Reply to Stabbing at The Brandywine in 4500 block Connecticut Ave. NW DC

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "Stabbing at The Brandywine in 4500 block Connecticut Ave. NW DC"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Some of you seem to be implying that it was ok when this behavior was confined to "those neighborhoods".[/quote]

Stop trolling and attempting to derail. Obviously, unsafe people need to be removed from the community, in any Ward. DC rarely does that. Dispersing them more widely solves nothing but greatly enriches the landlords paid well over market rate and whoever they kick back to. And law abiding voucher recipients, many elderly, also deserve a safe and orderly environment, many have moved OUT of Connecticut House and The Brandywine due to safety concerns. This was documented way back in the series the WP did on Sedgewick Gardens. What about those people?

In the 90s, DC did not target the tax base that is Ward 3 in this fashion. Given the looming CRE implosion, anyone have a sense of what the strategy seems to be here?  [/quote]

Strategy?  Bowser??? Hah[/quote]
DP. The passed a law to allow landlords out of rent control if they allow voucher recipients in units. Removing units from rent control provides significant long term value for RE owners.

In addition, if you have a building with a significant enough number of voucher recipients, it basically moots TOPA issues.

As a result, RE owners can receive market rate rent while allowing their buildings to depreciate without need for costly O&M, while removing rental control and mooting TOPA.

It seems like a perfect medium term strategy to create depreciated, vacant buildings ripe for redevelopment and I am sure this is by design.[/quote]

But nobody will want to pay non-rent control rates to live in these unsafe buildings. [/quote]

+1. Who would pay market rate to live in these buildings?? I'm only going to live there if I get a voucher for it.[/quote]

The worst of it is that Bowser’s voucher program has set affordability backward in areas like Ward 3.  Despite its overall high cost, that Ward has had a lot of rent controlled housing and value-priced housing in older but still nice buildings in places like Connecticut Avenue.  This has been a source of workforce housing and apartments for many, including older residents, on fixed incomes.  The crime and other social problems around concentrations of voucher units in these same buildings have meant that longterm stable tenants feel unsafe and are moving out.  Not to mention, every time a building owner or management company accepts a voucher for a rent controlled unit it takes the unit out of rent control going forward (and sets the rent at a premium to market).  The idea behind vouchers was well intentioned but in design and practice DC’s program is counterproductive.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics