Some Land Uses Don’t Mix: West End Library

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Quoting the architect of the MLK renovation Francine Houben of Mecanoo who in the February 2022 issue of World Architects said:

I never thought it was a good idea to add a residential volume on this particular public building. A library — a public building — has very different ownership, maintenance, and sustainability issues than a residential building. In the end DC Libraries canceled that idea, and changed direction. I think that was a good decision on the part of the city.

Francine Houben, Architect for MLK Library renovation

Ms. Houben’s statement rang true in spring 2022 at the West End Library (closed for nearly 2 months due to trouble with private housing units built above the library)

. . . cited from the source emails . . .

  ———- Forwarded message ———
From: Robert Oliver <lrlfriends2017@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, May 7, 2022, 8:55 AM
Subject: Temporary Closure of West End Library
To: DCPLFRiends <dcplfriends@googlegroups.com>  

Dear Members,   I am sharing DCPL’s official statement on the temporary closure of the West End Library.  

Due to a maintenance emergency, the West End Neighborhood Library will be closed for the next several weeks starting May 4. We will send an update when we have a specific reopening date.

Due dates for library materials checked out from the West End Library have been extended until reopening. Customers with active holds will be notified where to pick up their items next week, once they are moved.    

Martha Saccocio
DC Public Library Director, Community Engagement
(202) 604-8241 (M)   

DCPL ATTACHMENT BELOW:

———- Forwarded message ———
From: Pinto, Brooke (Council) <bpinto@dccouncil.us>
Date: Sat, May 14, 2022, 10:16 PM
Subject: RE: Temporary Closure of West End Library
To: robin diener <robinsdiener@gmail.com>, Hanson, Ella (Council) <ehanson@dccouncil.us>, Romanowski, Brian (Council) <bromanowski@dccouncil.us>

Robin – the information I received was that the damage was from an apartment above that led to water damages in the library. The repairs should take about 4-6 weeks (hopefully sooner!).  

My best, Brooke  
Brooke Pinto
Councilmember, Ward 2
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite 106 Washington DC 20004
Office: 202-724-8058 Email: bpinto@dccouncil.us

From: robin diener
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2022 5:57 PM
To: Pinto, Brooke (Council) <bpinto@DCCOUNCIL.US>; Hanson, Ella (Council) <ehanson@DCCOUNCIL.US>; Romanowski, Brian (Council) <bromanowski@DCCOUNCIL.US>
Subject: Fwd: Temporary Closure of West End Library  

Hello CM Pinto,  
No one seems to know what’s up with the West End Library. Several weeks of “emergency maintenance” sounds bad. The library was built under a public private partnership. Perhaps that explains the terse notice. It is a public library, however, and information should be available to its owners – the public.
Hope you can find out for us.  
Thank you,  
Robin Diener 202 431-9254    

——- Forwarded message ———
From: robin diener <robinsdiener@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, May 25, 2022 at 6:14 PM
Subject: Housing over libraries
To: Romero, Gary A. (DCPL) <gary.romero@dc.gov>, Board of Library Trustees (DCPL) <BoardOfLibraryTrustees@dc.gov>, Richard Reyes-Gavilan (DCPL) <Richard.Reyes-Gavilan@dc.gov>, Saccocio, Martha (DCPL) <martha.saccocio@dc.gov>, Robert Oliver <lrlfriends2017@gmail.com>

In my capacity as Executive Director of the DC Library Renaissance Project

Housing Over Libraries

The latest difficulty (there have been several but this time it is flooding from a private living unit overhead) at the West End Library would seem to call for a hearing or roundtable on the pros and cons of housing being built over libraries, and of Public-Private Partnerships (ppp’s) generally. With three libraries — Deanwood, Rosedale and Northwest One — all proposed to be rebuilt with housing over them, we need a full understanding of what happened at West End and how we ensure it not happen again is needed. Options for our public library buildings such as combining with other civic uses should also be considered, as well as a complete understanding of land ownership and financing possibilities.

Under the Chevy Chase Small Area Plan recently published by OP, we have a large enough public property to combine the two civic uses — library and community center — together in one new building, while constructing affordable housing on the rest of the property around it, and thus avoid the potential for problems such as have occurred at West End. This exact concept was developed by Ward 3 Vision and is included in the Small Area Plan as one of three options. DCPL should endorse the concept proposed by Ward 3 Vision, and make clear that it is the best option for the Chevy Chase Library.

I would like to quote architect of the MLK renovation Francine Houben of Mecanoo who in the February 2022 issue of World Architects said: I never thought it was a good idea to add a residential volume on this particular public building. A library — a public building — has very different ownership, maintenance, and sustainability issues than a residential building. In the end DC Libraries canceled that idea, and changed direction. I think that was a good decision on the part of the city.

https://www.world-architects.com/en/architecture-news/insight/the-world-is-changing-we-have-to-update

For now, we can avoid the issues experienced at the West End Library simply by not putting public and private together in one structure, an option open to us at Chevy Chase because of the size of the property. In view of the likely limited size of the other libraries being contemplated for housing over them, further examination is needed, and can and should be had.

Thank you
Robin Diener
Library Renaissance Project
202 431-9254

Housing is a Human Right

YIMBY’s: D.C. “Desperately & Urgently” Needs More Housing

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We hear so-called YIMBYs constantly cheer on listserves and real estate blogs, #BuildMore housing quickly and voluminously. They say the city is desperate for new housing and we need lots of new units urgently. Any skeptics or detractors to this build-baby-build posture are quickly written off simply as NIMBYs.

Yet, the YIMBYs can never seem to answer these basic questions:

  1. New housing for whom? Is it the trickle down market rate housing being built everywhere or truly affordable for those making the living wage or less?
  2. What statistics substantiate the “urgency” for new housing? DC has some of the highest vacancy rates in the nation, will building more of the same help?
  3. And, why is the city tearing down the 0-30%AMI housing such as public housing to privatize and build more luxury housing?

Last we checked, the well heeled developer-class have collaborated with cohorts in city bureaucratic planning positions to usher in wave after wave of new construction, with areas of DC exploding with denser taller buildings consisting of expensive studio/one bedrooms.

Tens of thousands of new luxury units have been built in DC over the past twenty years and 9 out of 10 of these units are strictly targeted to wealthier single professionals.

But recently, it is this slice of the local demography (single wealthy professionals) who are parting with the urban core as they are forming families and being quite privileged and mobile they can move when things like pandemics unfold and impact our living collective conditions. Yes, it is these new residents who stormed into the city over the past decade who are now choosing to leave the big box luxury buildings that were designed for them and are moving into single family homes in outer city limits and back to suburbia. 

Thus, any urgency for more housing serving the professional-class  is quickly dispelled by the facts on the ground, with DC conservatively having 15% of units built (not just marketed) sitting vacant, and the new built-out areas such as Navy Yard having 1 in 3 units empty (all pre-pandemic numbers). 

[Pre-pandemic], the average vacancy rate in the District is 14.7%, with submarkets such as SW/Navy Yard, Capitol Hill, and Georgetown/Wisconsin Ave, are seeing vacancy rates at 31%, 27%, and 18% respectively .

DHCD Report, Saving DC’s Rental Housing Market Strike Force, citing from “The State of the DC Multifamily Rental Market” analysis by the Apartment & Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington (AOBA), published by Randi Marshall, Vice President of Government Affairs, D.C., February 19, 2021, at page 13.

Housing as commodity, not for community

In spite of mounting units being built but left to sit empty, its become apparent that the mega real estate companies don’t mind and are pushing to build even more housing that’s as expensive as ever before.

This is because housing is no longer necessarily for creating human community. Rather, new housing units are in large part serving as international investment commodities, that are essentially blocks of money in the form of new housing construction.

Moreover, any claimed desperation or “urgency for more housing” is a statement of perverse absurdity without doing the homework in understanding the type of housing the city truly needs constructed (see 40k person waiting list for affordable family sized housing).

YIMBY’s see no urgency to build housing that we actually need, instead they continue to chant and demand the city construct housing that only serves an elite professional-class.

DC desperately needs 0-30%AMI units and lots of them, so say the PHIMBY’s (Public Housing in My BackYard).

See links below for stats and research substantiating the points above.

Stats and Facts Supporting the Above Conclusions

Racial Inequity: 1990 60% of DC Black vs 2010 50% 2020 41% [2020 census | interactive DC diversity app] 60k Black people displaced from DC over the past twenty years of #BuildMore, these stats cannot be ignored!

