How Developers Plan to Eat Your Neighborhood and Spit You Out
by Scott McLarty
September 1998
Volume 35 Number 7
If you are a D.C. resident, depending on the neighborhood you live in, someone somewhere has plans for your block.
Let’s back up for a moment. When we hear about the demise of democracy in D.C., we usually think of the Financial Control Board and the D.C. 1997 Revitalization Act, imposed by Congress and President Clinton, which curtailed what little home rule D.C. enjoyed for two decades.
But we’ve suffered another prolonged assault on our democratic rights, with the willingness of our own D.C. elected officials to favor one class of citizens over another—to serve that class of citizens represented by the Board of Trade, the Federal City Council, and the Chamber of Commerce. That class includes large corporations, suburban business interests, and D.C.’s wealthiest. It uses every possible means it can buy or hire to get its way: armies of lawyers, lobbyists, “experts,” and public relations firms; extensive contributions to campaigns and party coffers; advertising; and leverage over jobs.
Propaganda and Speculation, Part I: The Shaw Convention Center
One of the great propaganda victories of the corporate class is the public’s perception that development is always good, and any limitation or regulation thereof hurts “everyone.” We witnessed a recent example in the behavior of supporters of the Shaw Convention Center, especially lobbyists acting on behalf of the local and suburban hotel industry. Opponents of the project were accused of blindness to the area’s poverty and crime. Proponents also brushed aside the fact that the Convention Center, when conventioneers demand across-the-street hotels and bus and truck loading zones, will displace a many residents of a historic African American neighborhood.
In fact, the deterioration of Shaw was a result of years of speculation, thanks to the Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA). It’s a common tactic: allow a neighborhood to deteriorate, with empty and overgrown lots, dilapidated and boarded up buildings, absentee landlords, a flourishing market for drugs and prostitution, rusting playground facilities, etc. Eventually, residents grow so desperate for improvement they’ll accept any proposal: convention centers, arenas, strip mall shopping centers, sterile glass-box office buildings—which displace the very residents who believed the development would help them.
Council has refused to consider strong proposals that would reverse this pattern, such as the split-rate tax plan supported by At-Large Council member Hilda Mason (Statehood Party). Split-rate taxation would lower taxes on property owners who fix up, renovate, and build, and penalize those whose buildings suffer disrepair, dilapidation, and boarded up windows.
Instead of the construction of a University of the District of Columbia facility at the Shaw site (the intention of D.C. Teachers’ College, the original owners), RLA allowed it to deteriorate for years. The promise of a shiny new convention center became an easy sell to City Council, to the media, and even to many residents, regardless of the cost, which has grown from $444 million in 1995 to $685 million, and will probably top $1 billion after excavation of an underground river at the site. The payment of bond interest over the next thirty years will add to the expense, despite the Convention Center’s projected short span of profitability. Even Jack Evans, Ward Two Council member and chief Convention Center cheerleader, admits that it will remain profitably functional for only ten years, from the projected 2003 opening until 2012 (Intowner, July 1998).
Propaganda and Speculation, Part 2: Columbia Heights and the “Tivoli Parcels”
A similar pattern of speculation, neglect, deterioration, and predatory “revitalization” is emerging in the development of Columbia Heights, with the opening of a Metro stop at 14th and Irving Streets NW. For nearly two decades, Crown Book Store mogul Herbert Haft owned several parcels, including the abandoned Tivoli Theater, along 14th Street near the future Metro stop. Haft made no efforts to improve the properties, and the neighborhood suffered the effects of his negligence in an area already burned out as a result of the 1968 riots.
In 1996, the District took back the properties from Haft, and announced that development would soon commence. In November, 1997, the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, in partnership with the Development Corporation of Columbia Heights and the Washington Architectural Foundation, invited the entire neighborhood and conducted a weekend of “Design Charrette” sessions. About 300 residents attended, and discussed and listed the kinds of renewal and construction they’d like to see: harmonious urban architectural design and density, community-oriented retail and services, green spaces, restoration of the Tivoli—instead of sterile office buildings, parking lots fronting 14th Street, strip malls, suburban density, predominance of large chain stores. The charrettes proved a model of democratic participation and decision-making at the neighborhood level.
The problem is that corporate developers favor the more immediately lucrative kinds of construction that charrette participants rejected. For example, Safeway wants to tear down the Tivoli and put up a large parking lot and supermarket. Council passed the Tax Increment Financing Act in April in order to facilitate an even larger project at the site:
“The new incentive is expected to provide financing for several new projects planned for downtown, including a baseball stadium, an entertainment complex near MCI Center, and a shopping mall in the Mount Pleasant/Columbia Heights neighborhood.... ‘We wanted to get the TIF going right away, because we have at least three projects lined up, waiting to use it,’ [Ward One Council member Frank] Smith said.... [One of the projects is a]n 11-acre ‘Uptown Columbia Heights’ development planned at 14th Street and Park Road NW by [non-D.C. based real estate firms] Trammell Crow and Forest City.... The plan includes a 200,000-square-foot shopping mall at the former [sic] Tivoli Theater site.” (“TIF Passed,” by Thomas C. Hall, Washington Business Journal, April 20, 1998)
On July 1998, RLA published an “emergency” Request For Proposal (RFP) inviting developers to submit their proposals for the Tivoli Parcels. Instead of requiring adherence to the residential needs and desires expressed in the design charrettes, the RFP mentions them only as suggestions. The RFP even offers developers in gaining a permit to tear down the Tivoli, whose designation as a historic landmark is a bit more impeachable than many had assumed: “Please note that the [D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development and the Land Redevelopment Agency] are interested in maximizing economic development, and, to the extent that development densities in excess of that permitted by the Plan or Zoning Regulations can be demonstrably supported, will work with and assist the selected developer to obtain the necessary modifications/waivers to achieve same.”
