Sursum Residents Fear Loss of Homes

D.C. Seeks Use of Eminent Domain in Area North of Capitol

City officials have asked the D.C. Council to authorize the use of eminent domain in the neighborhood that includes the Sursum Corda housing cooperative, a move that provoked some Sursum residents to accuse the city yesterday of plotting to take their homes.

"Eminent domain. I know what that means. That means, 'Get out. Your kind is no longer welcome here,' " Lorraine Rooker, a resident of the low-income housing complex since 1969, told council members at a public hearing on the proposal. "You folks were elected to protect our rights, not take our property."

Deputy Mayor Stanley Jackson said the city hopes to "negotiate friendly agreements with private property owners," including the residents of Sursum Corda, as it seeks to rebuild and preserve affordable housing in the rapidly gentrifying area just north of the U.S. Capitol known as Northwest One.

But if Sursum residents and their development partner, KSI Services Inc., refuse to cooperate in reaching the city's goals, Jackson said, "you have to have the tools to bring finality. Somehow, we've got to get people around the table."

The request for eminent domain is a small part of a major initiative proposed by Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) to redevelop Northwest One and other blighted, crime-ridden neighborhoods across the city. Under the New Communities Initiative, Williams is proposing to replace vast blocks of concentrated poverty with new townhouses and apartments for people of all income levels.

Unlike previous attempts at urban renewal, the initiative guarantees that current residents can stay in the new neighborhood in homes subsidized by the sale of neighboring properties at market prices. In Northwest One, the first of the New Communities sites, 520 units of low-income housing would be replaced by 1,720 units -- 520 for low-income families, 600 for middle-income families and 600 to be sold at market rate, city officials said. The project is expected to cost $558 million and would involve public and private funding, including $300 million in tax-exempt bonds and low-income housing tax credits.

One major obstacle: reluctant property owners. The city owns 60 percent of the land in Northwest One -- which is bordered by New York and New Jersey avenues and North Capitol and K streets NW -- but three private owners hold most of the rest. Two of them have signaled their willingness to cooperate with the city. But things are more complicated at Sursum Corda.

The resident-owned housing complex cut a deal last year with KSI, a Virginia developer, to save the property from foreclosure by federal housing officials. That deal, which guarantees each of 170 Sursum families an $80,000 cash payment or $80,000 toward the purchase of a new home, assumes that KSI would build as many as 500 townhouses and apartments on the property. The city, however, has insisted for months that the complex should be replaced by fewer than 200 townhouse units to provide low-density housing for larger families.

The city is asking for the power of eminent domain to try to force a compromise.

More than a dozen Sursum residents signed up to speak at yesterday's hearing. Many expressed outrage.

"Why do we want somebody to take our property when we just fought tooth and nail to get it out of foreclosure?" said Beverly Estes, Sursum board chairman.

But others from Sursum and the surrounding community said they welcome the city's intervention.

"The fate of this New Community is a test of the city's will: Will money rule in this community? Or the needs of the people?" said Tom Howarth, executive director of the Father McKenna Center, named after the Catholic priest who helped build Sursum Corda. "To deny the city [the power of eminent domain] would be to help developers . . . stick up the public treasury."