieved citizen has come forward, and DECAA “cannot rest [its] claim to relief

on the legal rights or interests of third parties.” Martin v. Santorini Cap., LLC, 236

A.3d 386, 393 (D.C. 2020) (citation omitted). Those hypothetical third parties,

should they exist, would have to raise their own complaints.

2. The HPRB’s Decision Was Not Arbitrary or Capricious.

Because the HPRB reasonably concluded that the precise boundaries of the

Temple landmark had never been formally demarcated, and because it properly used

DECAA’s application as an opportunity to clarify those boundaries, the only

remaining question is whether its identification of A&T Lot 800 as the reference

point for those boundaries was arbitrary and capricious. That is a pretty open-and-

shut question: It was not. As the Board’s order explained, “[t]he property’s

significance is in the design and construction of Pope’s [T]emple, completed in

1915.” At that time, the Temple sat on A&T Lot 800, which constituted the entirety

32

of the Masons’ property holdings. Even sixty years after this period of historic

significance, the eastern portions of what is now Lot 108 “had not been formally

consolidated with the [T]emple . . . by the creation of an A&T lot”; that did not

happen until 1976. Accordingly, there was little reason to treat the new plots of land

added to A&T Lot 800 to form A&T Lot 820 in 1976 as being of any historical

significance, or as being within the landmark’s boundaries. As the HPRB reasoned,

“[n]either the ancillary uses nor the design qualities of the rear of the property define

or augment the significance of the landmark.” Rather, the HPRB clarified that Lot

800 was the site of historic significance and marked “the extent of the site of the

landmark.”

DECAA again challenges this determination on multiple grounds, but its

arguments are similarly unpersuasive. First, it highlights the differences between

the HPO’s April 2019 report, which identified the Temple landmark’s boundaries as

Lot 820, and its May 2019 revision thereto, which stated that these boundaries were

undefined. Citing to two federal cases, DECAA argues that this “‘about-face’

without adequate explanation” was arbitrary and capricious. See Nat’l Coal. Against

Misuse of Pesticides v. Thomas, 809 F.2d 875, 884 (D.C. Cir. 1987); Prometheus

Radio Project v. FCC, 373 F.3d 372, 390 (3d Cir. 2004). But even assuming the

HPO did fail to adequately explain the differences between its two reports, this

33

argument misapprehends the office’s role in the decision-making process. As

previously explained, when a party submits an application to designate or amend a

historic landmark, the HPO merely supplies a “report and recommendation on the []

application.” 10-C D.C.M.R § 216.1. The ultimate decision is then made by the

HPRB, which is the only body with the authority to approve or modify a landmark.

While the HPRB must itself provide an adequate explanation for departures from its

prior decisions, we are aware of no similar administrative law principle that applies

to advisory bodies like the HPO, and DECAA likewise points us to none.

DECAA next discusses at length a guidance bulletin published by the U.S.

Department of the Interior for use “in delineating the boundaries of historic

landmarks and districts.” See Donna J. Seifert, National Register Bulletin: Defining

Boundaries for National Register Properties (rev. ed. 1997). That guidance

bulletin—which DECAA maintains has been formally adopted by both the HPO and

HPRB—recommends using “the legal boundaries of a property as recorded in the

current tax map” when listing a new historic landmark. Id. at 3. Thus, argues

DECAA, the HPRB acted arbitrarily and capriciously by ignoring this guidance and

failing to select those “current” boundaries (i.e., A&T Lot 820).

34

This argument fails for two reasons. First, it once again begins from the

mistaken premise that the Temple was designated as a historic landmark only upon

the effective date of the District’s Preservation Act in 1979, when the Temple sat on

Lot 820. As explained in Part II.A, this is incorrect. The Temple has been a

designated landmark since at least 1973 (and arguably as early as 1964), well before

Lot 820 existed. Second, by its own terms, this guidance bulletin is just that:

guidance. It provides no hard-and-fast rules, and “current legal boundaries” is just

one factor it identifies as relevant to the decision-making process. Indeed, in the

paragraph immediately following the one highlighted by DECAA, the bulletin

recommends consulting “the boundaries shown on historic plats or land-ownership

maps . . . when the limits of the eligible resource do not correspond with current

legal parcels.” Id. Here, where the HPRB determined that both Lots 820 and 108

were assembled well after the Temple’s period of historic significance, it did just

that, using the lines of former Lot 800 in determining the landmark’s boundaries.

