Affordable Housing Institute : US

Every now and then, the little guys win one, and when they do, as in this day-in-the-life farce reported in a recent Washington Post article, the resulting splutters reveal some folks’ unbalanced view of rules – namely that they’re things I write and you obey. 

 

To many in Old Town Alexandria, the sex shop that opened recently on King Street is nothing short of scandalous, a historical desecration just blocks from the boyhood home of Robert E. Lee.

But to Michael Zarlenga, it’s justice.

 

“I’m not just the owner of Le Tache, I’m also …”

 

Zarlenga spent $350,000 on plans to expand his hunting and fishing store, the Trophy Room.  

 

However laudable may be our historic preservation statutes, their procedures are archaic and arbitrary, prone to abuse, and opaque to judicial or legislative review – much less by an ordinary citizen.

 

He worked with city officials for almost two years and thought he had their support — until the architectural review board told him he couldn’t alter the historic property.

 

My procedures are Byzantine

 

In other words, after two years, the taste police changed their minds.

 

“Remember when I promised to approve your proposal?”

“Yes, yes!  You did!”

“I lied.”

 

What could the outraged citizen do?  He couldn’t sue the town, because its procedures state quite clearly they’re arbitrary.  Instead, he thought of a more practical revenge:

 

Furious and out of money, Zarlenga rented the space to its newest occupant, Le Tache.

 

“I can’t say I didn’t know it would ruffle feathers,” said Zarlenga, 41. “Actually, I was hoping for a fast-food chain because I thought that would be more annoying to the city.”

 

It may not be historic but it meets the zoning

 

As I wrote in a similar case in Lexington, MA, entitled Zoning and the Righteous Snobs, it appears that the use restrictions were written not for their stated purpose, but rather to enable the town to exercise a capricious veto over any use that it didn’t like:

 

Like the bigot who likes ’some of  your kind,’ Wellesley is perfectly willing to embrace upscale economic immigrants; it’s those slightly dirty downscale types we want to keep out altogether or at the very least out of sight:

 

 There are also other Dunkin’ Donuts franchises, though they are well out of view, in outlying corners of the town, or, in one case, tucked inside a Mobil gas station.

 

Good thing those people know their place.

 

The new Dunkin’ Donuts shop was all the more alarming to town officials because it seemed to slip, for a time, below the radar.

 

What skullduggery.  What deceit.

 

The owner, who declined to speak to the Globe,

 

 “Would you like to go on the record, sir?”

 

signed a lease late last year for the space when a bakery that sold handmade breads vacated the space, according to town officials and court papers.

 

Isn’t it just like an upstart to think that replacing one bakery with another requires no permission?

 

A similar cultural snobbery appears evident from the historic board’s past practice:

 

King Street’s upscale restaurants and shops are the quintessence of commercial Old Town, near Gadsby’s Tavern, where George and Martha Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams overnighted.

 

Upscale restaurants are delightful, and personally I’d rather have one nearby than a sex shop

 

A short stroll away is the boyhood home of Lee, the Confederate general.

 

“I believe it’s an inappropriate business to be located in our old and historic district,” Alexandria Mayor William D. Euille (D) said of Le Tache.

 

As Alexandria was a river port, I am sure a search of the records will reveal plenty of brothels within the historic district. 

 

“I get e-mails and calls every day from people who want us to do something to make the business leave.”

 

Le Tache, Mayor Euille wishes Euid leave …

 

Not everyone agrees.  A quick Google reveals the following interesting comment to an Alexandria Times article:

 

Considering the amount of vacant real estate I see in Old Town and the Carlyle Square these days, Alexandria should be courting businesses instead of chasing them off.  I for one am tired of seeing the City Budget increase and my real estate tax rate increase every year to fund some misguided social program or another. Having more businesses in Old Towne filling that vacant space would be a welcome relief to the City’s homeowners and diversify the City’s tax base, making it better able to stand up to recessions that we are in now.

 

Cities make money on commercial property, if it’s occupied – if it’s vacant, it’s a net drain.

 

Really? 

 

In other words, Mayor Euille, the district isn’t historic, it’s use-controlled.

 

The store opened in January to both horrified and curious passersby at 210 King St., next to an art gallery and two doors from a boutique that sells children’s clothing.  Le Tache owner Bo Kenney said sales are booming, even in this economy.

 

Everyone knows that apartments have bedrooms, and in those bedrooms are beds, and we know what happens there, don’t we?

 

Sneaking out to head back home: Le Tache from the inside

 

“People like our products. They want that escape, and that’s what we’re trying to do — give them a little pleasure in their day,” said Kenney, who owns nine similar shops in Northern Virginia. “We’re doing a community service.”