  1. DC racial segregation through affordability gap as wide as 1968: White wealth surge; black wealth stagnation 
  2. Mythbust: we are not in housing crisis, other than an “affordable” housing crisis (we lack units for those in the 0-50%AMI range)
    1. Vacancies citiwide is 14.7% (Navy Yard; Gtown/Wis Ave up to 31%)
    2. Slow down of incoming DC residents
    3. Offices hit record vacancy high in 2021

Foreign investors snap up Washington real estate at an accelerating clip

“This is the normal world. You go to work in a city. All around you are enormous new buildings. They look alike. But you will never be able to afford to live in them. Because they are not really homes. They are blocks of money,  bought by global investors whose money has nowhere else to go.” https://twitter.com/rotten4eva/status/1492740361374121986

THE DC COMP PLAN IS RACIST

Maurice Cook, Director of Serve Your City, and community advocate out of Ward 6 discusses the DC Comprehensive Plan, the definition of racial equity and affordable housing, and what the Council Office on Racial Equity (CORE) report about the #DCCompPlan means to Black people living and working in the District of Columbia. Please Watch :: https://youtu.be/zDH96HFqfP8

WTF! DCHA? DC Housing Authority Over the Past Few Years

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APR 2021

DCHA Internal Auditor Resigned After Reporting Intimidation and Retaliation — “At this point, I don’t have confidence that the Board of Commissioners or other senior executives will exercise integrity in the performance of their public duties.”

DCHA Internal Auditor Resigned After Reporting Intimidation and Retaliation

MAR 2021

DCHA Audit Finds $1.3 Million In Wasted Funds — The D.C. Housing Authority did not disclose the audit in its responses to the Council’s annual oversight questions.

DCHA Audit Finds $1.3 Million In Wasted Funds

DCHA Executive Director Accuses Former Deputy of Planning a Coup — In a deposition, DCHA Director Tyrone Garrett says he fired his deputy because she plotted to overthrow him. Chelsea Andrews, the former deputy who is now suing DCHA, says that’s ridiculous.

DCHA Executive Director Accuses Former Deputy of Planning a Coup

FEB 2021

Against Advice of Attorneys and Internal Auditors, DCHA Kept Families in Units With Lead Past Legal Deadline — DCHA Executive Director Tyrone Garrett says he was out of options.

Against Advice of Attorneys and Internal Auditors, DCHA Kept Families in Units With Lead Past Legal Deadline

OCT 2020

Greenleaf Gardens Redevelopment Stalls Early With Failed Resolution — It’s another delay for Director Tyrone Garrett’s revitalization plan.

Greenleaf Gardens Redevelopment Stalls Early With Failed Resolution

SEP 2020

CM Silverman Questions Housing Authority Commissioner’s Abrupt Dismissal — The at-large councilmember suggests Franselene St. Jean was removed to silence dissenting voices.

CM Silverman Questions Housing Authority Commissioner’s Abrupt Dismissal

August 2020

A DCHA commissioner was removed shortly after asking questions about a whistleblower lawsuit and other issues surrounding the housing authority.

Housing Authority Board Vice Chair Removed Hours After Asking Questions About Whistleblower Lawsuit

Former Housing Authority Lawyer Files Whistleblower Lawsuit Over Allegedly Counterfeit Masks — Chelsea Andrews claims DCHA Executive Director Tyrone Garrett had her fired after she questioned the procurement and authenticity of KN95 masks.

Former Housing Authority Lawyer Files Whistleblower Lawsuit Over Allegedly Counterfeit Masks

JAN 2020

DCHA’s “Repositioning” Plan is Privatization of Public Housing

DEC 2019

The Final Proposal to Renovate the DC Housing Authority’s HQ Is Totally Different From the Original Plan — A trio of developers will pay DCHA $67 million for a 99-year lease on the land where its headquarters sits, according to the resolution.

The Final Proposal to Renovate the DC Housing Authority’s HQ Is Totally Different From the Original Plan

100 MOR McMillan Projects

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The DC Comprehensive Plan (“Comp Plan” or “Plan”) is a key legislative document that covers a range of topics, from economic development, housing, the environment, parks and community services, transportation, and more.

There are maps within the Comp Plan, the most important being the Future Land Use Map (FLUM).