Finally, DECAA contends that the HPRB “kowtow[ed] to a developer,”

which is not a valid basis for an agency’s decision. But the evidence it cites reveals

nothing of the sort. While the record shows various emails and phone calls between

Perseus and HPO staffers in the aftermath of the April 2019 report, the agency’s own

regulations permit (and even encourage) this sort of communication. See 10-C

35

D.C.M.R. § 324.1 (“Before consideration by the Board, the staff shall review each

case and consult with the applicant as necessary. . . . The applicant should take full

advantage of the staff’s availability and expertise.”). And this argument once again

confuses the role of the HPO, which simply advises the HPRB, with that of the

HPRB itself—which was the final decision maker, and as to which DECAA

identifies no evidence of improper kowtowing.

In sum, because the HPRB’s finding that the Temple landmark site had never

been formally delineated was supported by substantial evidence, and because its

subsequent actions in setting its landmark boundaries—coterminous with the lot it

had sat on during its construction and for many decades thereafter—were

procedurally and substantively proper, the Superior Court erred in granting

DECAA’s motion for summary judgment.

III.

That brings us to DECAA’s petition in the subdivision appeal. Our review of

decisions by the Mayor’s Agent is “limited and narrow.” Friends of McMillan Park

v. D.C. Zoning Comm’n, 149 A.3d 1027, 1039 (D.C. 2016) (“FOMP I”) (citation

omitted). If a decision is supported by substantial evidence in the record, and if its

conclusions flow rationally from its factual findings, we will affirm. Id. Likewise,

36

“[w]hen the Mayor’s Agent’s ‘decision is based on an interpretation of the statute

and regulations [the Mayor’s Agent] administers, that interpretation will be

sustained unless shown to be unreasonable or in contravention of the language or

legislative history of the statute.’” Id. (quoting Kalorama Heights Ltd. P’Ship v.

D.C. Dep’t of Consumer & Regul. Affs., 655 A.2d 865, 868 (D.C. 1995)).

The Mayor’s Agent may authorize the subdivision of a historic landmark, or

of property within a historic district, upon a finding that such an action is “necessary

in the public interest.” D.C. Code § 6-1106(e). “Necessary in the public interest,”

in the context of Perseus’s application, means that it is “consistent with the purposes

of [the Preservation Act].” Id. § 6-1102(10). 4 With respect to historic landmarks,

the Act’s stated purposes are to “retain and enhance historic landmarks in the District

of Columbia and to encourage their adaptation for current use,” as well as to

“encourage the restoration of historic landmarks.” Id. § 6-1101(b)(2). With respect

to historic districts, the Act’s purposes also include ensuring that subdivisions and

4

The Preservation Act also permits subdivisions when “necessary to allow

the construction of a project of special merit,” D.C. Code § 6-1102(10), but Perseus

has never claimed that the planned apartment building qualifies as a project of

special merit or sought approval on that ground.

37

other alterations “are compatible with the character of the historic district.” 5 Id.

§ 6-1101(b)(1). As we explained in FOMP II, the Mayor’s Agent’s inquiry into

whether a project is consistent with the purposes of the Preservation Act requires a

“net” assessment of its effects. 207 A.3d at 1166. The relevant question is whether

“a project on balance benefits historical-preservation interests more than it harms

those interests.” Id. (quoting FOMP I, 149 A.3d at 1041).

In this case, the Mayor’s Agent performed just this assessment. First, it

determined that subdividing Lot 108 would result in no historic-preservation losses,

as the eastern half of the lot did not contribute to the Temple’s historic significance.

Second, it determined that the subdivision would produce meaningful historic-

preservation gains by generating revenue that could be used to fund renovations to

5

We are concerned only with the subdivision of property within a historic

district, rather than with the subdivision of a landmark site itself, given the HPRB’s

determination that the landmark’s site is the former Lot 800. We have upheld that

determination, so the landmark’s site does not need to be subdivided for the project

to proceed: The landmark’s boundaries will remain intact and on a single record lot

following the subdivision of Lot 108 proposed by Perseus. Nonetheless, the Mayor’s

Agent operated under the assumption that any subdivision in this case would need

to be consistent not only with the Act’s purposes with respect to historic districts,

but also with respect to historic landmarks. See D.C. Code § 6-1106(c) (requiring

subdivision be “consistent with the purposes of” the Act generally). The parties do

not dispute that this subdivision had to be consistent with the Act’s purposes with

respect to both historic districts and historic landmarks, and so we operate under that

assumption as well.

38

the Temple itself. The Mayor’s Agent further noted that the smaller lots resulting

from this subdivision would be more similar in size to other lots in the surrounding

historic districts and that the district’s character would be improved by allowing for

construction in an incongruous gap in the neighborhood’s cityscape. Taken together,

these findings are sufficient to justify its decision to approve Perseus’s application.

