## Facts

- Georgetown University (formally, the President and Directors of Georgetown College) sought approval from the District of Columbia Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) for a Campus Plan covering academic years 2000–2010.
- The BZA originally approved the Campus Plan with conditions, including a full-time enrollment cap and other operational requirements affecting nearby neighborhoods.
- In an earlier appeal, *President & Directors of Georgetown College v. District of Columbia Board of Zoning Adjustment* (often called “Georgetown I”), the D.C. Court of Appeals vacated the BZA’s initial order and remanded because the enrollment cap and certain conditions lacked record support and were arbitrary.
- On remand, the BZA issued a revised order approving a Revised Campus Plan. The revised order increased Georgetown’s full-time enrollment cap to 6,016 students.
- The revised order allowed Georgetown to determine compliance with the cap by averaging fall and spring semester full-time enrollment, rather than measuring a single-semester snapshot.
- The revised order also removed several provisions that had appeared in the original campus-plan order and had not been challenged by Georgetown.
- Citizens Association of Georgetown (CAG), a neighborhood association, petitioned for review, challenging (1) the increased cap and the averaging method and (2) the unexplained removal of previously included, uncontested provisions.

## Issues

1. Whether substantial evidence supported the BZA’s decision on remand to increase Georgetown’s enrollment cap to 6,016 and to measure compliance by averaging fall and spring enrollment.
2. Whether the BZA acted without adequate explanation by deleting uncontested provisions from the original campus-plan order when issuing the revised campus-plan order on remand.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the BZA’s revised order as to the 6,016 full-time enrollment cap and the method of measuring compliance by averaging fall and spring enrollment.
- The court held that substantial evidence supported the BZA’s findings that the revised cap and averaging approach would not create objectionable neighborhood impacts and that the averaging method followed logically from the BZA’s factual findings.
- The court remanded the case to the BZA to explain why several provisions included in the original campus-plan order, and not contested by Georgetown, were omitted from the revised order.
- Disposition: affirmed in part and remanded in part.

## Legal Principles

- On review of a zoning agency order, the court examines whether the agency (1) made findings on each material contested issue of fact, (2) supported those findings with substantial evidence, and (3) reached legal conclusions that follow rationally from the findings.
- “Substantial evidence” is relevant evidence that a reasonable factfinder could accept as adequate to support the agency’s decision; the court does not reweigh evidence or substitute its judgment for the agency’s.
- An agency’s conditions and compliance measures must be logically tied to its factual findings; a reasoned connection between findings and the chosen requirement is required for the order to stand.
- When an agency changes an existing set of requirements—especially after a judicial remand—it must give an explanation sufficient to allow judicial review; deleting previously adopted, uncontested provisions without explaining the change may be arbitrary or capricious.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Court of Appeals upheld the BZA’s remand order approving Georgetown’s 2000–2010 Campus Plan to the extent it raised the full-time enrollment cap to 6,016 and allowed compliance to be measured by averaging fall and spring enrollment, finding those choices supported by substantial evidence and consistent with the BZA’s findings. The court nevertheless remanded so the BZA could state why it removed certain provisions that had been included in the original campus-plan order and were not contested by Georgetown, because the revised order did not provide a reviewable explanation for those omissions.


Citizens Association of Georgetown v. District of Columbia Board of Zoning Adjustment, 925 A.2d 585 (2007)