A District plan to redevelop the Barry Farm public housing complex into a mixed-income community met a new obstacle Thursday when a District review panel voiced support for granting landmark status to part of the Southeast Washington site.
But the panel held off on voting on the designation, which can significantly restrict the development of a property, hoping the D.C. Housing Authority and the project’s developer can work with Barry Farm’s advocates on a preservation plan.
In discussions before Thursday’s meeting, the developer had offered to preserve at least one of the 32 remaining buildings as a museum — a proposal that advocates declared insufficient.
Marnique Heath, the review board’s chair, told both sides that if they could not reach an agreement in the coming weeks, “then it’s up to the board to decide how preservation happens.”
“We support designation,” Heath said. “That puts more pressure on the Housing Authority to revise the plan.”
The board’s support came four months after the District’s Historic Preservation Office, in a June report, found that the remaining buildings did not retain “sufficient integrity” for landmark status.
The developer, Preservation of Affordable Housing, said in a statement that the company and the Housing Authority would work with historians and the community “to create a more comprehensive preservation strategy that celebrates the history and legacy of Barry Farm.”
During the meeting, Anthony Waddell, a POAH executive, said that preserving the 32 buildings along Stevens Road SE would deprive the developer of land that could be used to build 400 of 1,100 planned units.
“That’s a substantial loss,” he said, estimating that the vast majority of those lost units would be affordable housing.
The redevelopment project includes 380 units of public housing to replace the 444 Barry Farm units. An additional 100 units of public housing have been built at two other nearby sites.
Parisa Norouzi, executive director of Empower DC, a grass-roots organization lobbying to landmark Barry Farm, called the board’s support “a step forward” and a sign that “they share our view that Barry Farm is a special place worthy of recognition and designation.”
“It puts more pressure on the developer and Housing Authority to work with us on and come back with another approach that would do a better job honoring the past,” she said. “We’re willing to have these conversations.”
For more than 150 years, Barry Farm had historic stature within the city’s African American community, first as a place where freed blacks could own homes after the Civil War and later as a public housing complex that was home to generations of African American families beginning in the 1940s. In more recent decades, the complex earned a reputation for violence and criminal activity.
Under former mayor Anthony Williams (D), the District began its plan to redevelop Barry Farm through its New Communities Initiative, which seeks to break up concentrated poverty by turning public housing complexes into mixed-income communities.
But the project’s developer has encountered obstacles, the most recent of which was the campaign to win landmark designation.
In their comments, Historic Preservation Review Board members said they were impressed with the application submitted by the proponents of the landmark nomination, a coalition that included local historians and Empower DC.
“The site is the most compelling thing,” said board member Outerbridge Horsey, noting its sloping topography, sweeping views of downtown and a street grid that dates to the 19th century.
Linda Mercado Greene, another board member, said she has felt “torn” between a need to preserve remnants of black history in the District and also the importance of constructing new affordable housing.
“I want this project to move forward,” she said. “At the same time, we can’t lost our history.”