"Last year, DC shelled out about $750,000 to build bright, minimalist, Norwegian-designed outdoor dining platforms for restaurants along 18th Street in Adams Morgan. The 33 participating restaurants were meant to serve as models for what DC's outdoor dining landscape could look like in the future. If so, then the future for streateries now doesn't look too bright. This fall, just three of the 33 participating restaurants expressed interest in keeping their streateries when the District Department of Transportation conducted a survey."
"In December, the city will remove all of the dining platforms at a cost of $100,000 and plans to use them to extend sidewalks in the Gallery Place area instead. The Adams Morgan restaurants are now on their own, and few-if any-plan to attempt to meet DDOT's new guidelines to rebuild their streateries. As it turns out, even the sleek city-designed structures from the pilot would be too wide to meet the requirements the very same agency will soon be enforcing."
"Streatery permitting was initially free under the emergency conditions of the pandemic. Now, on top of a $260 permit fee, restaurant owners will have to pay $20 per square food annually-as much as $24,000 for some streateries. Under the new rules, streateries can't be fully enclosed-even with plexiglass-so winter outdoor dining is off the table. And there are new requirements on distances from residential entrances, alleys, and trees, making some existing streateries entirely illegal."
DC invested roughly $750,000 in minimalist, Norwegian-designed outdoor dining platforms along 18th Street in Adams Morgan as demonstration models for future outdoor dining. Only three of the 33 participating restaurants expressed interest in keeping their streateries in a DDOT survey. The city will remove all platforms in December at an estimated cost of $100,000 and redeploy them to extend sidewalks in Gallery Place. New DDOT rules effective November 30 impose a $260 permit fee plus $20 per square foot annually, ban fully enclosed structures, and add distance requirements that render many existing streateries noncompliant.
Read at Washingtonian - The website that Washington lives by.
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]