Plans have changed for the northern portion of the 900 block of 12th Street. The space, which was originally slated for the Negro League Legends Hall of Fame, is now going to condos (reportedly 18 units). The construction will require the demolition of a few current buildings. One of the buildings to be demolished (pictured above)reportedly housed a dance club in the 1970s. During the same period a funeral home occupied the structure one or two doors down.
16 comments:
Baseball Museum seemed a bit odd for that location.
Hopefully they won't be section 8 condos...maybe some high dollar places will drive out the loiterers that hang out on the corner of 12th and I st selling "stuff"...or whatever the stuff in little plastic bags is being called these days.
Does anyone build condos exclusively for lower income people? I suspect that these will be rather pricy and that they'll have to pay extra for parking.
There is no such thing as a "Section 8 condo." New section 8 financing for permanent housing doesn't exist. Housing vouchers (aka Section 8 Vouchers) may be used in any apartment that passes inspection and where the owner accepts them. If these are condos, they won't be rental units, and housing vouchers won't come into play.
Housing vouchers are a good thing. There is no evidence that residents using housing vouchers contribute in any way to "neighborhood decline."
12th & I is actually a lot safer and cleaner than it used to be. I even see less left over evidence in the 900 block (of 12th) of late night activities than I once did. I'm glad to see that they will be building something on the space, although I know that some are unhappy about the demolition of existing building, but I would still rather see something there other than a vacant lot & decrepit building. It will be interesting to see what happens with condos right next to Jimmy's Tire.
Jamy is right. The vouchers are housing choice vouchers can be used anywhere an owner will take them. This is a good thing because (in theory) it allows for the mixing of incomes in neighborhoods (which avoids the creation of ghettos). Strong arguments have been made that the mixing of incomes within a neighborhood can have other benefits for all residents.
Also, Anonymous is right that not many people are building excusively low income, or affordable condos (except in Ivy City, or places on the otherside of the river). I suspect these will be more like the other condos that are springing up in the area (luxary, but maybe with some "affordable" units). I think people hang out over there because there is a field and an empty building. Housing will help.
Yes, Jamy is right in saying "There is no evidence that residents using housing vouchers contribute in any way to neighborhood decline". Look at Sursum Corda and Temple Court. These are mostly section 8 and are lovely places to live in wonderful neighborhoods. Sorry for the sarcasm, but I live next to a section 8 house and it's a nightmare.
Some section 8 people are bad tenants, some are good. I always get a kick out of kneejerk liberals who think the people clamoring against such vouchers are white, because in my experience, the opposite is true, particularly on Wylie Street, where through a lot of diligent effort, Section 8 tenants that visibly contributed to disorder were removed.
Anyway, the research clearly proves that overconcentration of (especially) low-income residents doesn't work from a stable neighborhood perspective. Sursum Corda is but one example.
Now the problem with HOPEVI was not that it deconcentrated extremely low-income tenants, but that it didn't provide overall a one-for-one replacement for low-income housing.
In any case, the building pictured in Elise's photo is 100+ years old and is worthy of saving.
I need to add that by saying this, I am not against Section 8, and have even encouraged ANC6C to put questions about acceptance of such vouchers on the "Community Benefits Questionnaire" distributed to developers for consideration in Planning-Zoning reviews. However, I do call myself an "inner city progressive" where my politics have been mediated by the reality of living in the city.
The problem with Section 8 is that it is predicated on the idea that poverty is something bad that happens to good, hardworking people (like an earthquake or fire).
This is certainly true in some cases, but in many others poverty is a direct manifestation of poor upbringing, lack of initiative, substance abuse, anti-social tendencies, etc. As a lifelong liberal I am galled to say that Ronald Reagan was actually correct - many poor people are at fault for their situation.
Taking such a person out of a big complex and into a stable neighborhood just hurts the neighborhood.
I think it's pretty easy to say 'go get a job' from your air-conditioned cubicle with high-speed internet access. With a DC HS education, it's pretty tough to get a job that's not dead end and crappy. I think if anyone truly cares about 'fixing the neighborhood' we need to demand all that money pouring into DC go toward education. Pushing people who have grown up here out into Maryland is not the answer. If you want to be surrounded by the upper middle class, protected by gates, you may have picked the wrong neighborhood.
Well, I think you just made my point... saying "take a voucher and move to this nice neighborhood" doesn't address the educational deficencies that lead to poverty, or the personal choices that exacerbate it.
However, I also think its easy to fault "the schools". In reality, if you have a strong family that values educational achievement, it is possible to get a decent education in DC schools. There are a lot of households where that's not true, and the children are "broken" before they arrive in the classroom.
I don't think there are any real answers to deep urban poverty on the horizon. But at this point, pushing anti-social people out of my neighborhood doesn't seem like a bad thing.
Couple of interesting points being made in this thread.
I think Anonymous has made some interesting points about how the students arrive "broken" into the school system. However, this then touches upon the issue of whether poverty is a causative factor in familial breakdown or whether familial breakdown is a causative factor in poverty.
