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Gentrification, With a Difference
New Communities also follows the HOPE VI initiative by getting residents involved in planning the development, Kelly said. "It's not just sticks and bricks," he said. "It's about human infrastructure."
Northwest One
The first community -- Northwest One -- has been controversial because of Sursum Corda, a 170-family cooperative that is part of the 500-unit neighborhood. The families brokered a deal last year with Virginia developer KSI to save their cooperative from federal foreclosure. Under the deal, KSI would give residents $80,000, either in cash or toward a down payment for a new home, and would build 500 townhouses and apartments on the property.
  When Patricia Malloy heard about the New Communities program on TV, she called her council member and had Lincoln Heights added to the list. (By Gerald Martineau -- The Washington Post) |
The city wants to limit development in Sursum Corda to 200 units as part of its overall plan to locate 1,500 units in the Northwest One footprint. The D.C. Council voted to give the city the power of eminent domain over the area despite protests from residents. The council also approved an amendment by council member David A. Catania (I-At Large) that cooperative owners would receive proper payment if their homes were taken through eminent domain. In the other new communities, there is less opposition to the city's plans, but many residents in those areas also doubt their neighborhoods will experience the renaissance the city is promising.
Lincoln Heights
Residents of the Lincoln Heights public housing complex, off Division Avenue in Northeast, live an isolated existence in 440 units in 58 buildings.
"On Division Avenue, there's a Chinese place and there's a gas station," said Patricia Malloy, president of the Lincoln Heights Resident Council. "There's no grocery store. There's no drugstore. There's no hardware store. There's no laundromat."
Within Lincoln Heights, a series of graffiti-marred red-brick buildings with black burglar bars on the first floors, there is litter and there is crime.
And for Malloy, there is hope.
"This is our Bible," Malloy said as she carried a piece of poster board as big as she was from her living room to her dining room and stood it upright on her table.
The board was an oversized replica of a covenant between the city and the residents of Lincoln Heights. The covenant calls for, among other things, affordable housing, with a preference for current residents. And it calls for high-quality education for their children.
"No one is to be displaced. No one is going to be thrown out on the street," said Malloy, who has lived in Lincoln Heights for 28 years.
Under the city's preliminary plans, Lincoln Heights and nearby Richardson Dwellings, which has 190 units in 40 buildings, would be turned into one mixed-income community with bustling retail.
Plans also call for renovation of H.D. Woodson Senior High School and revitalization of Watts Branch Park, both of which are in the neighborhood.
