Lyle Blanchard advises commercial and residential developers on a wide variety of zoning relief matters before the District of Columbia’s Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) and Zoning Commission on variance, special exception, planned unit development (PUD), text and map amendment cases. He counsels clients on historic preservation issues before the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) and on permit issues before the Public Space Committee. Mr. Blanchard advises hotel, restaurant and tavern owners on a full range of alcoholic beverage control licensing issues before the Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Board. He represents building owners and other clients before the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) on diverse housing and building code, zoning, and business and professional license appeal issues. Mr. Blanchard represents property owners before the District of Columbia’s Office of Tax and Revenue (OTR), Real Property Tax Appeals Commission Assessments (RPTAC) and D.C. Superior Court on sophisticated commercial real property tax assessment and classification issues. He also advises property owners on complex street and alley closings and property tax relief legislative matters before the D.C. Council.
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Representative Matters
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Noteworthy
Mr. Blanchard, with GDL shareholder Jacques DePuy, successfully prosecuted the first PUD case before the District of Columbia’s Zoning Commission using Inclusionary Zoning requirements to provide 62 affordable housing units in a 130 unit mixed-use development. Mr. Blanchard and Mr. DePuy won a total $21,900,000 reduction in real property assessments for a combined property in appeals before OTR and RPTAC. Mr. Blanchard and GDL shareholder Pat Brown recently won a substantial reduction in real property taxes as the result of real property tax reclassification appeals of vacant property before OTR and RPTAC.
Mr. Blanchard is credentialed as a LEED Green Associate. Mr. Blanchard served on D.C. Bar Association panels on both ABC and business licensing issues. Mr. Blanchard and GDL shareholder Jacques DePuy co-authored articles for the Greater Washington Commercial Association of REALTORS® on zoning issues and for DCBIA on business licensing issues. Mr. Blanchard is a trustee on the D.C. Retirement Board and was legislative director for several D.C. Council committees (Finance and Revenue, Judiciary, Public Services and Government Operations) for D.C. Councilmember Jack Evans and former D.C. Councilmember James Nathanson. Mr. Blanchard was also legislative advisor for the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) where he advised the ABC Board and the Building Code Advisory Committee. Mr. Blanchard is the 2010 recipient of the John Philip Sousa Distinguished Service Award from The Association for the Preservation of Historic Congressional Cemetery and is the recipient of a 2011 Volunteer Award from AOBA. He was elected in 2011 to the Steering Committee of the D.C. Bar D.C. Affairs Section and served as its D.C. Practice Manual Coordinator and as a member of its Litigation Committee. In 2015, Mr. Blanchard was elected to the D.C. Bar Real Estate, Housing and Land Use Sector. He co-authored the D.C. Practice Manual chapter on Zoning and Historic Preservation (2016 edition).
