D.C. Mun. Regs. tit. 10-A, § 1400
1400.1 The Arts and Culture Element provides policies and actions dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the arts and culture in Washington, DC. Its focus is on strengthening the role of the arts and culture in shaping the physical form of the District.
1400.2 The key issues facing the District as it seeks to foster and enhance arts and culture include:
1400.3 Washington, DC is one of the country's leading cultural centers. Its breadth of artistic achievement encompasses many disciplines, cultures, individuals, and organizations. The District is home to the Smithsonian Institution, museums of fine art, symphony, ballet, and opera. From music on U Street NW to the daily literary events at local bookstores, the District's neighborhoods celebrate Washington, DC's distinct cultural legacy. Together, these cultural organizations' contributions have helped Washington grow as a national cultural epicenter. Among American cities, Washington, DC is particularly notable as a leader in performance theater, featuring signature venues, award-winning local productions, and top traveling performances.
1400.4 Data included in this Element precedes the 2020 public health emergency. While the District's economic position may be substantially affected in the early 2020's, the District anticipates that economic trends highlighted in this chapter will hold in the long-term along with the policies contained in this chapter, which are designed to guide the District through both growth and recession cycles. Actions have been added to the Economic Development and Housing Elements of the Comprehensive Plan to address responses to and recovery from impacts of the 2020 public health emergency that affect the arts and culture sector.
1400.5 The Arts and Culture Element incorporates the DC Cultural Plan, which describes how the District will increase cultural creation, space, and consumption through shared stewardship, organizational innovation, and leveraged funding. The Cultural Plan introduces a new approach to cultural space that harnesses increased property values to generate more affordable cultural production, presentation, and administration space. This approach emphasizes strategies for shared spaces, such as studios and incubators, that will help position individuals and cultural organizations to better share in the benefits of the District's growth.
1400.6 The DC Cultural Plan presents an equitable policy framework that is inclusive of a broader array of creative works. Culture is the universe that encompasses the arts and many segments of the larger creative economy. Culture is comprised of heritage, practices, and traditions that are important to an individual, community, or society. Arts are creative practices based in skill and knowledge. Traditional art forms, such as the visual and performing arts, trace long trajectories throughout human history as means of expressing and sharing experience and emotion. Over time, additional art forms have emerged from cultures and technologies that present different ways of communicating. These additional art forms strengthen Washington, DC's cultural equity and facilitate its cultural evolution. The element's policies and actions also reinforce arts and culture as expressions of local values and sources of community identity. Fostering arts and culture helps to affirm all residents' cultural practices and increase opportunities for all residents to participate in and experience cultural and artistic expression.
1400.7 This element acknowledges the contributions of art and culture to the District's economy and supports investments that create new jobs, goods, and services.
SOURCE: District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Act of 1984, effective April 10, 1984 (D.C. Law 5-76; 31 DCR 1049 (March 9, 1984)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Act of 1984 Land Use Element Amendment Act of 1984, effective March 16, 1985 (D.C. Law 5-187; 32 DCR 873 (February 15, 1985)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Amendments Act of 1989, effective May 23, 1990 (D.C. Law 8-129; 37 DCR 55 (January 5, 1990)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Amendments Act of 1989 NCPC-Recommended Amendments, and Closing of Public Alleys in Square 669, S.O. 88-452, Act of 1990, effective May 23, 1990 (D.C. Law 8-132; 37 DCR 2213 (April 6, 1990)); as amended by District Government Land Use Temporary Amendment Act of 1994, effective October 1, 1994 (D.C. Law 10-190; 41 DCR 5360 (August 12, 1994)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendments Act of 1994, effective October 6, 1994 (D.C. Law 10-193; 41 DCR 5536 (August 19, 1994)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Act of 1984 Land Use Amendment Act of 1994, effective March 21, 1995 (D.C. Law 10-235; 42 DCR 30 (January 6, 1995)); as amended by Technical Amendments Act of 1996, effective April 18, 1996 (D.C. Law 11-110; 43 DCR 530 (February 9, 1996)); as amended by Second Technical Amendments Act of 1996, effective April 9, 1997 (D.C. Law 11-255; 44 DCR 1271 (March 7, 1997)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 1998, effective April 27, 1999 (D.C. Law 12-275; 46 DCR 1441 (February 19, 1999)); as amended by Technical Amendments Act of 1999, effective April 12, 2000 (D.C. Law 13-91; 47 DCR 520 (January 28, 2000)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 2006, effective March 8, 2007 (D.C. Law 16-300; 54 DCR 924 (February 2, 2007)); as amended by Technical Amendments Act of 2008, effective March 25, 2009 (D.C. Law 17-353; 56 DCR 1117 (February 6, 2009)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 2010, effective April 8, 2011 (D.C. Law 18-361; 58 DCR 908 (February 4, 2011)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 2021, effective August 21,
2021 (D.C. Law 24-20; 68 DCR 006918 (July 16, 2021)).