The interim head of the beleaguered Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs ousted the city’s zoning administrator, a man once called the most powerful man in the D.C. government that no one had ever heard of.
Zoning Administrator Bill Crews is the second high-ranking official to leave the District’s licensing and permitting agency since Mayor Adrian Fenty called the DCRA one of the city’s worst performing agencies, comparing the problems to that of the schools, but without the children.
It’s unclear why Crews was replaced on Thursday. He did not return phone calls and DCRA spokeswoman Karyn-Siobhan Robinson said she could only say that Crews has been placed on administrative leave and the agency is seeking his replacement.
D.C. Council Member Mary Cheh, whose purview includes the DCRA, said interim Director Linda Argo informed her last week that she was replacing Crews but Argo did not explain why. The zoning administrator is critical to the city’s booming construction.
The person who occupies the position enforces the city’s zoning laws and regulations. The rulings can determine whether a project gets built or not. Last month, Crews blocked a Cosi sandwich shop from opening in Cleveland Park.
Crews’ 2.5-year tenure has been relatively free of public controversy. Earlier this year, the zoning adjustment board ruled that Crews erred when he denied a charter school that wanted move into the Lincoln Park neighborhood.
He clashed with Foggy Bottom residents who were opposed to George Washington University’s development into their neighborhoods.
Before becoming zoning administrator, Crews served two terms as an elected Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner on Capitol Hill.
Crews was the mayor of Melbourne, Iowa from 1984 and to 1998, where he garnered national attention in 1993 when he came out as a gay man at a march on Washington.
