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]
Welcome your perspective, PP. Aren't there typically multiple prospective tenants to choose from? And hasn't the huge overpayments, $1,000+ over market rate, played a role in making those tenants especially appealing? Is the chaos a desired factor in getting rent stabilized tenants (often elderly) who are well UNDER market rate to move out? This strategy was described in the series the WP did on Sedgewick Gardens, the man who triggered a SWAT standoff there had his voucher moved to The Brandywine when he was released from jail.

With many young people having shifted to living in NoMA, The Wharf, etc., since gentrification, how could landlords fill the large buildings on Connecticut and Wisconsin without moving in the mentally ill and convicts?

Are there any permissible grounds for screening now that income, evictions and crimes committed 7+ years ago are not permitted?[/quote]

No, the chaos is NOT a subterfuge to empty a building of tenants.   Interest rates and construction costs are high, so there is no incentive to empty a building to do a major repositioning.  The crime in NoMA, Navy Yard, etc. is starting to cause people to be more interested in Connecticut and Wisconsin---especially as the units are larger.   There was one well known case of an apartment portfolio owner who tried to overcharge the District re voucher tenants.   They had a multi-million dollar settlement with the District and their management company was prohibited from further management of their buildings per the settlement.   That case formed the basis for the narrative that some  cabal of unscrupulous landlords was trying to pack buildings with voucher tenants.   Landlords would be fine with a policy that required market rate buildings to take a certain number (probably no more than 10%) of voucher tenants---similar to the inclusionary zoning requirements now imposed by DC for new buildings.  DC constantly sends out testers to buildings to play "gotcha" with landlords so landlords are very cautious on screening requirements, lest they find themselves being sued by the DC AG's office.    Plus, the DC Council periodically tries to introduce legislation which would prohibit landlords from reviewing credit history.  That legislation hasn't passed yet, but not for lack of interest by the far left progressive wing of the council.  And once a tenant (whether market or voucher) is in residence, it can take literally years to evict them for any behavior-based lease violation.  Landlords have very little flexibility in terms of being able to screen tenants or evict problemmatic ones.  [/quote]

The idea of capping has been raised several times over the past few years, but has been a no go thus far. Supposedly DC LT Court is prioritizing the eviction of dangerous tenants, we'll see what happens over time.

It's my understanding that often the voucher resident does not pay their share of the rent, they are evicted in 6 months or so and move to a nearby building. This also seems to be the pattern if they are evicted for other reasons such as violence in building or sex work. DC does not seem to remove vouchers even in extreme cases, with the Sedgewick Gardens SWAT guy a prime example. [/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