{"id":334,"date":"2019-06-26T19:16:24","date_gmt":"2019-06-26T19:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/?p=334"},"modified":"2019-06-26T19:40:43","modified_gmt":"2019-06-26T19:40:43","slug":"william-jordan-analysis-a-46-million-tax-break-at-risk-over-the-meaning-of-construction-worker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/334\/","title":{"rendered":"William Jordan Analysis: A $46 million tax break at risk over the meaning of \u2018 construction worker\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was originally posted to the Adams Morgan Listserve June 25, 2019, as message #51519, groups.yahoo.com\/neo\/groups\/AdamsMorgan\/conversations\/messages\/51519<\/a>
\nA $46 million tax break at risk over the meaning of \u2018 construction worker\u2019
\nThere really should be no excuses on this one. We’ve had since 2010 to ensure this would be a successful project in terms of its hiring impact on this Ward. Nine years later, the most tragic and embarrassing thing about this project is that I don’t see any evidence that we are structured to do any better now if the project started from scratch today.
\nClearly the development team took a look at our overall political environment and expected to be let off the hook. We’ve know for over two years that The Line would not meet the construction hiring targets. And throwing bodies at the project at the last minute even if it had worked, was not the intent of the agreement in the first place. We just don’t get it.
\nStill in 2019, the Council is going to throw over $25M at the housing authority for construction rehab. I may have missed it, but I did not see strong employment targets with claw backs applied. Nor funding for proper training and employment support systems to ensure DCHA and its contractors are held to the same standards as The Line. And residents of public housing are positioned to move their families forward. No, “same sh@t<\/a>, different day”. And two years now, I’m going to hear the same political excuse, it’s someone else’s fault.
\nIt’s the meaning of “construction worker” that is in question, but the meanings of “justice”, “equity” and “excuses”.
\nPlease give me a break. The developer actually thought he was going to be successful at meeting the hiring targets by running around at the last minute begging kids to take a job? And that we would except the failure of that strategy as an excuse?
\nWilliam
\n—
\nA $46 million tax break at risk over the meaning of \u2018construction worker\u2019
\nBy Paul Schwartzman June 24 at 3:46 PM
\nAs one of Washington\u2019s star chefs, Erik Bruner-Yang is known for hipster havens such as Toki Underground and Maketto on H Street NE, where he serves his renditions of Asian-fusion delights.
\nWhat Bruner-Yang is not known for is wearing a hard hat and pounding nails.
\nYet the chef twice nominated for James Beard awards is on a list of 471 construction workers that a boutique Adams Morgan hotel touts as evidence that it hired enough D.C. residents to qualify for a $46 million tax abatement.
\nThe list \u2014 including designers, architects, preservationists, sales people and even a development executive \u2014 is fueling questions over whether the Line hotel has fulfilled the necessary requirements for the 20-year subsidy..
\nAs the District has grown more prosperous in recent years, lawmakers and civic leaders have expressed skepticism that the city needs to give generous tax breaks to spur development.
\nYet when the D.C. Council enacted the abatement for the $145 million Line hotel nearly a decade ago, lawmakers and civic leaders applauded the benefits that the subsidy was intended to yield for the city.
\nIn exchange for the tax relief, the legislation required the developer to hire more than 300 D.C. residents for construction jobs to transform a former church into a 220-room hotel with three restaurants, a gym and a rooftop terrace. Adams Morgan community leaders and the developer hoped those jobs would be filled by low-income residents from the neighborhood and across the city.
\n\u201cIt was considered a model for responsible economic development,\u201d said Ed Lazere, director of the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute.
\nBut a District review this year found that the hotel fell short of its obligation, and now lawmakers and civic leaders question whether the Line is seeking to inflate its hiring numbers by including workers not typically identified as hard hats.
\n\u201cThis wasn\u2019t for someone who spent four years getting a college degree and then did graduate work in art history,\u201d said Bryan Weaver, an activist who helped draft the abatement legislation. \u201cIt was to help people who were the least, the lost and the left behind.\u201d
\nBryan Weaver, a former advisory neighborhood commissioner, who helped craft the requirements of the Line hotel\u2019s tax abatement. (Sarah L. Voisin\/The Washington Post)
\nWhile Line executives contend that they exceeded their obligation, the council last week deferred the implementation of the abatement for at least a year while the D.C. government completes an audit.
\nThe earlier District review found that the developer, the Sydell Group, failed to meet two hiring requirements, one of which was the total number of D.C. residents hired to build the hotel.
\nIn recent days, as it mounted a lobbying campaign to retain the abatement, Sydell created a website to press its case and released a list of \u201cconstruction employees\u201d whom the developer asserts resided in the District.
\nThe list includes dozens of plumbers, window installers, general contractors and excavation workers, as well as 186 laborers sent to the project by a referral agency that specializes in temporary construction workers.
\nThe list also included Bruner-Yang and 15 of his hospitality company\u2019s workers, 40 employees of the hotel, four historic-preservation experts, one of the hotel\u2019s owners and a designer who chose and installed the 3,000 pieces of art for its 225 rooms and hallways.
\n\u201cI definitely thought of myself as an integral part of the construction process,\u201d said Svetlana Legetic, the founder of Brightest Young Things, an online magazine and event production and marketing agency, when asked if she saw herself as a construction worker. \u201cYou\u2019re wearing sturdy shoes and a construction hat and a neon-yellow vest.\u201d
\nBut Allison Kuntz, who also appears on the list, said she never thought of herself as part of the construction team. \u201cI was on the pre-opening team,\u201d she said, describing her duties as \u201cbooking events \u2014 corporate events and weddings.\u201d
\n\u201cI am not a construction worker,\u201d Kuntz said.
\nBruner-Yang said in a text message that in preparing to open his Brothers and Sisters restaurant at the Line, he \u201cinstalled fixtures, painted walls, installed wallpaper, plumbing behind bars, built base boards, built equipment, did light electrical work, etc.\u201d
\n\u201cPretty typical stuff that happens when people are trying to get a restaurant opened,\u201d he wrote.
\nCounting workers
\nSydell executives said they defined construction workers \u201cin accordance with the standards established by\u201d the District\u2019s Department of Employment Services, the agency charged with monitoring whether the developer complied with the tax abatement\u2019s requirements.
\nCrawford Sherman, the Line\u2019s managing director, said in an emailed statement that the hotel included any employee who \u201cworked in connection with design, entitlement, building and oversight.\u201d
\n\u201cThis includes, but is not limited to, general contractors, sub- contractors, trade laborers, project managers, design\/technical services, consultants and accountants, or anyone whose primary workload supported the construction of the project,\u201d he wrote.
\nBut Tiffany Browne, a spokeswoman for the District, said the city \u201cuses various forms of data\u201d to determine \u201cthe definition of a construction worker, including but not limited to the [U.S.] Department of Labor classification and labor market data.\u201d
\nLast year, in response to a D.C. Council questionnaire, the Department of Employment Services said \u201cconstruction worker\u201d is defined by criteria set by the Labor Department and listed 49 job titles, including apprentice, carpenter, crane operator, pipe fitter and roofer. Architect, designer, salesperson and restaurateur were not among them.
\nIn April, the city agency informed the D.C. Council that the Line\u2019s developer had failed to meet two of seven criteria for the subsidy. It said that the developer hired only 273 of the required 342 District residents and that city residents did not complete the required 51 percent of the project\u2019s total construction hours, according to council members Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) and Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1).
\nWhat\u2019s more, the developer had not reserved all of its apprenticeships for District residents.
\nThe Department of Employment Services proposed to fine the developer $600,000 but still grant it the tax abatement because the hotel had \u201cmade a good faith effort toward compliance.\u201d But D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine determined that the legislation authorizing the abatement did not allow the developer to deviate from the requirements.