The Future Land Use Map (FLUM) determines how DC will develop and grow as we move into the future and allows all residents and city planners to anticipate and prepare for development, no surprises!

The DC Office of Planning under the direction of the DC Mayor is now suggesting changes to the Comprehensive Plan, 1500-redlined pages of proposed amendments to the existing Plan policies and maps. They have delivered these proposed changes to the DC City Council to consider passing into law.

The Mayor put up a website to show the public (to a degree) the massive tome of amendments to the Plan. By the way, if you don’t speak or read English, you have been left completely out of the conversation.

On the Mayor’s Comp Plan website, there is a nifty maps page that was recently uploaded that uses a slider to let you see the proposed areas of the city where the Office of Planning wants to change future development, going up with bigger and denser buildings.

Sliding over the whole city and you see an array of properties that the Mayor seeks to upzone, aka upFLUM. What you don’t see are the numbers in square feet of how much density the mayor wants to allow to be developable as a “matter of right” (MOR).

In fact, no where on the Mayor’s Comprehensive Plan website will you find any facts relaying to the public that the proposed FLUM map changes equate to upzoning close to 200 million square feet of land and air rights.

As a friend suggests, the map changes show city officials essentially printing money for the landowners of these lucky properties being upFLUMed.

How did we get the numbers? A Socratic conversation with the director of the Office of Planning, Director Andrew Trueblood, and his staff by email.

The result of this conversation was a matrix showing the reality of the proposed changes to the Comprehensive Plan FLUM map, or almost 200 million square feet of proposed upzoning around the city.

DC Comp Plan: 200 million square feet of upFLUMing
DC Comp Plan: 200 million square feet of upFLUMing

This 200 million square feet of new habitable space and construction represents about what would be 100 “matter of right” McMillan Park projects.

Do you think this substantial change to the city’s built environment came with any impact assessments as required by the law? If you answered No, you’d be correct.

Why should we expect the Mayor’s Office of Planning actually do any “planning”? In fact the DC Council Chairman thinks planning is a popularity contest!

Read how the Office of Planning’s proposed changes to the Comp Plan is going to exacerbate displacement of Black folks in DC, click here.

DC Streetcar Extension Debate :: “Nostalgic Gentrification”

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Nostalgic Gentrification As A Development Tool Vs. A More Practical And Budget Friendly Use of Circulator Buses

Transit Opinion by: Iris McCrea, Ward 7 Resident and Fort Dupont Civic Association Member

. . .

The position of the Fort Dupont Civic Association is against the extension of the Streetcar beyond the Langston Golf Course at Oklahoma Avenue, NE to East Capitol Street and Benning Road NE. However, we do support transit-oriented development along Benning Road and through sub-neighborhoods from Oklahoma Avenue to Southern Avenue which is even beyond the proposed end of the streetcar route.

. . .

[T]he Fort Dupont Civic Association strongly recommends the use of the Circulator Buses starting at Oklahoma Avenue instead of streetcars.

See Full Statement Here.

2021_03_01_w7_dc_streetcar_fort_supont_statementDownload

McMillan Park Demolition is NOT Smart Growth

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Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto Supports Defunding The Giveaway of McMillan Park, Further Exposing Greater Greater Washington as a PR Team for Mega-Real Estate Speculators

Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto has been added to the growing list of DC officials and candidates calling for the controversial McMillan Project to be defunded and/or competitively re-bid, seeking substantial changes to the project like including much more public green space and much more truly affordable housing for families. For example, there isn’t one affordable housing unit for a family of four with an income less then $60,000 specifically set in the current project, among many other issues.

Pinto’s position on McMillan was highlighted by the Elections/Endorsement Committee of the online bloggers, Greater Greater Washington, in a post about the 2020 Ward 2 City Council race in a section called, “Brooke Pinto gives some very concerning answers.”

That Pinto suggested the McMillan project as a cost burden to DC demonstrates one of two things: either she is opposed to new housing and offices in DC on sites that have gone through years of public review (probably unlikely), or she is so unaware of long-running District issues, having never voted in DC before running for office, that she is basing her position on a fringe element that supported her in the primary rather than a detailed understanding of the issue.

Greater Greater Washington Elections Committee on Brooke Pinto Ward 2 Council Race 2020.

GGW just added a seventh person (a former Jim Graham staffer) to their Elections Committee. Four of the seven committee members are white men who describe those who support public open green space and a competitive rebidding of the McMillan project as a “small group” and “fringe element” of District residents.

