To the editor:

Paige Pollard of the Commonwealth Preservation Group writes in the May 9 Alexandria Times, “Black house is in compliance with easement” that a letter to City Manager Mark Jinks from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources shows that the VDHR “is fully aware and supportive of” the plans to renovate and alter the Black House at 619 S. Lee St.

Unless I’m missing something, nothing in the letter that Pollard sets forth in full says anything whatsoever about the VDHR’s “awareness” or “support” for the “project.” Rather, the VDHR’s letter says quite plainly that the VDHR and the Alexandria Board of Architectural Review are separate entities whose rules and regulations, while serving “similar goals,” have nothing whatsoever to do with one another and that compliance with one entity’s regulations has no bearing on compliance with the other’s.