As I proffered in Part 1 (http://dcfeedback.com/whj/), our DC government promotes an unfair double standard in the design, implementation and benefits from city development policies. Specifically our public policy double standard is biased against low and moderate income Black Women and their families.

Particularly when it comes to who is positioned by our government to benefit from the acquisition, maintenance and accumulation of wealth (equity) through development incentives such as public land dispositions, loans through tax abatements, incentives, regulatory manipulation, enforcement even our city’s Comprehensive Plan.

Our government’s double standard and biases when it come to equity is best illustrated the saga of Park Morton public housing residents’ quest for equity under the city’s NCI development program and our government’s responses in the saga of the Adams Morton Hotel, The Line, over the last 10 years, Effectively our government used every excuse, regulatory, legal and political maneuver in its arsenal to frustrate the Park Morton Equity, while doing the inverse on behalf of Line Hotel developers and investors. In fact if strip it down, the Amendments to the Comp Plan proposed by OP before the Council will enshrine this double standard if passed as is.

Back in November when our government approved the Line Hotel tax abatement it completed the transfer $46M in public dollars, $25M in public equity to MGM Resorts International with a market cap of $14.6B, a hedge fund (Wexford) with $2.5B in assets under management and another fund (Friedman) built in part on opioid “pill mill” profits. The approval marked the end of a 10 year saga of our schizophrenic government unwinding probably the tightest written community benefits package with clawbacks in DC to my knowledge. All the while restructuring one of DC’s most unique and politically active neighborhoods, Adams Morgan, into a play pen for fund managers and billionaires.

To the east in another neighborhood, Park View/Pleasant Plains, our government was explaining to public housing residents that although the city was privatizing their public housing, they were not entitled to TOPA rights. And equity for them was not a consideration, that awarding them equity would harm the viability of their NCI development project. Which was kind of ironic, even hypocritical.

Ironic because, the residents of Park Morton are told they can’t acquire public equity because it would hurt project viability, but the developers of the Line Hotel and their investors were told that their project could not be viable in order to acquire public equity. Park Morton residents are told that their project can’t change to in order accommodate their demand of equity, while our city worked with the Line Developers to rework their project at least three times to ensure MGM and the edge funds got their equity. Two sagas which pretty much define the meaning of double standard and what our government has become.

The double standard and biased here is clear, no Trump and no Proud Boys, our DC Government after 7 years can’t find a path to equity and wealth building for the residents of Park Morton led by low and moderate income Black Women who live in our city, and can’t not find a path to enhance the wealth positions of the Line Hotel developers and investors primarily already wealthy White males through public equity some who don’t even live in our city. Under the current Comp Plan amendments, we want to bring this equity double standard to all 8 wards and neighborhoods in the city through a process call UpFluming.

I guess that’s racial equity in Black and White.

William