\nThe city is \u201ccontinuing its review of additional information as it is submitted by the Line hotel,\u201d according to an agency spokesman.
\nSydell has offered differing accounts of how it counted construction workers on the project.
\nAn independent audit prepared for the hotel in December identified 230 workers from the Adams Morgan Youth Leadership Academy, or AMYLA, a nonprofit organization that provides \u201cmentoring, life skills, service learning, expeditionary programs and job opportunities for our youth & families,\u201d according to its website.
\nAccording to a report from the auditor, the Pantera Managem ent Group, the laborers from the academy worked a total of 45,000 hours. The workers include Nigel Okunubi, \u00adAMYLA\u2019s managing director. Okunubi has not responded to requests for comment.
\n‘Begging for people’
\nExecutive Chef Opie Crooks works at A Rake\u2019s Progress at the Line hotel. (Deb Lindsey\/For The Washington Post)
\nWhen the developers proposed the hotel more than a decade ago, Adams Morgan community leaders expressed concern that the project would raise costs in a neighborhood already too expensive for independent merchants and low- and middle-income families.
\nWeaver, then on Adams Morgan\u2019s Advisory Neighborhood Commission, held meetings with then-council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) and Brian Friedman, then the project\u2019s main developer, to figure out ways to enlist community support.
\nThey talked of hosting job fairs and fanning out to low-income housing developments to recruit young men to work construction and learn skills.
\n\u201cEverything we talked about was how do you create a system where the hotel ends up getting people into career path training,\u201d Weaver said. \u201cIf this was going to be a symbol of gentrification in the neighborhood, let\u2019s find a way for people to feel pride in that.\u201d
\nFriedman, in an emotional phone interview, said he also embraced the concept, envisioning a \u201c60 Minutes\u201d story about how the hotel created possibilities for young men who often felt hopeless.
\nBut Friedman said that too often their best intentions were foiled by workers who quit or didn\u2019t show up. \u201cWe were begging for people,\u201d he said. \u201cWhenever a kid called me, I got them a job. The problem I had was that kids didn\u2019t want to work.\u201d
\nSoon after construction began in 2013, Weaver said, he became concerned that the developers weren\u2019t recruiting enough D.C. residents to work on the project. He said the development team seemed to intensify its effort only after a 2016 Washington Post article reported that the hotel was in danger of not meeting the hiring requirements.
\nJose Sueiro, managing director of the Metro DC Hispanic Contractors Association, said he appealed without success to the developers to hire his members beginning in 2014. At one point, he said, a development executive referred him to Walsh Construction, which managed the project.
\nAfter an initial phone call, Sueiro said, there was no follow-up.
\nA Walsh executive in the company\u2019s D.C. regional office did not return phone calls seeking comment.
\n\u201cThey didn\u2019t bother locally at all,\u201d Sueiro said. \u201cThey absolutely ignored us.\u201d
\nFriedman said that he had hoped to recruit more construction workers from Adams Morgan and nearby neighborhoods and that he received little assistance from community leaders.
\n\u201cAsk them how many kids they got placed,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted there to be a lot more \u2014 not just kids but people who were unemployed and homeless. Everyone came to be idealistic and didn\u2019t do anything.\u201d
\nFriedman, a developer for over 15 years, was among those whom Sydell recently listed as a \u201cconstruction employee\u201d on the project..
\n\u201cI do drywall,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

— DC for Reasonable Development 202-810-2768 dc4reason.org
\n — DC for Reasonable Development 202-810-2768 dc4reason.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was originally posted to the Adams Morgan Listserve June 25, 2019, as message #51519, groups.yahoo.com\/neo\/groups\/AdamsMorgan\/conversations\/messages\/51519 A $46 million tax break at risk over the meaning of \u2018 construction worker\u2019 There really should be no excuses on this one. We’ve had since 2010 to ensure this would be a successful project in terms of its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-housingarchive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}