By Nikita Stewart
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 20, 2006; DZ01
More than two years ago, the District identified 14 "hot spots," communities where open-air drug-dealing had overtaken neighborhoods.
The city was working to deter crime in those areas, but Deputy Mayor Stanley Jackson said authorities could see that crime was not the only problem. "We wanted to look at the characteristics that made these places hot," he said. "A hopelessness was pervasive."
Encroaching gentrification also was pervasive, as developers looked for new places to erect high-priced condominiums. The hot spots "were right outside the gentrification bubble," Jackson said. "We can help manage this wave of development from totally overwhelming these communities."
So hot spots became "New Communities," the city's latest effort to turn blighted areas -- densely populated, with public housing, poverty and crime -- into mixed-income communities with bustling retail and expanded amenities. Many residents are optimistic about the new life the New Communities program promises, but not everyone is convinced. Jackson said he has encountered skepticism from residents who fear the program will push poor people out in favor of wealthier residents -- if the plans become reality at all.
Jackson promises that this program will be different from others that failed, because Mayor Anthony A. Williams's commitment to generate housing for all income groups is backed by an economic boom that can be spread throughout neighborhoods.
The city has chosen four housing projects as its first New Communities: Northwest One/Sursum Corda in Northwest, Lincoln Heights in Northeast, Barry Farm in Southeast and Park Morton in Northwest. Jackson said he expects the city to invest $2 billion in the program.
The idea is to expand the footprint of each community so that each new development can hold three times the current number of housing units.
District officials would expand the boundaries associated with each housing project by adding city-owned property or acquiring more land. One-third of the housing would be built for current residents with low incomes, another third would be moderately priced units that city workers could afford, and the other third would attract people with higher incomes.
The housing also would have a significantly different look from the current military barracks-like buildings. There would be high-rises catering to single people and townhouses for families.
Mixing market-rate and low-income housing is nothing new for the city.
About five years ago, the city embarked on a similar venture through HOPE VI, a federally funded initiative to create communities of diverse incomes. The funding transformed the troubled Anacostia developments Valley Green and Skytower into a bucolic community of homeowners called Wheeler Creek.
"We already have a foundation," said Michael P. Kelly, executive director of the D.C. Housing Authority. "You have the teachers and firefighters living next to low-income folks, and from the outside, you can't tell who's who."
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 OneThe 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.
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 HeightsResidents 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.
The new community also would benefit from the redevelopment of the streetscape on nearby Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue, which is part of the city's Great Streets initiative to rebuild main thoroughfares.
When the city began talking about its New Communities plan, Malloy said, she jumped at the chance to help her community. "I was listening to the TV, and I saw Northwest One. . . . I said, 'Why can't we be a New Community?' " Malloy recalled.
She contacted council member Vincent C. Gray (D-Ward 7), and eventually, Lincoln Heights was on the list.
Although many residents are wary, Malloy and others said they believe in the project because they have been going to the meetings.
"You gotta go out to the meetings," said Linda Washington, 43. "Everything's not going to happen overnight, but we've got to be in this together."
Barry FarmAt Barry Farm in Southeast, there is a similar sense of coming together, said Linda Miller, secretary of the resident council there.
"We have four or five committees. We had a good turnout. Each group has about 20 to 25 people," said Miller, 59, who has lived in the public housing community for 26 years.
Residents in Barry Farm also are worried about being displaced and want to make sure they are able to return to the revitalized neighborhood.
But residents are most concerned about keeping the name Barry Farm.
Barry Farm has a rich history that began after the end of slavery, when the Freedmen's Bureau bought land from the Barry family. The bureau built housing for sale and lease to blacks, some of whom were living in the District's alleys at the time.
The housing project -- 432 units spread throughout 66 buildings -- replaced those original homes in 1943, but Miller said the spirit of the historic Barry Farm project remained. "Our people worked and picked cotton and built their homes," she said. "It should be recognized. It should not be forgotten."
Although the name could live on, the buildings would be torn down to make way for 1,296 units. The city owns several parcels near Barry Farm, including the St. Elizabeths east campus and Sheridan Terrace, which would be used for the additional housing, according to preliminary city plans.
The Barry Farm project would be coupled with other redevelopment plans, including a proposed $40 million Anacostia light-rail line, which would stretch 2.7 miles from the John Philip Sousa Bridge at Pennsylvania Avenue SE to Bolling Air Force Base.
Park MortonJust as Malloy wondered why Lincoln Heights couldn't be a New Community, council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) questioned why Park Morton -- 174 units in 12 buildings off Georgia Avenue -- wasn't included.
The housing complex has been a center of crime for the Park View neighborhood. Graham contacted the city's planning department, and Park Morton was added.
"We've been through some changes, but things are getting better," said Marie Whitfield, president of the Park Morton residents council.
Wearing a yellow apron with red and blue polka dots, she said she had just finished helping with a summer school lunch program. "We feed the kids from Park Morton," she said.
Whitfield hopes the buildings will be renovated in a way that gives residents more control over their lives. For instance, temperature in the units is controlled centrally. "We want to regulate our own heat," Whitfield said.
Residents also fear a repeat of shoddy construction. "We want something that will last -- just better materials," she said.
Because the neighborhood was added to the program just this year, there are few preliminary plans, but the council has approved $500,000 to develop those plans, Graham said.
He said the New Communities program is giving the city a chance to incorporate Park Morton into the revitalization that has occurred in Ward 1 -- without displacing residents.
"To have all the poor people in one area and everyone else in another is wrong," he said. "Is Park Morton better with a greater diversity of economic backgrounds? Would Park Morton be better with workforce housing?"
Graham said it would be, but he wants residents to be involved. "This cannot be a decision that comes from on high," he said. "Stakeholders should have the chance to come together. The process should guide the result."