From the front, the red brick row house at 19 Adams St., NW, blends in with the neighboring facades.

It’s the view from the North Capitol Street, NW, alley, however, that makes passers-by utter “Holy Cow!” Some Bloomingdale residents say the monstrosity can’t possibly be legal.

But after ordering several changes, Zoning Administrator Bill Crews, of the much-maligned Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, has given Ryan Golden the green light to proceed with renovating a two-family vertical dwelling. As required, its footprint consumes less than 60 percent of the 2,308 square feet lot.

Some neighbors assume Crews is bending the rules and showing favoritism because the owner’s father is Terry Golden, chairman of the Federal City Council and chief executive officer of the Bailey Capital Corp. Since its inception in 1954, many longtime Washingtonians have been suspicious of the FCC’s purpose.

City records show that Ryan Golden, a contractor and real estate agent living in Shaw, paid $345,000 for the single-family home in February 2005. He plans on moving in to one of the units July 1.

“I understand the concerns of the neighbors,” says Golden, who says he’s a stickler who went overboard on inspections to be sure he followed zoning guidelines. “I like the historical look of the house. And I tried to make it fit in.”

Expanding the house so he could rent out one unit was his only affordable option, Golden says.

Research of DCRA records reveals that despite several stop work orders – not that unusual with reconstruction projects – Golden came into compliance with zoning regulations by changing an illegal “basement” to an allowable “cellar.” Crews and two inspectors took their latest set of measurements April 13.

Golden first applied for a building permit for repairs and to convert a single-family home to a two-unit flat in March 2005. A second stop work order was issued in June 2006, three days after DCRA discovered an inconsistency with the approved plans – ceiling joists on the ground level measured 4 feet and 8 inches above the finished grade in front of the building. Anything above 4 feet would have created a basement, thus making the house four stories, which are not allowed in residential (R-4) zones.

By September 2006 DCRA issued a permit approving new landscaping and a retaining wall to raise the finished grade, thus converting the basement to a cellar. The cellar has 8-foot ceilings, but most of it is underground. Under zoning regulations, a cellar doesn’t count toward the three-story limit.

The new grade also means the house, measuring 38 feet, 3 inches at the top of the highest ceiling, falls under the 40-foot height limit.

“This is something we will probably be seeing more and more of, especially in areas of the city that are undergoing a renaissance,” DCRA spokeswoman Karyn-Siobhan Robinson says about building lots to capacity. “It’s going to move across the city.”

While the phenomenon is new to Wards 4 and 5, it’s in full force in Wards 3 and 6. Most sections of Wards 1 and 2 already are built to capacity.

“The DC real estate market is so tight,” Robinson says. “People are finding they can’t afford to move, and they’re looking to maximize what they already have.”

So Long to Corner Market
To the neighbors who wander in for a newspaper, a dozen eggs or a bag of marshmallows, he is just “Joe.”

So they might be surprised that the slender man who leaves day-old bread slices out for the birds, lets loyal customers pay when they have enough money, and hands out free scoops of ice cream during the Brookland Festival is really named Hak Mun Kim.

Kim, a fixture at “Joe’s Mini” for 19 years, bowed out of business in late May after expenses began outweighing profits. He named the brick mini-mart at the southeast corner of Brookland’s 12th and Newton streets, NE, for a relative who helped his family settle in the DC area when they emigrated from South Korea in the 1980s.

In mid May, a hand-lettered sign on the door at 3527 12th St. announced a 30 to 50 percent reduction in prices.

“I made a dream in the United States,” the 55-year-old says about the low-key market with a severely depleted inventory. “I have a lot of good customers. Now, I’m so sad.”

As Kim discusses the perils of being an independent businessman in a neighborhood with shifting demographics, a regular customer exiting the market with two snack cakes laments, “I’m going to miss you, Joe.”

Competition from CVS and a kitty-corner market means every penny counts, and eventually Kim says he realized he couldn’t ring in enough to cover rising taxes and the escalating rent. Plus, having a month-to-month lease with Borger Management Inc. made him nervous.

Michael Bryant, Borger’s commercial lease administrator, says the one-story building with an adjacent paved lot will be marketed soon. Its current value is $255,680, but its 2008 assessment is $316,700. Right now Bryant has no idea who the tenant will be but says he is willing to listen to neighbors’ suggestions. H.N. Hottel of Virginia is listed as the building owner, city records show.

Like many customers, Kim resents the metal security gates protecting the windows and doors and the Plexiglas “bubble” covering the cashier. But vandals broke so many windows and robbed his store so frequently – crooks made off with the entire cash register three times – that he was forced to act. And though there wasn’t much left to steal lately, shoplifters still plagued him.

As for the neighbors, some say “good riddance” to what they label a “stereotypical ghetto market.” Others are more sympathetic.

They remember when Joe’s was one of the few food stores for miles around. Kim stayed open during snowstorms, provided last-minute necessities for Thanksgiving and Christmas meals, and engaged passers-by in friendly conversation at his post outside the front door.

“Who of us would want to work the hours he and his wife work?” Brooklander Hayden Wetzel asks on a local e-mail exchange. “I wish them well, and thank them for the service – humble but friendly and useful – that they have provided this community for so long.”

Kim smiles at such sentiment. In Korea, he was schooled as a banker. But he doesn’t know yet what he’ll do next.

“I’m looking for another job,” says Kim, who lives in Montgomery County, “but I’m going to rest first.”

“Nudie” Clubs Firestorm
After languishing for 1½ years, the dilemma of relocating adult nightclubs displaced by the new baseball stadium lurks once again.

Ward 5 residents are incensed that Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham introduced legislation seeming to welcome a handful of dance clubs into on-the-mend Ivy City/Trinidad neighborhoods without due process.

Most upsetting to Ward 5 Councilmember Harry “Tommy” Thomas Jr. is that his constituents are being denied a voice because the one-time relocation bill skips public hearings.

“I think we, as Ward 5 residents, have the right to participate in anything going on in our neighborhoods,” Thomas told 150-plus residents during a May 16 town hall meeting at Ivy City’s Bethesda Baptist Church. “No ward wants to be inundated with a particular type of business.”

As DC’s major railroad corridor, Ward 5 has much of the city’s industrially-zoned land. Research shows that the clubs, which mainly served a gay clientele, are exploring signing leases at these four addresses: 2046 and 2132 West Virginia Ave., 2155 24th Place, NE, and V Street off New York Avenue.

The Zoning Commission and the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board should settle zoning and alcohol issues, respectively, not the DC Council, residents at the meeting agreed. They fear the clubs will not only overtax already undermanned police services in the Fifth District but also detract from rejuvenation efforts such as the Home Again Initiative in Ivy City, targeted to attract families.

One man emphasized that it wasn’t respectful to God to discuss “sin” in a church sanctuary, and many neighbors called for the “nudie clubs” to be spread evenly across the city.

Thomas explained that $3.6 million he recently directed to upgrade roads and sidewalks in Ivy City isn’t a “bribe” to make traveling easier for visitors, if the clubs move there. Rather, he was taking advantage of a legislative opportunity to secure funds from the public works budget.

He planned on introducing seven amendments to Graham’s legislation at a June 5 council hearing. They included limiting relocation to clubs displaced by eminent domain, permitting displaced clubs to relocate in certain commercially zoned districts within 5,000 feet of the ballpark and doubling the 600-foot minimum required between clubs. As passed unanimously May 8 by the Committee on Public Works and the Environment, the bill eliminates that minimum.

In a longwinded rant, Ron Hunt defended his Lexus Gold Club – closed last fall to make room for the stadium – as a clean, honest and upscale “gentlemen’s club” that attracted 200 to 250 clients per night, most of them arriving in limousines. The largest such venue on the East Coast, he told an unreceptive audience, was not a strip club. Instead, he designed his venue to look like a living room, and catered to husband and wives.

Bethesda associate minister Richard McPayten drew some of the evening’s loudest applause when he asked Hunt: “If they’re an affluent club, why don’t they have a club in their affluent community?”