Show Us the Money!

The City Council is a lot like Old Mother Hubbard when it comes to the deconcentration of public housing: the cupboard is always bare, and there's not a penny to be found, not even in the cookie jar.

We hear that argument frequently whenever our community starts talking about the desire to offsite more public housing units from the James Bland site. (There need to be another 33 units dispersed to achieve the same formula that was employed for deconcentration at Chatham Square — a formula that Growler learned from Old Town activists was suggested by former City Council member and former ARHA Commissioner Joyce Woodson.)

The City moans and groans that it is already burdened with the job of finding and paying for land for the 16 Bland units that can't be shoehorned into the Glebe Park redevelopment site in Arlandria. Forget about another 33 units coming off Bland.

But take a gander at this: the City recently funded an $8 million loan at 2% annual interest rate to Bonaventure Realty Group, the new owner of Olde Towne West, to rehabilitate and preserve affordable housing.

There were a couple of other items on the docket for the Council's last meeting of the fiscal year that should give Parker-Gray residents pause.

First, the City Council agreed to loan another $1.5 million from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund to Alexandria Housing Development Corporation for the Potomac Yard fire station project, a mixed-use development which includes affordable and workforce housing units. The loan is needed to cover a gap in tax credit financing.

(Note: Readers who sift through the staff memo will note that the voluntary developer contributions from the Potomac Yard development are part of the financing package for the station. Apparently in Potomac Yard, developer contributions are plowed back into the community from which they were derived. Where is Parker-Gray development money going? Will we ever know what the City ultimately did with the $1 million contribution from the Monarch?)

Anyway, back to the bailouts. The Council also provided another $500,000 (augmenting an existing $1.5 million loan) to Wesley Housing Development Corporation for the Beverly Park Apartments project in Arlandria. This loan is also being made to cover up a tax credit gap.

In fact, the Bonaventure loan pushed the City's total bond commitment for affordable housing from $15.0 to $23.0 million, nearly $1 million higher than a 2005 Council authorization. In the same final session of the legislative year, the City Council in fact voted to amend its 1997 formula for calculating debt policy guidelines so that it can issue more debt and still maintain a triple A bond rating.

Where is our community in the receiving line for these funds? At the tag end?

It's time to press the City about making the 33 additional Bland units a priority.

Show US the money!

Pesky BAR, Pesky Citizens

Uh-oh. You know the neighborhood's in trouble when Planning Commission Chairman Eric Wagner tells the ARHA Redevelopment Work Group he's convinced the current ultra-dense James Bland redevelopment proposal is "the right plan for Alexandria," adding "We're trying to make the best decision as a whole for the City."

Yes, Parker-Gray's in for a screwing when Mr. Wagner (who personally helped dumb down Potomac Yard density without worrying about the rest of the City) implies that our role is to redeem decades of financial mismanagement by ARHA and its short-sighted BFF the City by taking height, mass, density and public housing units up the wazoo without a murmur in the name of Rosemont, Del Ray, Beverly Hills, Northridge and all the other protected neighborhoods in town. We should be so lucky.

A major theme at last night's meeting of the ARHA Redevelopment Work Group was alarmingly undemocratic: concern that annoying residents of First Street, of Columbus Street, of the Inner City and Northeast — and above all, members of the Parker-Gray BAR, who have shown some real spirit on this issue — might derail the rocket docket for James Bland and crimp profit margins by daring to ask for tweaks in height, mass, density, parking, open space and public housing offsiting.

Only ARHA Vice Chairman Connie Ring (bless him) observed that "different tensions are inherent in planning. Some will be in opposition to each other, but we have to find compromise." But shockingly, Mr. Ring was the only work group member who spoke up in any way to acknowledge that the community's input was not only legitimate but to be expected.

There were questions about the schedule, about whether the BAR concept review was critical path, whether the BAR's decisions could be appealed or overriden, etc. so that the project can be tied up with a ribbon by October and demolition and construction at Glebe Park can begin in November. The tax credit application for Bland doesn't have to be submitted to VHDA until February, so it's not our redevelopment but the Arlandria project that is driving the train.

What really set off work group members was the discussion about open space. To their credit, Planning & Zoning staff seem to have taken to heart neighborhood criticism of the draft plan and now suggest increasing open space by taking out two to six market rate units and creating either a new pocket park on Wythe Street or expanding the larger open space now planned for Montgomery Street and making it a City park.

Interestingly, it was also suggested that the City could use Open Space Trust Fund monies for this purpose. Funny how pots of money cached by City leprechauns suddenly pop into the light when enough pressure is applied.

But this proposal raised the eyebrows of developer Bob Youngentob, who worried about not only about the lost units but the opportunity value of the land, especially if prices continue to rise. (Council member Rob Krupicka, however, noted tartly that the City and ARHA weren't in for any rebates if the prices fell.)

Don't despair too much readers. A lot of this is the usual posturing and jawboning of negotiation, and EYA is in a strong position given ARHA's desperation. Has Growler mentioned the persistent rumor that EYA earned an $18 million windfall on Chatham Square? And Mr. Ring also noted yesterday that ARHA made $3.2 million on Chatham Square, which enabled it to pay back the City's loan.

What last night's meeting demonstrated is that the City and ARHA would like to push this project through as quickly as possible and with as little dissent as possible. Members of our neighborhood will have to keep up strong pressure on these characters (particularly our elected representatives) to ensure we get what we want and need.

Keep E-mailing and writing.

The Growler is not convinced that our demands are incompatible with those of ARHA and the City or that they will jeopardize the whole tandem redevelopment of Glebe Park and James Bland. The City just needs to put more of its money on the table.

Right now, it's so stingy that ARHA was apparently rebuffed last night in its plea for a full-time person to help coordinate the social service for its Bland residents during the move since there's no hope for a HOPE VI grant. ARHA was also told that with the new Charles Houston Recreation Center under construction there was no need for a separate community center to replace the one Bland will be losing.

But one valuable thing we learned from the Braddock East process is that other jurisdictions are a lot more generous with their contributions when it comes to public housing renewal. And the City has some resources near at hand.

Has anyone forgotten that the City collected $1 million from the Monarch for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund? Or that the Payne Street and Madison projects will contribute more than $700,000 each, while the Jaguar is slated to give a whopping $5 million? Since our neighborhood is taking the density on those projects, let the City spend the donations here on offsiting.

Take another 30 Bland public housing units offsite, throw in a little more open space, ease the height behind Columbus Street residents' homes, and the City and ARHA can make this thing happen — if the political will is there.

If not, keeping applying the pitchfork to the posteriors, naughty readers!

Work Group Update!

A revised agenda has just been sent out for tonight's ARHA Redevelopment Work Group, and it now includes "Emergency Executive Session to discuss acquisition of real property in relation to the replacement 16 units for James Bland."

Interesting ...

Work Group Tonight

There will be a meeting of the ARHA Redevelopment Work Group tonight at 6:00 PM in the Council workroom at City Hall.

The work group includes Mayor William D. Euille, Councilman Rob Krupicka, Planning Commission Chairman Eric Wagner, City Manager Jim Hartmann, ARHA Board Chairman Melvin Miller and Board Vice Chairman Connie Ring.

The main focus of the meeting will be the James Bland redevelopment project but other items to be discussed include open space options, an update on the 16 units going offsite from Bland, and a discussion of the social services issue raised at the last Braddock East meeting.

Up to the Minute News

More Good Tidings

According to a press release issued Friday by Alexandria City Public Schools, it appears that Jefferson-Houston Elementary School will now make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Can this breakthrough be sustained again next year? Can Jefferson-Houston stay accredited?

We can only hope, because a well-functioning neighborhood school is not only vital to the children who are educated there, it's essential to ensuring the stability of our neighborhood and sustaining (and hopefully boosting) home values.

National Night Out ... Tonight!

This evening (Tuesday, August 5) is the 25th annual observance of "National Night Out," when communities around the U.S. will fight crime by celebrating their partnerships with law enforcement.

Homeowners here in Parker-Gray can show their solidarity with police by turning on their house lights early this evening and letting them burn all night. You can also drop a line of appreciation to our community cop Officer Michael Sprague and to his boss, Alexandria Police Chief Dave Baker for their hard work and commitment to our neighborhood.

A variety of NNO activities are planned in Alexandria tonight, so check it out!

The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming!!

The Growler hears that a Russian church group has signed a lease for the retail space at Queen and N. Fayette Streets that was formerly occupied by Euro Star Market.

Dobro pozhalovat'!

Tying Up Loose Ends

Over the past year or two, several issues have emerged in our neighborhood that superficially appear to be unrelated.

As the Growler disclosed on Wednesday, while ARHA officials denied that there were Hispanics living in public housing in the Braddock Metro area, they were conducting public meetings for Jefferson Village residents in both English and Spanish as neighbors increasingly observed that more Latinos were moving in to ARHA properties.

Meanwhile, many residents of the Parker-Gray neighborhood were shocked and angered by the City's unexpected attack on "gentrification" prominently featured in the Braddock Road Metro Small Area plan passed earlier this year by the City Council.

Then there's the Braddock Metro small area plan's strange notions about preserving the run-down Queen Street business strip, which many neighbors avoid walking through and which regularly jars the sensibilities of anyone who stumbles upon it, thinking from our lovely surrounding homes that they are driving through Old Town.

The City's interest in preserving the neighborhood's history and a two-block business "corridor" is hardly convincing. Among other things, had it been committed to preserving this history its top officials would not have sat on the Parker-Gray historic district nomination for 16 years until the City was finally embarassed into action through public disclosure.

