Winslow's Word: June 2025
Stay cool, everyone—the heat has arrived and will be around for a while! Kudos to our friends at Spoleto for putting on an amazing roster of events throughout downtown, showcasing incredible talent in so many diverse forms of performing art.
As we slink into summer, you can rest assured that HCF will remain vigilant and engaged on the issues that matter to you. Case in point, hopefully you have read the article and editorial on our recent appeal of an extremely problematic interpretation of zoning law that occurred at the BAR in May for a proposed hotel at 657 King Street.
Our blog post outlines the details of our concern, so I’ll just paint a quick picture of the ramifications of this unfortunate legal interpretation: imagine a canyon of 8-story buildings directly fronting on upper King and Meeting Streets. That could happen on redevelopment sites in that part of the peninsula because most of those parcels are deliberately split zoned for height so that new buildings are forced to be lower and more compatible with the historic scale of these important corridors, while the taller sections are pushed to the interior of the block to mitigate their visual impact. I know that because almost a decade ago I worked very closely with Andres Duany and his team at DPZ, along with a cadre of planning staff, to develop these hyper-calibrated districts.
Surprisingly, this hotel proposal that did not comply with the zoning code was approved by the BAR. Perhaps decision resulted from the site’s location against the raised Crosstown; however, it is surrounded by 2 and 3-story historic buildings and serves as a critical transition from dense redevelopment to the south (Courier Square) and the residential neighborhoods to the north and west. Our deep knowledge of zoning ordinances and institutional memory of planning processes allows HCF to take a leadership position on this and other issues. Thanks to all of you for your support, as it allows us to deploy the necessary resources to fight these bad decisions. And, rest easy this summer—we’ve got your back!