Death, Taxes and Historic Preservation Review

Living in Georgetown, it seems appropriate to append Benjamin Franklin’s guaranty of death and taxes with “historic preservation review” because even in death you cannot escape it.

Or can you? Kriston Capps of CityLab published an interesting article yesterday about the construction of a mausoleum for the recently departed Benjamin Bradlee. It is going in around the ellipse near the entrance, seen above. This is what it looks like:

Photo courtesy of CityLab.

Capps explores the question of whether a row of new mausoleums underneath the magnolias is in keeping with landscape architectural integrity of the property. He briefly notes that the construction apparently isn’t subject to historic review by the Commission of Fine Arts.

But is that correct?

Any time a building permit is sought in Georgetown for exterior work that would be visible from a public road, it’s referred to the Old Georgetown Board for approval (the OGB essentially pre-reviews for the CFA, its senior body, but the CFA normally just rubber-stamps the OGB). If the change is not visible from a public street the application is routed to the DC Historic Preservation Review Board.

But no application was made for a building permit for this mausoleum, and so no application made its way to the OGB. (Interestingly, Stephen Muse–one of the OGB board members–is the architect of the project). Would the creation of a mausoleum even demand a permit? GM doesn’t have a firm answer to that. Technically any building more than 25 sq. ft. requires a permit. And that building definitely looks bigger than 25 sq. ft.

GM is not aware of any cemetery exception to the building permit process. And frankly there’s some dark humor to the idea of the city giving a certificate of occupancy for a building whose residents are, well, dead. But if you review the city’s records, cemeteries have sought and been issued plenty of building permits. Oak Hill Cemetery itself has been issued a bunch (mostly for the gatehouse, which is the home of the cemetery’s caretaker). Mt. Olivet cemetery even got a permit specifically for a mausoleum in 2009. But maybe they didn’t really need one?

This is not just an exercise in browbeating a non-profit into following the letter of the law. As Capps’ piece demonstrates, if historic preservation review is germane for any construction in Georgetown, it certainly is for the centerpiece of one of its most historic sites.

No doubt the cemetery needs to find opportunities to entomb wealthy people like Bradlee in exchange for the funds it needs for perpetual maintenance. But there are plenty of sob stories of people struggling under the weight of historic preservation. And most of them are not as politically connected as the corpse of the former editor of the Washington Post. What’s good for the goose, is good for the gander. And it is imperative that the OGB be included in this process (minus of course Muse, who would be recused).