Comments on: Marion Barry Calls For Gentrification Commission

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 04:21:02 +0000

Anwar, the Wash City Paper published this story... um not the WaPo. Just look at the address bar next time...

By: jimbo

jimbo — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 13:29:22 +0000

Word to Marion Barry. You're not fooling anyone other than Ward 8. Pay your taxes and shut the F up.

By: Southeast Ken

Southeast Ken — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 22:07:37 +0000

Welcome gentrification to many neighborhoods that's been turned into ghettos and barrios. People need to take pride in their communities and stop living like animals and destroying them. You don't have to be rich and educated to take pride in where you live. The Democratic Party has brained washed blacks an other minorities that's it's the government's responsiblity to take care of poor lazy ass individuals.

By: DcNative

DcNative — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 14:21:25 +0000

Dear Ward 8,

Please, please read the comments posted and you will get a gist of gentrification's impact in DC and a sampling of the mindset of the gentrifiers!

Most of the comments aren't about Anacostia or the Gentrification Summit, but about H St NE, Ward 6 and Ward 1, of which all have undergone rapid and expansive gentrificaition.

Read it and you'll get a taste of what's heading your way.

By: Cap City Records Panhandler

Cap City Records Panhandler — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 01:29:03 +0000

@Jay Lee 2.0

O'Malley and McDonnell have states to run. If you are lucky you will get some representative from their inter-govt office to come over -- and that is highly unlikely.

This meeting although relatively tame was another example of people just rambling for the sake of rambling. Nothing of much consequence was said. I know people in Ward 8 think many of their ideas or both revolutionary and original, but, in fact, they are neither.

People need to get out more and/or learn more about what is really going on.

While it is positive these "meetings" are happening they just take up space and time. I guess that is OK, because can feel they are involved and are able to take some sort of credit down the line.

By: Cap City Records Panhandler

Cap City Records Panhandler — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 01:00:39 +0000

@Jay Lee

You need to learn oral and written grammar when trying to make the declaration of self-promotion.

"nor was we" -- wrong

"nor were we" -- right and the King's English

By: 14thstcolhgts

14thstcolhgts — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:00:09 +0000

As an African American who owns a small, local, real estate business on 14th Street in Col hgts, I attended the Ward 8 Genetrification meeting because we have experienced first hand a total restructuring of our community within the last 10 years with more than 10 small, minority owned businesses going out of business due to the massive construction, traffic congestion, noise, frequent loss of power, due to the construcrtion of the DC/USA shopping center, i.e. Target, Best Buy, Marshalls, etc., and several other chain stores such as Chipole and Starbucks. While often referred to as racial, gentrification is basically an ECONOMIC PHENOMENA which, by default, fuels white domination of a previously, lower income, minoirty community. Thus, well-captitalized, upscale, stores, restaurants, etc. move into a previously economically depressed area, while simultanenously, developers who are building upscale, high priced housing begin to monopolize the housing market. For example, The average sales price of a house today in Columbia Heights is $600,000 which now ECONOMICALLY eliminates most all African American and minority purchasrs (required income would be $150,000 to $200,000 per year). A two BR rental apartment is $2,000 to $3,000/mo. Lease space in the DC/USA Shopping center comes with a $70/SF price tag and while there was supposed to be 15,000 SF ( at $40/SF) of the total 500,000 SF in the Center set aside for small, local, disadvantaged businesses, to date, without access to capital, NOT ONE small, local business has been able to afford the prohibitively high cost of build out. Many of the previously-existing small, businesses were unable to survive the onslaught of construction, and never received the funds set aside by the the NCRC to off-set the adverse impacts. Therefore, the community has now become predominately gentrified by the national chain stores and the "new-comers" who can afford the higher home prices which just happen to be white. Therefore, unless some safeguards (affordable housing programs) are put into place, likewise will go Ward 8 given the fact that William C Smith and other developers are already building housing that is "unaffordable" to the majority of the African American in the community coupled with the fact that approx 70% of Ward 8 residents live in rental houing which surely will start to "fly off the shelf" as prices start to escalate in anticipation of the coming Homeland Security Complex with 22,000 employees at St E. The OWNERS of these units will want to capitalize off the coming buying frenzy. Without access to capital to fortify their existing businesses or to be able to transition into businesses to cater to their "new neighbors," the existing small businesses are particularly vulnerable. Columbia Heights is the "Postr Child" of Gentrification (after what happened years ago to the African American community in Georgetown of course). Therefore, given the lessons learned in Columbia Heights, Gentrification, if properly managed, COULD be a good thing rather than replicating its "stigma" of "urban removal" of the lower and moderate income African American communities.

By: H Street fan

H Street fan — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 16:17:00 +0000

Julia assisted with writing and lobbying for both the Streetscape relief and the retail incentive grant. She and Anwar worked on these together. She works on behalf of CHAMPS members on H and around the Hill. Is your business a member? Not that it matters since non-CHAMPS members should be beneficiaries of the Streetscape relief.

And please please please point to the legislation that funded the bars, these so called grants that were directed to the bars and restaurants? I don't recall any of them receiving any government funding.
I'm sure they would really like to know about these grants they have been missing out on.

By: Jay Lee

Jay Lee — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:51:07 +0000

Good Morning, even though hosting the meeting on Gentrification was my idea and I asked Ms. Brenda Richardson to partner with me to make this happen, Ms. Richardson nor myself never received credit nor was we even mentioned in the article but I'm fine with it. It's not about me, as long as the meeting got the attention that it has, is more important.

We will be holding a core group meeting in the next couple of weeks to address what was discussed and then bring this back to the public in a few months on an even larger scale. This time I will be inviting the Governors of Maryland and Virginia to attend because the entire DMV will be affected by Gentrification in Ward 8 and Ward 7.

By: NE DC

NE DC — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:08:42 +0000

H St Barber:

I'm a taxpayer, homeowner, and a resident of the H Street neighborhood. Not a business owner. Never received a grant.

Stop your whining and your pathetic race baiting, put on your big-boy pants, and start cutting some hair if you want your business to survive. The tax paying citizens of DC have provided you a huge opportunity on silver platter by investing in H Street. It's too bad all you can do is complain that you deserve more.