And if the City feels it is important to freeze neighborhoods in a time warp, when will it begin to fight to restore the biker bars and railroad workers' boozy dives that used to grace Mt. Vernon Avenue in Del Ray before it became trendy? The 5th of never, of course.

In the end, the Growler believes all of these loose ends are elements of the same thing. the Marion Barry-esque attack on gentrification and the attempt to freeze-flash our neighborhood's 1970s identity is cynically rooted in the politics of public housing.

The evidence suggests the City is orchestrating a campaign to preserve this neighborhood's former racial identity in order to justify the continuing presence of concentrated public housing. The logic is that if a significant number of units are off-sited, the "community" will be broken up. Hence the need to deny that the neighborhood demographics have changed, that population served by public housing is changing or that Queen and Fayette is dysfunctional. The fiction of the "community" and who or what qualifies as being part of that "community" must be maintained and even propped up.

Make no mistake, public housing was first built in our neighborhood starting in the 1940s to replace shockingly substandard and dilapidated structures that blighted the area. Most of these properties, although not all, were earmarked for the African-American community. For many years these projects were a critical component in the stock of local housing because under Jim Crow blacks were denied the opportunities to live in most other areas of the City. It's understandable how this sense of propriety about public housing was born.

But that's ancient history now. Forty years ago, with the Fair Housing Act and the civil rights movement, black Parker-Gray residents were finally free to move elsewhere and many (including ARHA Chairman Melvin Miller) did so. The City's own comprehensive housing plan has noted, with apparent approval, that both black and Hispanic Alexandrians are less segregated in a handful of neighborhoods than in years past. And the change in the population in Parker-Gray has not been due to forced evictions and bitter condo conversions but the quiet transfer of valuable single-family homes and profit on both sides of the transactions.

Readers need look no further than the two versions of the Braddock Road draft small area plan from 2006 and then 2007-08 to see that the public housing issue shaped and changed the plan.

The first draft, produced under then-P&Z Director Eileen Fogarty, did not address public housing redevelopment. It paid homage to Parker-Gray's past history but acknowledged the neighborhood had changed and was far less doctrinaire about preserving the old community.

The second draft was more radical and, in the opinion of some here, more racist than its successor. It was drafted as ARHA was in the throes of negotiations over the bailout and redevelopment of Glebe Park and James Bland, and as staff were preparing to launch a full-scale planning process for all Braddock Metro-area ARHA properties.

What is undoubtedly compelling to the politicians about this approach is that it absolves them from the need to (1) pay for off-siting units; and (2) accept units in their own backyards. It also provides an opportunity to strut their credentials for compassion.

At the same time, curiously, the presence of public housing is being used to justify the massive density planned for the Braddock Road Area.

The City can't entirely bury its head in the sand about segregation and the need to deconcentrate public housing, something which has been a pillar of housing policy in the last generation. It also knows that economic development in the Braddock Road Metro area has only moved by fits and starts for a quarter century. (Wasn't it curious that we had so many ex-P&Z planners turn out for the charrettes?)

But as noted before on this blog, the City's approach is now to pour more density in and around public housing in our area and claim that this "dilution" approach deconcentrates public housing and desegrates the neighborhood.

This, however, may be an example of the City shooting itself in the foot once again. In more than 20 years, economic development has never taken off at Braddock Road Metro in large part due to the persistent presence of public housing. Our officials are taking a huge risk that once the area is built out, potential homeowners and retailers will continue to shun the area because of the City's failure to tackle the deconcentration of poverty and disorder on some of the most valuable properties in Northern Virginia.

The ARHA Files #3: Who Lives in Public Housing?

At one of the very first Braddock East Advisory Group meetings, Acting ARHA CEO Roy Priest stated that there were no Hispanics in public housing in the Braddock Road area. Yes ,there were Hispanics in Arlandria public housing, but not here. It was a comment that caused more than a few heads, including the Growler's, to snap around.

Yet in a July 17, 2007 memo on "Housing Operations Update" that discussed the disposition of public housing units at Jefferson Village as it moved to Section 8, Mr. Priest wrote "ARHA had a public meeting and explained the disposition process and follow up steps that will be needed in English and Spanish."

Now why would ARHA need to conduct a meeting with tenants in Spanish if no Latinos were occupying units here?

The Cranky One and others have seen Hispanic families living in Jefferson Village and Andrew Adkins, while neighbors near Bland have commented on the number of Hispanics that seem to be moving into the project nowadays. In fact, while mentioning a family at Ramsay Homes that had a particularly fine display of flowers, the Growler was told by City staff that it was an Asian tenant family which was responsible for the lovely garden.

So there is a disconnect. Why is ARHA denying that there is diversity in public housing in this neighborhood?