That tangent aside, I recall reading in the paper that not too many landlords are taking Section 8 vouchers. What is the incentive for them to take new tenants. The vouchers only cover up to a certain amount, and there is a delay in the landlord receiving payment. In a depressed rental market, it is a more attractive offer since you can fill up a building that would otherwise be vacant, but in a market like this one where there isn't an excess of supply, why would they bother?
i've been going by that building a lot this summer and kept imagining a nice sandwich shop or even a store that could use the outside space.
shame its gonna be condos.
but at least it wont be empty.
I just think it's a complex issue. Poverty doesn't exactly directly cause crime, but it doesn't help the situation & when you have large concentrations of poverty, kids tend not to see so clearly that they have legitimate ways to achieve & be successful. I think mixed income housing is the way to go. Richard is right about the problem with HOPEVI being that it doesn't generate enough replacement housing. Some poor people will always be poor, because they are lazy & some poor people are poor for other reasons of their own choosing. I'm just arguing that exposing poor kids to other situations can help them brake the cycle of poverty. At the same time, I think that living near/going to school/hanging with less well off kids can be a good life lesson for a child. Plus, we adults could stand to look each other in the face from time to time too. On both sides it is always easier to condemn someone you don't know.
I have to comment on this poverty/crime concept that's being talked about as of late. Like Richard posted on his blog, really crime causes poverty. You're getting it wrong if you think poverty/low income causes crime. Richard used the very good example of riot epicenters. These areas were nice places to live until the riots (crime fests). Because of these large scale crimes, people who could afford to moved out of the communities affected by the riots (crime sprees) in droves. Cheap rents followed, then disinvestment, then a decreased tax base with decreased city services (eg policing, street cleaning, graffiti removal,etc). Entire books are devoted to this concept (books about the "broken window" theory, etc.) I've seen it in my own alley, very low level crime such as illegal dumping, urinating, etc. attracts very impoverished unemployed people to my alley. It's text book, honestly, after a good alley cleaning behind my house, people stop hanging out back there. Then the illegal dumpers come again, then more people use it as a toilet, a place to smoke crack and shoot up and then the impoverished unemployed people return to take naps and/or just to relax.
A similar example on a different scale: when I moved into my neighborhood a couple years ago there was a lot of crime, that's why I was able to afford my house. A house in a neighborhood with way less crime was out of my price range. A lot of people buying houses in my neighborhood at that time were in the same boat as me. A lot of us on this street, although were not poverty level, don't really make that much money. Crime created a situation (affordable housing) that attracted all of us very middle income folks (I'm sure there are some people that would consider us poor, in fact since we can't afford contractors, nice cars, expensive dinners out, etc.) We may be very middle income, but I can't imagine myself or my neighbors committing a crime because we don't make very much money. So yes, our street's not glamorous, it's mostly very middle income people, but crime created this demographic on our street. This may sound ironic to some, but really, it's pure logic if you think about it.
You should all feel empowered by this concept of crime begets poverty because it's a lot easier to address crime than it is to address poverty. Go take care of all that low level crime (clean the graffiti off your garage, pick up the trash you see in your neighborhood). Attend PSA meetings for the bigger crimes (drug dealing, breaking and entering). Organize a neighborhood watch, report crime and demand that crime be dealt with in your community.
Anyway, I point this out because this same incorrect assumption (poverty begets crime) is being kicked around on the anc6a listserv that most of us Frozentropics readers subscribe to. I guess I should post this there as well.
This historic preservationist is almost always in favor of mixed use, just read my blog. I am one of the biggest adherents to Jane Jacobs' principles around... (mixed primary uses, density, small blocks, large stock of old buildings are her 4 primary points).
BTW, most of the time, preservation is about preserving buildings, not so much about preserving specific uses. (With some exceptions, obviously, we would want rowhouses to stay as houses.)
Lately I've even been weakening and could see a Norman Foster "sky ceiling" at National Museum of Am. Art...
Anyway, the baseball museum "site" probably wasn't a good choice for that particular use at that particular location, but having more cultural resources, particularly in that area (the "entertainment" part of H Street) is a fine idea.
To really do something like that at this site would probably require incorporating Jimmy's Tire into the project.
BTW, I identified this site as a housing opportunity (the whole shebang, including Jimmy's) in an e-mail about housing issues in Nov. 2003 when I was on the board of H St. Main Street, and I suggested that the organization develop a housing policy concerning the H Street retail trade area, not just H Street proper.
By incorporating the Jimmy's site, many more than 18 units of housing could be built. And that would be a good thing.
As far as the museum goes, Anwar Saleem had a good suggestion when we talked about it a long time ago, and that would be to incorporate it into a new mixed-use library facility on multiple floors.
As far as the discussion about behavior and attitudes goes, I heartily recommend reading the book The Future Once Happened Here by Fred Siegel. They have it at the MLK branch of DCPL.
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