{"id":576,"date":"2021-04-02T16:55:55","date_gmt":"2021-04-02T16:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/?p=576"},"modified":"2021-04-06T21:06:36","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T21:06:36","slug":"alert-letter-sent-to-council-in-opposition-to-a-racist-comp-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/dc\/576","title":{"rendered":"Alert: Letter Sent to Council in Opposition to a Racist Comp Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Brookland Manor Association Urges Council to Oppose a Racist Comp Plan<\/span><\/p>\n

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 1, 2021<\/span><\/p>\n

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Contacts:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Ms. Minnie Elliott, BMBVRA President, <\/span>bmbvassociation@gmail.com<\/a><\/span>, (202) 299-6647<\/span><\/div>\n
Beth Wagner, Organizer, <\/span>brooklandmanorcoalition@gmail.com<\/a><\/span>, (301) 800-1497<\/span><\/div>\n
Ian Coon, Communications, <\/span>ian.coon97@gmail.com<\/a>, (515) 822-8834<\/span><\/div>\n
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Washington\u2014 <\/span>Brookland Manor, the largest remaining affordable housing community in NE DC, and organizers gathered over 350 signatures on a letter opposing the <\/span>Comprehensive (Comp) Plan<\/span><\/a>. The letter calls on<\/span> the Council to oppose the proposed changes to the Comprehensive Plan because:<\/span><\/div>\n
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  1. The proposed <\/span>“upFLUMing”<\/span><\/a> (increasing intensity of future land use) at Brookland Manor is an <\/span>attempt to work around further community input and developer accountability.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. The Mayor\u2019s proposed changes <\/span>lack substantiation and analysis<\/span> required by the law.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. The Mayor\u2019s amendments seek to weaken a plan that should be made stronger.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. If the racial equity analysis of the Mayor\u2019s proposed changes show failures to address the harm on Black residents, the Comp Plan amendments should be rejected whole cloth.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u201cThis issue is personal to me and over 40,000+ other Black District residents who have been pushed out in the past two decades,\u201d says <\/span>Brookland Manor and Brentwood Village Residents Association President Ms. Minnie Elliott.<\/span> \u201cThis is weighing heavily on my spirit – I\u2019ve been losing sleep over this. This is not just a pie in the sky document we\u2019re talking about. These are people\u2019s homes and entire lives they\u2019ve known being skirted simply to increase the profit of greedy developers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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    Elliott has written more on the topic in a recent <\/span>Washington Post Op-Ed<\/span><\/a> and is available for additional comment. <\/span>The organizers\u2019 letter reads:<\/span><\/p>\n

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    The undersigned Brookland Manor\/Brentwood Village residents and allies ask <\/span>Ward 5 CM Kenyan McDuffie<\/span> and the rest of Council to oppose the Comprehensive Plan changes proposed by the Mayor for the following reasons:<\/span><\/p>\n

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    1. The proposed UpFLUMing** at Brookland Manor is an attempt to work around further community input and developer accountability.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    Among the hundreds of proposed amendments, we see that the Mayor has proposed to UpFLUM Brookland Manor\u2019s property in a spot-zoning gift to the developers. The existing PUD already upzones the parcels, so we are concerned because there is no practical purpose for upFLUMing other than potentially extinguishing the existing PUD to build matter-of-right. This means any of the developers\u2019 promises, agreements, and obligations of the already highly controversial PUD project at Brookland Manor could be discarded and the already expected displacement of Brookland Manor families would be accelerated and done so without any required zoning or planning accountability at all. This will harm Black families.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    2. The Mayor\u2019s proposed changes lack substantiation and analysis required by the law.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    The Comprehensive Plan itself requires progress reporting, impact assessments, and supporting data to show that any proposed amendments are fundamentally sound, based on real planning analysis, & will help and not harm DC residents. However, the proposed amendments were presented without any of this legally required analysis. When residents testified about the law and regulations that show progress reports and impacts studies are required with any amendments to the Plan, we have been ignored or worse. Mr. Trueblood must realize his decisions and that of his staff deeply affect the lives of Brookland Manor residents and vulnerable families across this city. We want the law followed, period.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    3. The Mayor\u2019s amendments seek to weaken a Plan that should be made stronger.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    The Mayor wants to weaken language in the Plan, making directives discretionary using words like should or encourage instead of shall and require. The recent Court decision regarding the PUD at Brookland Manor shows that if the Zoning Commission has the opportunity to use flimsy policies and rules to benefit the developers bottom-line, they will.\u00a0 The Court affirmed the Commission\u2019s flawed reasoning that the displacement of many Black families may be outweighed by a project they subjectively deem as a \u201cpublic benefit.\u201d The Commission has been allowed to waive away the future of existing residents for the sake of profit. This is why we ask the legislature to strengthen, not weaken, the language in the Plan.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    4. If the racial equity analysis of the Mayor\u2019s proposed changes show failures to address the harm on Black residents, we want the Comp Plan amendments rejected whole cloth.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    We understand that the Council Office on Racial Equity is evaluating the DC Office of Planning\u2019s Comprehensive Plan amendments now.\u00a0 We expect to see their report soon and if it makes critical findings that the Plan narratives and amendments harm us, we want the Mayor\u2019s proposed changes rejected and deferred until the Office of Planning actually does the work of planning required by the law and the requirements of the ethics and oath that these certified planners take and make for our city.<\/span><\/p>\n

    ##<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Brookland Manor Association Urges Council to Oppose a Racist Comp Plan FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 1, 2021 Contacts: Ms. Minnie Elliott, BMBVRA President, bmbvassociation@gmail.com, (202) 299-6647 Beth Wagner, Organizer, brooklandmanorcoalition@gmail.com, (301) 800-1497 Ian Coon, Communications, ian.coon97@gmail.com, (515) 822-8834 Washington\u2014 Brookland Manor, the largest remaining affordable housing community in NE DC, and organizers gathered over 350 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,41,1,67,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brookland-manor","category-comprehensive-plan","category-dc","category-planning","category-w5"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":585,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions\/585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/fit2print\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}