GGW desperately supports the city’s current plan to pay private developers $75M to take the 25-acre site from the public and construct 2+ million square feet of medical office space, parking garages, retail, housing, and recreation space.

In part, GGW’s desperation to #BuildMore is determined by those who sit on the GGW board, like Mr. Adam Weers a principal for Trammell Crow who’s company is set to profit in a big way from the giveaway of McMillan Park.

Shaving the stats, hiding reality: 40,000 Black folks displaced from DC, right?!

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Sometimes stats are publicized in a way that can diminish real impacts of market rate growth and displacement of Black folks from DC.

But, US Census numbers don’t lie, and may likely be conservative. Between 2000-2010, about forty thousand Black residents left DC.

In 2011, soon after the 2000-2010 Census numbers were in and reported by the Federal government, local and national policy analysts began their crunching and talking about the results.

The census numbers affirmed what we were seeing with our eyes, the disturbingly high Black displacement being fueled by DC planning policies is real and it started under then new Mayor, Anthony Williams who put out the call to entice wealthier younger people to the city starting after his election in 1999.

But suddenly in recent years, these numbers about Black displacement have been halved in the corporate media (40k –> 20k). But why?

2019: THE STORY AND NUMBERS ABOUT DISPLACEMENT CHANGE

In the past year, the shocking numbers of displacement of Black folks from their DC homes had suddenly shifted downward using what seems a devious sleight of data manipulation and language that hasn’t been openly discussed. This has confused alot of people involved in the work of fighting displacement.

That is, the fact that 40,000 Blacks have been displaced from DC between 2000-2010 is now being shrunk back to a figure closer to 20,000 over a longer period of time between 2000-2013.

The following are articles that presented the new displacement figures:

So if the census between 2000-2010 says 40,000 Black folks were displaced by DC’s development policies, then why do recent headlines suggest only 20,000 Black residents being pushed out?

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition’s Executive Summary of “Shifting Neighborhoods, Gentrification and cultural displacement in American cities” dated March 19, 2019, shows a nuance in language that has the effect of diminishing the scope of displacement, actually halving the numbers despite the study evaluation happening over a longer time period.

The term of art at fault here are the words “eligible neighborhoods” that show an “intensity” of gentrification as explained in the NCRC study but not divulged by the press outlets.

Digging down a bit, we see in the study’s Executive Summary how the scope of the study was limited to “eligible neighborhoods” where, “neighborhoods were considered to be eligible to gentrify if in 2000 they were in the lower 40 percent of home values and family incomes in that metropolitan area.”

And, the study goes on with a DC focus, “Washington, D.C., had the highest percentage of gentrifying neighborhoods. Nearly half the neighborhoods in the city were eligible for gentrification in 2000, and 41 percent of those neighborhoods gentrified by 2013, displacing more than 20,000 people. The continuation of a robust real estate market since 2013 means it is likely that this trend is continuing to this day.”

So in effect, the NCRC “intensity of gentrification” study is saying that between 2000-2013, the displacement of Black folks happened the most in existing Black DC neighborhoods, with 20,000 people being pushed out of their longtime homes and away from families and friends.

However, this nuanced statistic in no way can nullify the reality that according to the Census, overall, 40,000 Blacks have been displaced citywide between 2000-2010 and not just displaced from “eligible neighborhoods.”

Primarily, its strange to say what neighborhood is more eligible than any other for gentrification. Seems a racist concept on its surface.

But it’s highly disconcerting that just a slight shift in language and scope of study (“eligible neighborhoods”) will result in substantially diminishing the actual reality of real impacts on real people by DC’s pro-development policies and the planning decisions made throughout the City.

40,000 Black People Have Been Displaced from DC Between 2000-2010

The following are articles that broke the shocking news that DC’s Chocolate City was disappearing.

Number of black D.C. residents plummets as majority status slips away By Carol Morello and Dan Keating, March 24, 2011. Washington Post

The number of African Americans residing in the District plummeted by more than 11 percent during the past decade, with blacks on the verge of losing their majority status in the city for the first time in half a century.

According to census statistics released Thursday, barely 50 percent of the District’s population was African American in 2010 — a remarkable shift in a place once nicknamed “Chocolate City.”

The black population dropped by more than 39,000 over the decade, down to 301,000 of the city’s 601,700 residents. At the same time, the non-Hispanic white population skyrocketed by more than 50,000 to 209,000 residents, almost a third higher than a decade earlier.

The census statistics showed a steeper change for both blacks and whites than had been estimated. With the city ‘s black population dropping by about 1 percent a year, African Americans might already be below the 50 percent mark in the city.

In a city that prides itself on being a hub of black culture and politics, a majority of residents have been black since whites began moving to the suburbs en masse at the end of World War II. By 1970, seven out of 10 Washingtonians were black.

The loss of blacks comes at a time when the city is experiencing a rebound, reversing a 60-year-long slide in population and adding almost 20,000 new residents between 2000 and 2010.

The Post breaking the story about 40,000 Black folks were followed on by other press and policy forums.

Report Shows Huge DC Health Disparities, Makes Recommendations

NEXT CITY: https://nextcity.org/features/view/separate-and-unequal-in-D.C

JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26146094?seq=1

Dog Whistle Planning

Assail the Street View

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“Urbanists” are assailing a new project about gentrification that incorporates the views of the streets in communities undergoing displacement. Here’s the project.

In examining the criticism of this new gentrification-analysis (a project, not a study) by students at the University of California Merced, we see several key aspects of the “urbanist” take on development of major cities in the US:

  1. Pushing a dogmatic belief that building more market-rate studio and one bedrooms will trickle down housing costs and this “filtering” effect is the key way to get past a decade-long housing crisis.

  2. Fostering ambivalence in municipal planning that eschews substantial permanent impacts that more development has on existing neighbors and neighborhood services such as a need for increased schools, libraries, clinics, parks, transportation, utility infrastructure, etc.

  3. Believing that a #BuildMore housing policy (even if its largely expensive studios and one bedrooms) doesn’t need to take account of the resultant displacement of communities of color. That is, smart growth means having an absolute ambivalence to witnessing Black and Brown neighbors getting displaced and replaced by whiter new neighbors in almost all major US cities.

  4. Possessing a monolithic cultural approach to reshaping cities in that all people — newcomers and existing residents alike — are expected to squeeze into untested development paradigms. That is, the desire to live with more neighbors is paramount to all other planning considerations especially if these new neighbors are whiter and able to afford significantly higher housing costs in much smaller unit sizes, and can afford expensive food, coffee and beer, appreciate yoga, and have a small dog.

IN SERVICE TO THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY

The critique of the Street View gentrification project indeed has some merit as for it’s limited data scope and subjective definitions.

However, if you are going to slam a qualitative look at gentrification and ignore the quantitative studies and real results of the overarching #BuildMore planning policies that this student project is based on, then you are acting in service to displacement. See the studies below.

For example, how about the data sets used to support the $1Billion Washington, DC gentrification lawsuit on behalf of longtime Black DC residents and families. The fact that real world data like that demonstrated in this critical lawsuit isn’t being incorporated by “urbanists” in their policy analysis & advocacy is quite telling, perhaps even a dog whistle.

Choosing to cherry pick and attack the one limited Street View project and then not openly assail existing harmful public policy that is actually driving our neighbors out of our longterm homes only helps propel real estate speculation and the developers bottom-line. Is that what you really want to do?

KEY STUDIES SEEMINGLY IGNORED BY CITY PLANNERS & URBANISTS

This study shows a feast or famine situation with government investments in our communities, and “[H]ighlights how gentrification and cultural displacement have unfolded in American cities, while many low-income small towns and rural neighborhoods remain starved of investment.”

A Governing report says, “Neighborhoods gentrifying since 2000 recorded population increases and became whiter, with the share of non-Hispanic white residents increasing an average of 4.3 percentage points. Meanwhile, lower-income neighborhoods that failed to gentrify experienced slight population losses and saw the concentration of minorities increase. They have also experienced different economic fates: Average poverty rates climbed nearly 7 percent in already lower-income tracts that didn’t gentrify, while dropping slightly in gentrifying neighborhoods.”

Blavity & Buzzfeed: “A new study … shows an increasing rate of Black residents are being driven out of neighborhoods in the U.S. According to the data, Oakland, Washington D.C., Atlanta, New York City and Baltimore are among the cities that are especially impacted by gentrification.”

This 2000-2010 study says, “Washington, DC, residents don’t need census data to tell them what’s obvious in their neighborhoods: the city is changing dramatically. But numbers can give us context. They can show us how shifts in population are reshaping the city and can help us prepare for changes to come.”

The LegalAid society interprets recent a key displacement study, “Cultural displacement happens when there is “a rapid decline” in the number of minorities in an area as “white gentrifiers replace” minority residents. Both gentrification and cultural displacement have left a powerful imprint on DC over recent years.”

To the public investment issue, “So where do upwardly mobile creatives go as they begin to get priced out? They seek less expensive neighborhoods, where the cycle of displacement continues. “Now, people are looking at Anacostia like, ‘Oh, this is a place to come,’” Aristotle Theresa said. “And so, now the government starts injecting capital into the area, when they didn’t before.”

WaPo analysis, “Low-income residents are being pushed out of gentrifying neighborhoods at the highest rate in the country. The neighborhoods that have experienced the largest outflow of low-income residents, according to the study — places such as Logan Circle, Petworth and Columbia Heights — have an average walk score of 82.5 and an average transit score of 74.5.”

Non-profit Quarterly comments, “The displacement numbers seem low, but the authors used fairly narrow definitions of gentrification and displacement.”

WJLA: Local Small DC Business also getting crushed under gentrification. “When you invest in a place without investing in the people, what happens is you’re displacing people,” Jesse Van Tol, CEO of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC).

Georgetown Voice: “Gentrification isn’t just about the proliferation of pricey salad shops and craft breweries. According to a 2019 study, gentrification in D.C. has pushed more low-income residents out of their homes than almost anywhere else in the country. Between 2003 and 2013, 20,000 black residents were displaced from D.C.”

How about this study (from 2015) that defines gentrification not on a street view but on “a [census] tract’s median household income and median home value.”

Despite saying Gentrification is “beneficial” GGW cites studies that say, “A neighborhood out-mobility rate increase of a few percent on average, across gentrifying neighborhoods in the whole country, can mask what’s happening at the hyper-local scale. In certain neighborhoods, out-movement through displacement, whether direct or indirect, has likely been much higher.”

“In the District of Columbia, low-income residents are being pushed out of neighborhoods at some of the highest rates in the country, according to the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity, which sought to track demographic and economic changes in neighborhoods in the 50 largest U.S. cities from 2000 to 2016.” https://housingis.org/resource/gentrification-dc-means

DC Council Dumpster Fire

Dumpster Fire Smoke Screen

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DC Council "This is Fine"

While the nonprofit complex pulls out the stops to stem the Council bleeding the people of DC even more, the smokescreen from the “dumpster fire” “debacle” “sh*tshow” of a DC Council budget vote on Tuesday July 21 has worked.

The fog of class war has the Council Chair saying things like it would be tantalizing to cut immigration services, emergency rent support, and other human services to make up for a stupid move to tax small publications in the District (The Ad Tax).

Council Chairman Phil Mendelson

Playing both the perpetrator and now the self-proclaimed hero, CM Mendelson says he can eliminate the ad tax on small publications by moving some money around from the capital budget, cutting mental health services, and some other piddly wrangling. If this all seems a bit hexing, and wrong, it is.

Council Chairman Phil Mendelson to the Rescue
Council Chairman Phil Mendelson to the Rescue

What a slick move, a smokescreen. First, this “debacle” has got the advocacy community to scramble their bases to beg the Council not to cut $18M more in services to real DC people instead of bringing on fire from the people demanding that the overall first budget vote be completely trashed and we start over. See FBC breakdown of the first Council vote on July 7th below:

The DC budget vote as shown above, even if the recent threats of 18M in cuts is reversed, is an absolute atrocity and in fact criminal to the working people of the District during a pandemic. There are no cuts to the Metropolitan Police Department budget for example!

Second, this confusing creepy clown show led by the Chairman during DC’s FY2021 budget process has allowed all Councilmembers, even the so-called progressives on the dais to deflect away from the broader call of the people to take the capitalists boot off working families necks by defunding MPD, raising taxes on the rich, and moving monies from proposed luxury projects to projects that could really help people now in the pandemic such as from the proposed McMillan Park giveaway to the long-stalled reopening of Crummell School for those families who are struggling in Ivy City.

That is, Councilmembers can avoid dealing with the obvious huge gaps in human service funding by tweeting out memes and rhetoric about a “dumspter fire” and receive rounds of applause by advocates who in turn move back from stronger positions to the passive prone begging not to hurt the our people further.

Result: the Council, yet again, escapes accountability as to how really horrid that first budget vote is and the continued harm that DC’s budget will bring onto the most vulnerable in the District, especially now during pandemic.

Meanwhile, with all the content that the so-called urbanists pull off with the help of developer contributions, the budget vote is as important as one retweet of a DCist report. David Alpert is far from concerned about what this budget means for DC’s communities of color.

Conclusion: Its all perplexing but a skillful clumsy show put on by the Chair, Phil Mendelson and sheepish Council colleagues. The Chairman however is in the driver seat, commanding control over the city and outcomes for all its people in perpetrating an oppressive racist corporate agenda to crush Black families and communities of color and working residents of the District of Columbia.

To see this agenda and the people who pull the puppet strings, click the following links:

By: Chris Otten, DC4RD, co-facilitator

Housing Vacancy Crisis in DC

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The DC Housing Crisis vs 30,000 Vacancies in DC. . . What is Going On?

The vacancy information for Washington, D.C. below is based on the 2019 American Housing Survey (AHS) which is conducted biennially by the U.S. Census.

This AHS survey asks landlords about vacancy status, resulting in this table below (Table: B25004) representing a timeframe of 60 months of collected data. There are also 1-year and 3-year estimates.

The Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is the smallest level at which the survey reports data.

https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs The American Community Survey (ACS) of the US Census provides estimates of vacant units by type of vacancy and calculates estimates of rental and homeowner vacancy rates. Surveys 3 million addresses per year (mandatory survey).

How can there be 30,000 vacant units when we have a housing crisis?

Thirty thousand vacant units counted! This fact destroys any assumption that building more luxury housing will eventually result in lower cost housing units trickling down in what growth supporters call, “Filtering.”

The D.C. Chief Financial Officer has a bit more of a conservative number of vacant housing units, 10,000. Either way, that’s thousands of vacant units existing pre-Covid that could house our homeless veterans, mothers, families, children, people who are facing homelessness, etc., especially now during the pandemic. See Vacant to Virus Reduction site.

Luxury Units Stay Empty Without Any Market Corrections

Luxury units for investment (lots of it foreign) results in developer demand for upzoning to increase buildable density without providing housing to be lived in. What is the good of new housing being kept uninhabited by investors? It stifles free market supply-and-demand and keeps prices of housing high, while allowing bankers and the construction industry to profit.

Empty housing units are also tax liabilities that can be written off by mega real estate speculators at the end of the year, equaling a form of income. Thus, the myth of the effect of supply-and-demand on housing is exposed as the tax write-offs for empty units completely nullifies any market corrections.

Foreign Investment in Luxury Housing Creates Exclusive New Communities in DC With High Vacancies

U.S. real estate remains attractive for illicit money from all over the world. In DC, that foreign money invests into planning officials follies, like the dramatic changes at Union Market in Northeast. #UnionMarketExclusive

It’s a stable investment that generally maintains or grows in value – and it gives corrupt oligarchs and dictators a potential escape route if they’re ousted from their home countries.

But this money drives out honest purchasers and makes cities hotbeds for dirty, unproductive cash. It turns cities and communities into commodities.

In one part of New York City, for example, the Census Bureau estimated that 30 percent of apartments are unoccupied most of the year.

Legislation is needed to require habitation of units built. After all, owners are not permitted to keep houses vacant on the streets of DC. Why should it be different with condo or apartment buildings?

COVID UPDATE JUNE 2020

Bowser’s budget cuts funding for affordable housing. Advocates say DC’s Black residents will be left behind

COVID UPDATE AUG 2020

The Washingtonian, August 3, 2020 — NoMa and H Street apartments are experiencing an 8.2 percent vacancy rate, while developments in Navy Yard and Southwest are seeing 7.7 percent vacancy. The vacancy rates in those areas were less than 5 percent at the same time last year. District-wide, the average vacancy rate in luxury apartments is currently 6.8 percent, compared to 4.1 percent last year.

COVID UPDATE: OCT 2020

A Net 15,000 People Moved Out of DC During the First Part of 2020