The Growler will attempt to explain why tomorrow, but readers can safely assume the answer is based on politics rather than reality.

The ARHA Files #2: The Numbers

Quel surprise! After a session taking notes from the incomplete ARHA files at Barrett Library on Saturday until 5 p.m., the Growler returned to the library last night and found a fresh copy of the ARHA Board's July 28 agenda and copious supporting materials. Someone at ARHA must be reading this blog.

Whoever you are, thanks and keep up the good work by ensuring that all ARHA materials are accessible to the public.

Today, the Growler wants to write about some of the numbers that have cropped up in the ARHA files. We'll leave it to the readers and others to interpret some of the nuances, but these figures are intriguing, to say the least.

Turnover

The latest report on public housing vacancies supplied to ARHA's Board for its July 28 meeting indicates that from January to June 2008, some 137 units were vacated for a variety of causes, such as death, evictions (including those for drug activity), and skips.

It appears from the monthly figures (broken out into detail by month in the report) that on average there are about 20 units vacated per month. That means that in the course of a year there might be 230 to 250 units that become available.

Any rental property is going to have turnover, and indeed Alexandria itself has a high turnover in residents, whether they are in public housing, private apartment buildings or single family homes.

But we have been told repeatedly that redevelopment and scattering of public housing would "break up the community," which implies there is a sizeable cadre of public housing tenants who have deep and permanent ties to the community and are unwilling to relocate.

Given these figures, though, it appears that 20% of ARHA's units turn over every year (240 out of 1,150 Resolution 830 units). At this rate, in a five year period theoretically all of ARHA's units would turn over.

While 100% turnover is probably not attained for a variety of reasons, these numbers raise questions about the notion of permanence in the ARHA "community."

This is further borne out by citizen activists those who participated in the shaping of the Chatham Square project. They told the Growler that there were very few individuals who could be described as permanent residents and who ultimately returned after redevelopment.

And a City consultant told the Growler that the handful of Bland residents who were most worried about relocation were older and ultimately would probably need to be housed in assisted living rather than general public housing. The younger residents seem remarkably open to the idea of moving.

Vacancy Rates

Putting aside Arlandria's Glebe Park project (which has a staggering vacancy rate due to intractable mold problems), it appears that Adkins has a problem with vacancy rates. According to the ARHA files, the unadjusted vacancy rate at May 1 for Adkins was 20% and an adjusted rate of 10%. For Bland the unadjusted as well as adjusted vacancy rate was 5%, and Bland Addition 4% unadjusted and 2% adjusted. HUD prefers a vacancy rate of 3% or less.

Are these rates in the Braddock Area due, as Melvin Miller once suggested at an ARHA Board meeting, to the fact that people on the waiting list would prefer to drop down the list and continuing waiting rather than live in these projects, known for their crime problems? Or are there other factors at play?

Bedroom Demand

In an April 17, 2006 Housing Operations Update, then-ARHA CEO William Dearman wrote "ARHA has many one bedroom applicants on the public housing list that continue to have a very long wait because of the unavailability of public housing one bedroom units. ARHA's Board of Commissioners should consider offering the one bedroom applicants a Section 8 voucher so the waiting list can be opened for all bedroom sizes some time later in 2006."

In September 2007, acting ARHA CEO Roy Priest wrote that there were 700 names on the public housing waiting list, and that the largest number of applicants were queued up for one bedroom units. The smallest number of applicants (zero) were waiting for three bedroom apartments.

This seems to suggest that ARHA could better meet demand by building and supporting smaller units. Yet Resolution 830, ARHA and Council seem obsessed with the notion of maintaining not just a fixed number of public housing units in the City but also retaining the same proportions of multi-bedroom units in its housing stock.

This is significant in terms of any future redevelopment of Andrew Adkins, which has a significant supply of four bedroom units and the only five bedroom units in the ARHA portfolio. Does Adkins really need to be rebuilt exactly as it was, and as large and densely, if public housing demand in Alexandria is greatest for smaller units and if (as suggested at a Braddock Road small area plan meeting) the size of public housing families as well as those of non-public housing is shrinking?

Vouchers

Here's an interesting chart on housing voucher use from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a leading liberal think tank devoted to low-income policy issues.

Scroll down to the table and you will see that in 2007 ARHA apparently had only 84% of the its authorized vouchers in actual use, down from 99% in 2004.

CBPP's numbers are supported by ARHA's reports for the July board meeting. The Section 8 "lease-up" rate is currently shown as 83%, with the following distributions:

1722 authorized
1431 under lease
1512 allocated
210 available
26 persons seeking vouchers

According to an excellent paper by CBPP on the Housing Choice Voucher program, "Research has shown that vouchers are more cost-effective than federal programs that build affordable housing for low-income households."

So why has ARHA's voucher utilization fallen?