Considering City Council’s tendency to favor outside-D.C. corporate developers, the Development Corporation of Columbia Heights and local residents likely will face a fierce battle if they are to win the kind of renewal they prefer. The identity of the neighborhood is at stake: if rents and property taxes shoot through the roof (and if rent control is rescinded or weakened by the Financial Control Board or when Council reconsiders it in 2000), then Columbia Heights’ celebrated ethnic and economic diversity will vanish, as current residents are driven from their neighborhood.
The Domino Theory
The cumulative city-wide “domino” effect of reckless development and multi-million-dollar projects will be (1) the flight of capital out of D.C., as out-of-town investors expect and compel a huge financial return, regardless of the effect on the people of D.C.; and (2) the character of the District as a thriving mixed-use urban residential core will change to that of an empty shell dotted with tourist attractions, shopping centers, office buildings, and congested freeways surrounded by suburban sprawl. We might have to rename D.C. “Disneyland-on-the-Potomac” or “Crystal City North.”
The MCI Arena represents the most recently completed part of the cycle, with the Shaw Convention Center waiting in the wings, and a Massachusetts Avenue ballpark in the planning stages. (A major ballpark for a city with no major league baseball team!) The consequent traffic congestion from the concentration of these projects will revitalize plans for a “spider web” of freeways draining the District’s economy and population. Some of these freeways have been tentatively defeated or stalled, such as the Inter-County Connector, the Outer Beltway, and the I-95 spur down through Northwest D.C. (Conversion of New York Avenue into a major freeway currently sits on the drawing board.)
But on July 15, several Congress members (especially Rep. James Moran), the Board of Trade, and suburban business leaders proposed a powerful Metropolitan Washington Regional Transportation authority to call for taxation and exercise eminent domain in an orgy of freeway construction (“We Need More Roads,” guest column by Board of Trade member Barry Campbell, May 3, 1998; “...And Build More Road and Bridges Too,” letter to the editor from Board of Trade chair Clifford M. Kendall, August 16, 1998; both published in the Washington Post). They claim that new freeways will relieve traffic problems, but in urban development, it’s well known that cars quickly fill up and crowd any new concrete laid to combat congestion.
Eminent domain (the power to seize land and displace residents and businesses) is also a major function of the National Capital Revitalization Corporation Act of 1998, which Council passed in April. This act lubricates the wheels for $2 million-plus projects, with minimum public accountability, and no help for small businesses. Congress canceled funding for the Act recently — because it wants to see more anti-residential kinds of development:
“Dozens of local business leaders are helping the District write a strategic plan for economic development, something the city has been unable to produce on its own. Experts have long contended that the District’s listless approach to economic development has stemmed from the lack of an overall vision, rather than a lack of money. Soon, the city may have both.... ‘If the city shows it is serious, Congress is more likely to fund that kind of effort,’ [strategic working-group chair and NationsBank president Sandy] Fitz-Hugh said. ‘That’s what we’re trying to show.’” (“Businesses help District plan growth,” by Thomas C. Hall, Washington Business Journal, August 17, 1998)
One major piece of bait that corporations use to lure public support for projects that drain public resources is the creation of new jobs. But such promises rarely pan out. The MCI Arena provided some economic benefits, such as reviving some area businesses and increasing Metrorail revenue, but it has also pressured Chinatown business to relocate (reported in The Common Denominator, July 1998), and has failed to offer anything better than eight hundred part-time seasonal low level positions, with no benefits. (Washington City Paper, )
The Convention Center also promises an array of jobs, but we’re likely to see outsourcing and other schemes to save money on labor. In July, plans for Convention Center apprenticeships guaranteed only three days of training and only four hours of work per job. (The union requires a $250 fee to join, and apprentices need a minimum of 175 hours per quarter to qualify for health benefits.)
What we can do
In the 1950s, Southwest D.C. was emptied of tens of thousands of low income African American residents to clear the way for freeways, office buildings, hotels, and expensive new homes. There was no pretense that the evicted were going to benefit from the development, or that they had the right to stay in their homes. An entire community was obliterated.
With the passage of civil rights laws, developers and the officials who serve them learned to use means other than brute authority to get their way. That’s why we see advertisements, guest columns by corporate honchos and flunkies in The Washington Post, and constant reassurances of jobs, neighborhood improvement, etc. from elected leaders and candidates.
The best way to combat such dissembling is to organize citizens’ groups and to remain vigilant. For instance, we can compare a Council member’s voting record with his or her acceptance of corporate contributions, and publish the information. (See for example: “Would You Give a Million Dollars to These Guys?” by Michael Schaffer, The Washington City Paper, August 14-20, 1998.) Organization remains a necessity: officials will take the testimony of a group’s representative more seriously at a public hearing than that of a private individual. And any attempt at direct action (protests, civil disobedience) requires the support and participation of as many people as possible.
It’s also important to stress that not all development is detrimental, that cities need to rebuild themselves constantly or they crumble. We should demand sustainable growth and development, stressing material benefits to residents, neighborhood stability, recycling and reduced use of resources, a clean environment that might be dense with residents but feels uncluttered, mixed use zoning and mixed income residential areas, walking and biking and public transportation instead of car traffic, and public ownership of necessities (quality education, buses and trains, roads, parks, utilities, guaranteed health care).
Scott McLarty is a member of the Green Party of the District of Columbia. He has written for the Washington Peace Letter, Pink Noise, Z Magazine, and In These Times.
