Revival Marked by Hope, Mired in Snags

"I think it's a very good plan," Ambrose said. "It's very carefully thought out so that people will not simply have a nicer place to live and a safer place to live, but will also have the kinds of services that will bring them the help they need."

Northwest One is slated to be the first of as many as nine New Communities sites. Preliminary planning meetings are underway at Barry Farm in Ward 8 and in Lincoln Heights in Ward 7. Both of those communities are public housing projects, owned and operated by the city. But in Northwest One, nearly 10 of the 28 acres marked for redevelopment are owned by private interests that have yet to promise full cooperation.

The nearly six-acre Sursum Corda housing cooperative, which is owned by its residents, is the largest parcel. Sursum Corda residents have voted to permit KSI Services Inc. of Virginia to redevelop the property in exchange for payments of $80,000 per family. The deal must be approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which holds the mortgage on the property and provides it with thousands of dollars a month in low-income rent subsidies.

KSI executives have told city officials that they want to remake Sursum Corda in accordance with the New Communities model, which calls on developers to reserve a third of new units for poor families earning less than 30 percent ($26,790) of the median income for the Washington area and a third for working-class families earning less than 80 percent ($71,440) of the median income. The rest can be sold for whatever the market will bear.

To make that model work financially, KSI has said it wants to replace Sursum Corda's 199 apartments and townhouses with more than 500 apartments and condominiums.

But that level of density is unacceptable to city officials, who propose to confine high-rise buildings and retail space to K and North Capitol streets while preserving the interior of the Northwest One site -- including the Sursum Corda property -- for low-density residential townhouses with yards for larger families. KSI is in discussions with the city.

Another stumbling block is Temple Court, a HUD-subsidized apartment building owned by Bush Construction Corp., also of Virginia. The 211-unit high-rise, which stands just south of Sursum Corda, recently failed its third health and safety inspection, making it a target for HUD foreclosure.

Bush executives have expressed an interest in paying off their HUD-insured mortgage, getting out of the low-income housing business and converting the property to luxury condominiums. Under that scenario, Temple Court residents probably would be forced to find homes elsewhere using HUD rent vouchers.

Stanley Jackson, the city's deputy mayor for planning and economic development, has tried to persuade Bush to sell the property to the city or rebuild it according to the New Communities model. So far, Jackson said, Bush executives have made "no substantial positive overtures."

"This is the hand that we've been dealt here. And we've got to play it out," Jackson said. "I'm just hopeful that people come around and see that this is truly a reasonable, good plan, and a plan that could work for everyone."