Attempting to show otherwise, DECAA’s petition advances a number of

arguments, which generally fall into seven categories. First, and most broadly, it

claims that the balancing test used by the Mayor’s Agent is inconsistent with the

plain text of the Preservation Act. Specifically, it highlights the statute’s use of the

conjunction “and” when articulating its various purposes vis-à-vis historic

landmarks and districts. As a result of this conjunctive language, DECAA

maintains, a subdivision is only “necessary in the public interest” if it advances each

and every one of these stated purposes—simultaneously retaining and enhancing

and adapting for current use and restoring a landmark—regardless of any net

historic-preservation benefits. Applying this theory, DECAA argues that the

Mayor’s Agent’s decision was unsupported by substantial evidence, because there

was nothing in the record to support a finding that the subdivision would specifically

“enhance” the Temple landmark or encourage its “adaptation for current use.”

39

But this “conjunctive theory” requires an untenable reading of the statutory

text, and it is one we have already rejected. FOMP II, 207 A.3d at 1166 (requiring

“net” assessment of project’s effects). The statute merely requires that a subdivision

of a historic landmark be “consistent with” these enumerated purposes. D.C. Code

§ 6-1102(10). DECAA is therefore mistaken to read this provision as requiring that

a subdivision materially advance or promote each of these purposes in a specific,

articulable way. To the contrary: “consistent” means that something “show[s] no

noteworthy opposing, conflicting, inharmonious, or contradictory qualities or trends;

compatible.” Consistent, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 484 (2002).

Thus, the Mayor’s Agent may reasonably conclude that a subdivision is consistent

with the purposes of the Preservation Act so long as it is compatible with its

purposes—i.e., it does not interfere with or otherwise undermine them. There was

no need for a finding that subdividing Lot 108 would specifically enhance the

Temple landmark or encourage its adaptation. It was enough that the project did not

cut against any of the statutory purposes and, on net, advanced those purposes

collectively.

DECAA counters that this reading of the statute is inconsistent with this

court’s decision in Gondelman v. D.C. Dep’t of Consumer & Regul. Affs., 789 A.2d

1238 (D.C. 2002), but we disagree. That case involved an application to undertake

40

significant alterations to a house located in a historic district, including constructing

a garage on the property and “pav[ing] a portion of the front yard.” Id. at 1239. As

DECAA correctly notes, our opinion stated that while this project would adapt the

property for current use, the applicant had failed to demonstrate “that the proposed

alterations will retain and enhance the historic property” while also being

“compatible with the character of the historic district.” Id. at 1246. But this

statement must be read in the context of the facts of that case, where the Mayor’s

Agent found that the project not only failed to advance these statutory goals, but in

fact directly undermined them by “reduc[ing] the green space which is an integral

part of” the historic district. Id. at 1243. In other words, Gondelman addressed an

entirely different question than the one raised by this case, where the Mayor’s Agent

found that Perseus’s proposed subdivision was “consistent with” each of the

Preservation Act’s purposes, even if it did not specifically advance each of them.

Second, DECAA argues that the Mayor’s Agent erred by relying on

“economic considerations”—namely, the fact that the subdivision of Lot 108 and

resulting revenue generated by the apartment project would fund renovations to the

Temple landmark. But again, its argument is largely premised on a misreading of

our precedent. Specifically, DECAA points to D.C. Preservation League v. Dep’t

of Consumer & Regul. Affs., 646 A.2d 984 (D.C. 1994), for the proposition that the

41

Mayor’s Agent may not “take[] into account such factors as the cost of refurbishing

the dilapidated structure.” Id. at 990. In context, however, that statement refers to

an application to demolish a historic property solely on the grounds that the property

would be too expensive to renovate. Id. at 990-91. We reversed the Mayor’s

Agent’s decision approving the application, opining that “[t]he relative cost of

refurbishing an existing structure . . . is an extraneous factor” unrelated to any of the

Preservation Act’s purposes. Id. That is markedly different than the question

presented in this case, where the Mayor’s Agent’s “economic consideration”—i.e.,

a revenue source for the Temple renovation—did advance those historic-

preservation purposes. Preservation League did not hold that the Mayor’s Agent is

categorically barred from considering that, and DECAA’s contrary arguments are

not supported by the statute’s text or our precedents. 6

6

DECAA also repeatedly alleges that the Masons misled the Mayor’s Agent

regarding the need for this revenue source, pointing to extra-record evidence

supposedly showing that renovations to the Temple have already been substantially

undertaken, before there could be any revenue stream from the anticipated apartment

building. But our review in administrative appeals is strictly limited to the

“exclusive record for decision before the . . . agency.” D.C. Code § 2-510(a); accord

Union Mkt. Neighbors v. D.C. Zoning Comm’n, 197 A.3d 1063, 1068 n.4 (D.C.

2018). And, in any event, that the Masons have undertaken some renovations to the

Temple is not inconsistent with a finding that more restoration work is needed for

this century-old structure, or that the Masons might have only been able to undertake

these initial repairs because they could anticipate a revenue stream from the

construction project.

42

Third, and relatedly, DECAA argues that if the Mayor’s Agent was permitted

to consider the “downstream effects” of the subdivision (he was), his decision was

arbitrary and capricious because he failed to also consider the negative aesthetic

effects of “dropping a massive 65 foot tall building” next to a historic landmark. We

disagree. Remember that the Mayor’s Agent’s decision granted only the subdivision

of Lot 108; it did not approve any particular use of, or construction on, the

subdivided land. As the Mayor’s Agent correctly noted in his decision, the supposed

negative effects invoked by DECAA—principally obscuring sightlines to the

Temple’s rear façade—all stem from its views about the developer’s design choices,

which were outside the scope of the Mayor’s Agent’s review. See FOMP I, 149

A.3d at 1040 (the Mayor’s Agent may not “function essentially as a second Zoning

Commission, evaluating all of the benefits and adverse impacts associated with

projects requiring a permit from the Mayor’s Agent”). Conversely, any development

project, no matter how designed, would result in a revenue stream for Temple

renovations that was credited in the Mayor’s Agent’s analysis. There was nothing

arbitrary and capricious about factoring the potential for revenue generation into its

decision while discounting DECAA’s arguments about the design of the project.

Fourth, DECAA challenges the finding that the eastern portion of Lot 108 did

not contribute to the Temple landmark’s historic significance. But as we held in Part

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II, the eastern portion of the property is not part of the Temple landmark, and

HPRB’s finding on this point was both reasonable and supported by substantial

evidence. To the extent DECAA believes that the eastern portion of the lot, even if

not formally part of the landmark, nonetheless contributes to the structure’s historic

significance as a result of its “close[] associat[ion]” with the Temple, its arguments

merely invite us to consider anew the same evidence that was before the Mayor’s

Agent, which we decline to do. See Cathedral Park Condo. Comm. v. D.C. Zoning

Comm’n, 743 A.2d 1231, 1247 (D.C. 2000) (“It is not our role to reweigh the

evidence in the record in reviewing an agency decision.”).

Fifth, DECAA argues that the Mayor’s Agent erred by focusing “myopically”

on just two factors—lot size, and the presently undeveloped land’s fit with the

surrounding neighborhood—in his analysis of the subdivision’s congruity with the

surrounding historic districts. But again, the supposedly overlooked factors it points

to are not byproducts of the subdivision itself, but instead all stem from DECAA’s

views about the apartment building’s design. For example, DECAA claims that “[a]

massive 65 foot tall building along S Street will destroy the character of these

Historic Districts,” that it will “loom[]” over nearby houses, and that unlike other

neighboring structures, it was designed with “a 15 foot deep 5 foot wide trench in

front.” As just explained, these aesthetic considerations are governed by the

44

District’s zoning laws and are beyond the scope of the Mayor’s Agent’s review. The

only question before the Mayor’s Agent in this case was whether the subdivision

itself, i.e., the splitting of Lot 108 into two smaller lots, was “compatible with the

character of this historic district.” D.C. Code § 6-1101(b)(1). DECAA points to no

factors relevant to this inquiry that were overlooked.

Sixth, DECAA takes aim at one of the findings in the Mayor’s Agent’s historic

district compatibility analysis: that “the current character of the eastern portion of

the property—a vacant, open space—is incompatible with the historic district.”

This, DECAA contends, is inconsistent with prior decisions that have sought to

protect open space within historic districts, as well as the fact that other historic

districts are centered around open spaces (e.g., Dupont Circle). We see no

inconsistency. The question before the Mayor’s Agent was not whether open space

is compatible with historic districts in general; it was whether this open space was

compatible with these districts in particular (i.e., the 14th and 16th Street Historic

Districts). The Mayor’s Agent, noting that the eastern portion of Lot 108 was

occupied by buildings until the early 1990s, concluded that it was not. And contrary

to DECAA’s arguments, its findings on this point were supported by substantial

evidence.

45

Finally, DECAA argues that the subdivision would undermine the purposes

of the Preservation Act by “sever[ing] the Carriage House from the Temple, with

which it has been closely historically associated for almost [one] hundred years.”

But as discussed in Part II, the carriage house is not a part of the Temple landmark;

indeed, the Masons only acquired it in the late 1960s, decades after the Temple’s

period of historic significance. As such, the Mayor’s Agent reasonably found that

there would be no historic-preservation loss if the two structures were located on

two different record lots.

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, in case number 22-CV-0884, we reverse the

Superior Court’s order granting summary judgment to DECAA and remand for entry

of judgment in the District’s favor. In case number 20-AA-693, we affirm the

Mayor’s Agent’s order approving the Lot 108 subdivision.

So ordered.