The Georgetown Metropolitan

Last month, a DC statehood activist proposed a new tactic for residents to deploy to help spread the notion that normal people live in DC, and thus deserve representation in Congress. That tactic: have your mail addressed to your neighborhood, not “Washington”. In other words, don’t have mail sent to Washington, DC, have it sent to Tenleytown, DC, or Langdon, DC, or Brookland, DC. Or, of course, Georgetown, DC.

As the activist, Josh Gibson, wrote:

One of the many things that cripples DC’s statehood efforts is the assumption by the rest of the country that the two faces of DC — federal Washington and what we locals call “the District” — are synonymous. Those who are not from here, or who are merely visiting, think only of government buildings, monuments, museums, and the Gucci Gulch of K Street (to the extent that they think of Washington at all).

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Photo by Angela N.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Updated restaurant guide for Georgetown.
• Get to know the two GU students who will likely join the ANC next year.

3400 block of Q St.

Earlier this week, the city stripped the asphalt off of Grace St. in preparation of a repaving. In doing so, it revealed that underneath the asphalt, historic pavers still exist. This is actually common around Georgetown, and GM thinks streets like Grace should scotch the asphalt entirely and restore the pavers.

GM has long argued that we should restore these cobbled streets. (GM will be pedantic for sec: these are not really cobblestones, but rather Belgian blocks or pavers. Cobbles are rounded river rocks with varying shapes and sizes. If they’re basically brick shaped, they’re not cobblestones.) For one thing, Georgetown has a reputation for its cobbled streets even though there are only very few streets with exposed pavers. We should live up to our reputation! Continue reading →

Photo by Mr. Gray.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Reverie finally opens this weekend on Cherry Hill Lane.
• Great walking tour offered of Herring Hill later this month.

1200 block of Potomac St.

Signage has gone up in the former Paolo’s space at N and Wisconsin. It indicates that a new restaurant called High Street Cafe will be moving in. It is described as a “Georgetown Brasserie”.

The name would suggest vaguely French, but it’s also the type of descriptor people place on any sort of restaurant that could just as easily be called a “pub” or “eatery”. The High Street name is a nod to Wisconsin Ave.’s former name. That’s a nice touch.

As GM mentioned earlier, this restaurant will not occupy the corner property, which used to be also occupied by Paolo’s. Will it be any good? We’ll see…

Photo by Andrew Griffith.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The still relatively new Rosewood Hotel is shutting down for renovations, and will add a Wolfgang Puck restaurant.
• Kevin Plank’s house is still for sale, if you’re looking to drop $29 mil.

1500 block of Wisconsin Ave.

The DC Council advanced a bill yesterday that would dramatically curtail (sort of, GM will get to that) the ability of homeowners to rent out their properties on a short term basis on sites such as Airbnb or VRBO.

The bill, which is a modified version of an earlier bill, makes a distinction between the first and second (or third, etc.) home of the homeowner. With the first home, a homeowner can rent it out on a short term basis an unlimited amount of times, if the owner is present. This covers what Airbnb has always emphasized as their core use: homeowners essentially having paid guests into their home. (This isn’t really how most people use the service though). These owners can also rent out their home while they are absent up to 90 nights a year.

The bill is far less permissive for second homes. The bill would ban people from renting out second homes on a short term basis, period. This essentially prohibits investors from using DC properties for Airbnb.

GM has written about Airbnb and how it impacts Georgetown several times before. When he first looked at it in 2014, there appeared to be about 18 properties in Georgetown available for rent on Airbnb. Later that year he first noticed that investors appeared to be buying properties and converting them to Airbnbs. When he counted the available properties in 2016, it looked like they had jumped to 30 properties.

And now if you go on Airbnb, it appears that there as many as 70 Georgetown properties available, if not more. And the listings can seem to clump. For instance, in and around the intersection of 33rd and Q there are ten different listings. At least three of the nine homes on the south side of Q St. just west of Wisconsin are exclusively Airbnb properties.

One of them, the home at 3256 Q St., used to be rented out on an annual basis. Starting about four years ago, it was shifted to exclusively an Airbnb house. It’s owned by Wavely Veney, but Airbnb says the owner is “Cliff“. Another house on the same block is also “owned” by Cliff (it’s actually owned by yet another person). Clearly Cliff is just a property manager. Airbnb doesn’t list how many properties Cliff manages, but his reviews suggest he manages properties around the city. Continue reading →