D.C. Council Advances Eminent Domain, Crime Bills

The D.C. Council gave preliminary approval yesterday to using eminent domain to help redevelop a blighted Northwest neighborhood and to imposing mandatory sentences for criminals who use armor-piercing bullets.

With just a month to go before its summer recess and before some council members hit the campaign trail for the Sept. 2 primary, the legislative session was crammed with several controversial measures. Because of the lengthy debate over some bills, the meeting lasted eight hours.

However, the council needed no discussion before unanimously giving final approval to a rent-control bill that would limit rent increases to 2 percent plus the rate of inflation each year. For senior citizens and the disabled, the increases would be capped at the rate of inflation. The legislation was six months in the making and the result of negotiations among city officials, tenant advocates and building owners.

Tenants said they were satisfied with the caps, and building owners were pleased with a hardship waiver that allows them to request rents higher than the those within the new cap. The new limits will apply to the city's 100,000 rent-controlled apartments, which are in buildings that were constructed before 1975 and have at least five units.

In other action, several council members proposed amendments for a crime bill to establish mandatory prison sentences for several offenses, including possession of armor-piercing bullets. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) drafted the measure.

Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), chairman of the judiciary committee, removed the mayor's request for a minimum seven-year sentence for possession of armor-piercing bullets before it was sent to the full council.

"I believe that seven years is difficult to justify. A mandatory minimum of that length is highly likely to be plea-bargained to something else," Mendelson said.

Council members did pass, however, an amendment that would give people convicted of the crime a one-year mandatory sentence if they "knowingly" possessed the bullets. Council members David A. Catania (I-At Large) and Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large) sponsored that amendment.

Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the Fraternal Order of Police labor committee, said he was disappointed in the vote yesterday. Police union members had pushed the seven-year sentence because the bullets can penetrate police vests. "It's effectively no legislation at all. When you have a knowing standard, it's not easy to prove. Prosecutors won't use it," Baumann said.

In other business, more than 100 residents of the Sursum Corda housing cooperative picketed at the John A. Wilson Building yesterday to protest a bill that would give the city the authority to use eminent domain when rebuilding their neighborhood through a $558 million plan.

The council gave initial approval to the bill after council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) failed to get support for an amendment that would have required council approval for each parcel that the city tries to take through eminent domain. That approach would not be legal, Chairman Linda W. Cropp (D) told Barry.

Sursum Corda is owned by 170 families and is in the blueprint of Northwest One, an area just north of the U.S. Capitol and the first site of the city's New Communities Initiative to redevelop blighted neighborhoods yet retain affordable housing.

Although the federally funded initiative would guarantee that current residents would live in the new houses, Sursum Corda residents brokered a deal last year with Virginia developer KSI to save their cooperative from federal foreclosure. Under the deal, KSI would give the residents $80,000 in cash or toward a down payment for a new home. In turn, KSI could build 500 townhouses and apartments on the property.

City officials want to limit development on that piece of land to 200 units, and having the power of eminent domain would give the city the upper hand in negotiations.

Beverly Estes, chairman of the Sursum Corda cooperative board, said eminent domain will only make residents fight harder against the city's plans. Remove "the line 'eminent domain,' and [the project] will take off like a jet," she said. "I don't care what kind of dress you try to put on it. Eminent domain means they can take your property."

Barry said he would continue to try to come up with conciliatory language and rejected another council member's suggestion that a large number of property owners support the eminent domain approach.

He said there is obvious unrest, pointing to the Sursum Corda residents who began picketing well before the 10 a.m. council meeting began. "If the community was unified, this wouldn't be necessary," Barry said.

Barry, who voted in favor of the measure yesterday, said that if he is unable to get a compromise before the council takes a final vote on the measure next month, he intends "to move to strike the whole act."