***Given expected heavy rainfall today, tenants ask supporters to join us inside the building at 6:00 PM to pack the hearing room. At 6:30 PM, the hearing will begin.***
ONE DC tenant members and residents at Brookland Manor request your support at a 5:00pm rally followed by a public Zoning Commission meeting on Monday, April 24, 2017. The location is 441 4th St NW and the closest metro station is Judiciary Sq (red line).
The Zoning Commission is expected to publicly discuss and announce their decision as to whether or not to continue to allow Mid-City to move forward with their plan to eliminate affordable housing in the midst of an affordable housing crisis, and to cut out desperately needed family sized units at Brookland Manor in Northeast Washington, D.C. Mid-City's plan is particularly egregious when one considers the fact that they are calling to cut family housing and affordable housing while simultaneously tripling density.
It is CRUCIAL that the public show up to demonstrate opposition to a plan that would displace families from the city or keep them warehoused in shelters, or forgotten in the streets. Working class Black communities are under attack across the city by wealthy developers, and the politicians who do their bidding. It is IMPERATIVE that the public hold the Zoning Commission accountable and stand in solidarity with the tenants of Brookland Manor who have led and continue to lead this struggle to preserve their right to the city.
**********************************************************************************
Background on the tenant-led struggle at Brookland Manor:
The Brookland Manor/Brentwood Village Resident Association, ONE DC tenant members and residents at Brookland Manor are organizing against a forced displacement campaign led by developer Mid-City Financial, a group that has moved to displace working class people of color from one of the few remaining affordable housing properties in Washington, D.C. Residents of Brookland Manor have been subjected to discrimination based on family sizes; have faced documented harassment at the hands of a private armed security force; and mass evictions that were only slowed down after public exposure. To date, Mid-City’s displacement tactics have gone unchallenged by Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie.
Mid-City Financial has outlined a plan to demolish all 535 units of affordable housing, and replace it with over 1750 units of mostly luxury apartments. Under their proposed plan, overall affordability [in the midst of an affordable housing crisis in the nation’s capital] will be reduced from 535 to 373 units, and all five, four, and most three bedroom units eliminated. Covington & Burling, along with the Washington Lawyers Committee recently filed a groundbreaking lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of development plans that target a protected class (families), by effectively eliminating family housing.
At the first stage zoning hearing, representatives of Mid-City Financial suggested that due to “natural attrition,” some tenants would leave Brookland Manor, and that their absence from the property would help to justify Mid-City’s plans to build luxury apartments in place of deeply affordable housing. What the developer refers to as “natural attrition,” residents experience as violent displacement.
At the second stage zoning hearing, representatives of Mid-City Financial doubled down on their plan to displace families and eliminate affordable housing at Brookland Manor. Further, their attorney attempted to use loopholes in order to avoid discussion on the key issues with respect to affordable housing and displacement, and instead attempted to focus the meeting on the color of the bricks and the kind of shrubs that would be planted as part of their planned redevelopment.
ONE DC tenant members and residents at Brookland Manor request your support at a 5:00pm rally followed by a public Zoning Commission meeting at 6:30pm on Monday, April 24, 2017. The location is 441 4th St. NW, Suite 220 Washington, D.C. 20001.
