On Thursday, Feb. 6, the D.C. Court of Appeals upheld a building permit which allows Georgetown to host a child-care center on campus. The permit was challenged by local residents after being upheld by the Board of Zoning Adjustment in 1997.
Hoya Kids Learning Center, located in Poulton Hall, offers day care and preschool services for up to 58 children of University students, faculty and staff, including hospital staff. Hoya Kids opened in 1997, in a space formerly used for copying and printing.
According to Director of Off Campus Student Life Jeanne Lord, the court decision is good news for the University as Hoya Kids provides a valuable service.
Director of the Learning Center Jane Banister declined to comment. The Office of Communications was unable to comment on Wednesday.
Several local residents, including Westy Byrd, Beverly Jost, Patricia Scolaro and Don Crockett, formed the Residents Alliance and appealed the 1997 decision of the BZA to uphold Hoya Kids’ permit, according to a Feb. 12 story in the Georgetown Current.
This same group filed a lawsuit with the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics in 1996, claiming that residents’ civil rights were violated by student voter registration. The group’s claims were defeated, and in December 2002, after six years of litigation, they were ordered to pay students’ court fees.
The case concerning Hoya Kids was never about the day care center, but about University housing issues and the proposed 10-year plan, the Current claimed.
The University’s original 10-year plan, proposed in 2000, was rejected by the BZA. A revised version with a list of conditions including a student enrollment cap and registration of student vehicles in the District was accepted in March 2002. Some citizens of Georgetown are attempting to postpone construction of the proposed performing arts center, arguing that the University is failing to meet many of these conditions.
Lord said that the opposition used technical arguments about how the University uses space in the Hoya Kids permit case, but the court denied their claims.
“The court said we’re within our rights,” Lord said.
