The purposes of the D-8 zone are to permit high-density development, to foster the transition of a federally-owned area south of the National Mall into a mixed-use area of commercial, residential, cultural, arts, retail, and service uses with both public and private ownership, and to promote greater pedestrian and vehicular connectivity with an emphasis on re-establishing connections that have been compromised by previous street closings, vacations, obstructing construction, or changes in jurisdiction.
In the D-8 zone, other than transportation-or utility-related construction, approved monuments and memorials, and permitted building projections, no structure, building or building addition may be constructed above the grade of a street right-of-way that was included in the 1791 L'Enfant Plan for the City of Washington, regardless of whether or not it has been closed by an act of the Council of the District of Columbia or its predecessor bodies or whether a building has been constructed within it, with the exception of the following rights of way:
The restrictions in Subtitle I § 575.2 may be modified by the Zoning Commission pursuant to an application for special exception approval consistent with Subtitle X, Chapter 9 and the procedures and criteria in Subtitle I § 581.
D.C. Mun. Regs. tit. 11, r. 11-I575