 

Feels pretty Puritan, doesn’t it?

 

In the windows of Le Tache, which means the spot [And it should be feminine, La Tache – Ed.], scantily dressed, voluptuous mannequins beckon.

 

May I help you?

 

Peekaboo lingerie, adult movies and sex toys are displayed throughout the three-story building, which has the original hardwood floors and beams dating to the early 1800s.

 

The city cannot act because the store is complying with the law. “There’s nothing I can do to encourage its demise,” the mayor said.

 

But he added that city staff is drawing up proposed changes to zoning laws in hopes that future adult entertainment stores can be regulated.

 

Heaven forbid that you’d re-examine you historic-use approval processes!

 

Self-reflection is only for the young

 

Le Tache would be grandfathered in.

 

Alexandria Commonwealth’s Attorney S. Randolph Sengel said his office has received enough complaints about the store that he is looking at legal options.

 

Virginia law allows for courts to declare sexual material obscene and to ban its sale, he said.

 

“What is acceptable in one community might not meet the standard in the neighboring community,” Sengel said.

 

Nice sex shop.  Pit if something were to – happen – to it.

 

As the same Alexandria Times reader commented:

 

Wonderful. Simply wonderful. So, even if a business in the City is following the law, the City is going to harass it until it leaves. Nice thinking. Let’s let even more of the vacant storefronts in King Street sit empty due to stupidity in the City Council.

 

Heaven forbid you’d examine your historic-use approval processes!

 

The unexamined life is not worth administratively reviewing

 

Kenney, who says he caters to couples, had no retail presence in Old Town before because he hadn’t found a receptive landlord. But in Zarlenga, he got an owner who didn’t mind rankling city leaders.

 

If you weren’t already sympathetic to Mr. Zarlenga, just listen to this story of local processes run amok:

 

Zarlenga’s saga with the building dates to 2001, when he opened his hunting and fishing store.

 

Good neighbor, local businessman makes good.

 

In 2006, he bought the building with the idea of renovating and expanding it to include more retail space, a bathroom and an elevator.

 

He gave the community a choice:

 

He hired a Washington architectural firm, which created eight designs for the project.

 

Eight designs ought to be enough

 

The final one included plans to raise the roof on the back of the building and demolish a small section of a historic brick wall that was built about 1800. Most of the back wall would have been incorporated into the renovation.

 

In designing these tasteful choices, Mr. Zarlenga relied on advice from appropriate government officials:

 

Zarlenga said he consulted Alexandria’s historical preservation staff along the way to be sure everyone was on board with his plans. He said he relied heavily on the advice of Peter Smith, who at the time was the principal staff member of the city’s Board of Architectural Review.

But when the project came before the review board in 2007, it was rejected partly on Smith’s recommendation that it would cause an “unreasonable loss of historic fabric.”

 

As the Otter said to the Flounder, “You fucked up.  You trusted us.”

 

Never trust an Otter

 

Zarlenga said Smith did not explain to him why he changed his mind. Smith has since died.

Tom Hulfish, chairman of the Alexandria Board of Architectural Review, said the project was rejected because it would have altered the traditional “flounder,” or shed roof structure that preservationists are trying to protect around the city.

 

 

Are you trying to alter the traditional Flounder?

 

Zarlenga said he felt as though the rug had been pulled out from under him.

 

I’d say it definitely had.

 

He appealed to the City Council but lost in September 2007. Council members suggested he go back to the staff of the architectural review board and submit new plans.

 

A classic gutless punt – we’re not rejecting, you can try again to exhaust the futile and expensive administrative procedure you just went through.

 

“Pay no attention to that city council – return to the architectural review board!”

 

For Zarlenga, it was the final straw. He choked back tears as he told the council he was finished: “I have no faith in the staff…. They have completely taken the integrity, as I see it, out of the system… The simple fact is there’s no money left, okay?”

 

He closed his store and the building sat empty until January, when Le Tache opened.

 

Zarlenga said he has no regrets about renting to the sex shop, and he is selling the building to Le Tache’s owners.

 

The community has no one to blame but its architectural review board.  Lulled into a false sense of superiority by their unilateral and arbitrary procedures, they prevented Mr. Zarlenga from doing what he wanted – expanding his hunting and fishing store – to the point where he had to sell to something that didn’t need to change the building. 

 

Bob King, who owns an adjacent building and lives upstairs, said he’s concerned about his property values. “My preference would be [that] it not be my neighbor next door,” he said.

 

Heaven forbid you’d re-examine your NIMBYite approval processes.

 

We’re ready to appoint a study committee now

 

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