PRESS ALERT: McMillan Supporters Submit Federal Case to Stop “Demolishing the Site” Based on McMillan Park Deed Restrictions

McMillan Supporters Submit Federal Case to Stop “Demolishing the Site” Based on McMillan Park Deed Restrictions

Washington, DC – On May 5, 2021, McMillan Park supporters have filed their long-planned federal case about the protective restrictions found within the McMillan Park Deed.  See below attached.

These restrictions “run with the land” and is binding upon “all successors or assigns of any real property interests” in this special 25-acre public site and one of the first de facto integrated spaces in DC at North Capitol Street and Michigan Avenue, NW.

The complaint filed by several residents on May 5, 2021, explains:

The controversy from which the federal claims in this action arise involve the District of Columbia’s purchase of the Site from the federal government of the United States of America in September 1987 for $9.3 million, during which transaction the United States as seller, acting through its General Services Administration’s Acting Director, Patricia E. Bailey, imposed severe restrictions on the purchaser’s (Defendant and present owner of the Site, the District of Columbia) ability to alter, destroy or modify the historic features located on the Site, by virtue of historic-preservation covenants that run with the historic property in perpetuity and which inure to the benefit of the public at-large, including Plaintiffs, to this day.

“We are finally getting to the elephant on the plinth, that is the restrictions that ride with the McMillan Park deed that were skillfully and unlawfully ignored by the Mayor, the City Council, the DC Zoning Commission, the Mayor’s Agent on Historic Preservation, and they even dipped under the radar of some advocates,” said Jerry Peloquin, plaintiff in the case and longtime Ward 5 resident and McMillan Park supporter. “The McMillan deed restrictions say the city’s proposed high-density corporate privatization plan that suggests demolishing most of the historic McMillan assets and paving over most of this important open green public space is simply not allowed, period.”

The plaintiffs — Jimmie Boykin, Linwood Norman, Jerome Peloquin, and Daniel Wolkoff — have filed the case without an attorney but are in touch with several attorneys quite interested in coming on board soon to complete the litigation.

The complaint explains what is at stake:

The 1987 Deed to the Site contains restrictive preservation covenants specifically requiring that any work at the Site, inter alia, renovation, rehabilitation, construction or demolition activities, will be in accordance with the federal Secretary of Interior’s Standards. Defendant, District of Columbia, by and through its officers, has previously admitted that the plans for and on-site work implementing the VMP PUD Project at the Site are not in accordance with the Secretary Interior’s Standards because of the proposed demolition and destruction of historic resources at the Site and subsequent redevelopment plans that shroud existing cultural resources at the site with several very large commercial and residential buildings.

Below find the filed complaint to the:
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA