Residents Urge Fenty to Build Soccer Stadium at Poplar Point

The document stipulates only that 70 acres must be reserved for a park -- a requirement established by the federal government -- and that small, local businesses must receive 35 percent of contracting dollars. Fenty also has said 30 percent of any new housing must be affordable for lower-income residents.

City planning officials said they were deliberately vague to encourage creative, "outside-the-box" thinking. But residents said yesterday that Fenty has ignored years of planning undertaken by his predecessor, former mayor Anthony A. Williams (D).

In 2003, Williams created the Anacostia Waterfront Corp., a quasi-independent government agency that held dozens of community meetings and established a framework plan that included a stadium, up to 900,000 square feet of retail space, 800 hotel rooms and 3,000 housing units, as well as the 70-acre park.

But Fenty disbanded the agency and took control of the Poplar Point planning, a point of contention for some residents.

"D.C. United has been in the community for quite a while now working with the community," said Sandra Seegars, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Ward 8. "The new mayor comes in and takes us back to step one. We don't need to start over again."

Under MacFarlane's plan, total development would reach 8.5 million square feet -- twice the amount of space envisioned by the Anacostia Waterfront Corp. MacFarlane offered to pay for the stadium, expected to cost from $150 million to $200 million, if the city would contribute $350 million in infrastructure for the development project.

Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8), who supports MacFarlane, told the audience yesterday that Fenty and his aides "are nice people, but they don't know what they're doing."

Percy Battle, who has lived in Ward 8 more than 70 years, said he believes a stadium would be a catalyst for the kind of additional development his community desperately needs.

"While much of the District has experienced unprecedented economic development, Anacostia has been left in the dust," Battle said. "Over the years, we have lost much in the way of everyday services: restaurants, grocery stores, movie theaters, hardware stores -- the list goes on and on."