By Paul Schwartzman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 28, 2006; B01

As construction cranes began rising downtown six years ago, a majority of Washingtonians shared Mayor Anthony A. Williams's vision that economic revitalization would help the city's poorest residents by creating jobs and repairing blighted neighborhoods.

That vision has undergone a marked reversal now that offices and condominiums have opened, and developers have transformed neighborhoods across the city, according to a Washington Post poll.

Sixty-one percent of registered voters surveyed said redevelopment is "mainly bad" for the poor, and 35 percent said redevelopment is "mainly good," the poll showed. In 2000, however, 64 percent said redevelopment is largely beneficial to the poor and 28 percent said it's harmful.

Clarence Coleman, 77, a retired physician in Southeast, said he had expected the development sweeping the District to "provide employment and economic opportunity" for the poor. But Coleman, among those surveyed in this month's Post poll, said he thinks the beneficiaries are developers and the middle and upper classes.

"It hasn't benefited the poor," Coleman said. He cited the demolition of housing projects, such as East Capitol Dwellings, as an example of the District depleting the supply of low-cost housing. "I'm not saying housing projects are good, but I don't think building what they have has improved the lot of poor people," he said. "It may have benefited some, but not many."

Deputy Mayor Stanley Jackson, Williams's chief adviser for planning and economic development, said he is disappointed that more residents don't see how development has helped the poor. The administration, he said, must better communicate the benefits "so we can stop looking at it like it's for someone else."

In the telephone poll of 1,350 randomly sampled D.C. adults conducted July 13-18, 1,030 registered voters named crime and public education as among their top concerns. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for questions asked of all voters and of 4.5 percentage points for those who are considered most likely to vote in the Democratic primary.

Sixteen percent of surveyed voters said affordable housing was a significant priority, and many said that although they welcomed redevelopment, they worried that real estate prices and rising property taxes are onerous for the poor.

Two years ago, voters expressed disappointment in the way D.C. government serves poor communities east of the Anacostia River when they unseated three incumbent D.C. Council members -- Kevin Chavous, Harold Brazil and Sandy Allen.

Angie Rodgers, a policy analyst for the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, said the public was perhaps more supportive of redevelopment in 2000, because the city was trying to attract developers. "It may be the kind of situation where you're in a drought and you need water, so water is good," she said. "But if you're in a flood, water is bad."

Even as the cost of living in the District has risen, Rodgers said there isn't enough available data to know whether redevelopment has forced large numbers of poor residents from the city.

The tax revenue generated by the economic boom, she said, does not appear to have bolstered city services for the poor. A 2004 Fiscal Policy Institute study showed that city spending on everything from social services to parks and recreation had declined from the early 1990s. More District funds are being spent on affordable housing, Rodgers said, but it is unclear whether "that touches the need in this city."

Jackson said the construction of low-cost housing is only one of redevelopment's benefits. Citing examples in Southeast, he said boarded-up buildings that were a bastion for "prostitution, drugs and stolen cars" have been reborn as townhouses "that are available to low income and working class residents." He defined affordable units as costing between $200,000 and $350,000.

Jackson attributed the negative view of redevelopment to a legacy of large-scale changes in neighborhoods decades ago, when the poor and working class were forced to leave for areas on the city's eastern side.

"Their descendants were part of the Georgetown experience or the original Southwest experience, and what they see is the last bastion of the city undergoing a renaissance," he said. "They ask, 'Does this mean I'm going to be displaced?' And I say that's not necessarily the end result."

Residents focused largely on the present rather than the past to explain why they consider redevelopment harmful to the poor. Constance Laine, 61, of Northwest said the condominiums replacing rental apartments leave the poor and senior citizens with fewer housing options. An increase in commercial property taxes also makes it difficult for small businesses to survive and provide jobs, she said.

"They hire the marginal people, and they end up having to close up shop because they can't afford the rent increases," Laine said.

Jamie Rivers, 38, a Filene's Basement stock clerk who lives in Southeast, said he never expected that he would benefit from the development boom. Although he learned bricklaying, he said, he has not been able to land a construction job.

"It's for the rich folks," he said of the renaissance. "We got no money."

Erica Lindquist, 32, a planning consultant who lives in Shaw, is among residents who believe that the economic boom can aid the poor. One of her neighbors, she said, recently put her house up for sale and moved to Florida.

"She was happy to see the value of her property go up," Lindquist said. "She didn't have much money until she sold."

Assistant polling director Claudia Deane contributed to this report.