The resolution text may be found here: Public Land WG GBM Draft Resolution - Google Docs
IN SUPPORT-Gary Z
I am writing in support of R01, which calls on the DC government to accept a moratorium on the privatization of public land in DC until a program for social housing construction is adopted by the local government.
The proposed resolution is an outgrowth of the chapterâs Public Land working group, which has been organizing against the privatization of publicly owned land in DC by channelling grassroots opposition to private housing development into pursuit of social housing â the preferred housing development strategy of our chapter and national DSA. The resolutionâs objective is to clarify chapter position on the sale of state-owned land to private development, which has fueled mass gentrification and a cost of living crisis for district residents. By passing this resolution, the working group will be emboldened in its outreach to elected officials in pursuing a true path to social housing production by enabling the working group to organize local communities in support for neighborhood construction of decommercialized housing.
Our chapterâs current strategy for adopting social housing in DC is not working. There has been a long-standing plot to pass legislation that would create a pathway to social housing production. But momentum has stalled for years even as neighboring Montgomery County has adopted a social housing project that has been lauded in national press. The legislative path is necessary, but action will not come without pressure applied to local policymakers. The strategy being pioneered by the Public Land WG is vital and novel, in that it is organizing neighbors and community members to look at and take control of what is happening in their neighborhood. This creates a vector for mass organizing, something the current strategy has failed to surmont.
There is an economic myth that expansion of housing supply â regardless of how expensive â will reduce rents for extant tenants. This is not true in the short-to-medium term. Any expansion of mass public investment will raise property values and prospective rents that will lead to an increase in rents for surrounding renters and businesses. This is why the expansion of units covered by rent control, TOPA (Tenant Opportunity to Purchase) rights, tenants unions and strong tenant protections are so vital â they reduce the potential for rent scalping that siphons wealth out of communities. It should be noted, too, that even in developments where mandatory inclusionary zoning is issued, this path is unsustainable as they often require mass public subsidy to maintain and develop. What is needed is a plan to develop mass decommercialized housing to bring down rental prices â social housing is the only way out of this. Everything else is a band-aid.
It must be acknowledged that this resolution does not provide hard restrictions or grounds for punishment on our socialists in office. What it does do is clarify the position of our chapter and expectations around public land and space, creating clear expectations for engagement between the chapter and socialists accountable to us. Lets adopt this resolution, and work with our comrades in office to develop an end to DCâs era of unaffordable housing.
AGAINST-Bakari W.
Hi, Iâm Bakari, and Iâm urging you to vote no on this resolution.
I encourage you to read the Groundwork Caucus statement and some of the other statements against for more details, but I oppose this measure for a few reasons.
Nobody here is in favor of giving public land away to private developers for a dollar. But this resolution treats those giveaways as if theyâre identical to other ways of building on public land that are more accountable to the public and donât cause the same displacement. We donât have a public developer in DC or a Social Housing Authority to manage buildings, so until we overpower the strongest forces in the District and win the fights it will take to create/fund/implement those, any housing created on public land can only be built by a private developer through a variety of methods. Some of those methods are subject to this resolutionâs proposed moratorium even though they give us significant control over the number of affordable units built, how many of the âaffordableâ units are actually affordable, how many of those units are built for families instead of studios, and whether anti-displacement measures are in place or enforced. In order for our electeds to have an effective start to their terms and build housing like they ran on doing, they will necessarily violate this moratorium. This resolution also calls for electeds to revoke Requests For Proposals that have already been approved, which there isnât a real pathway for doing.
Drawing unenforceable red lines makes our political project weaker. So I encourage you to vote no.
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AGAINST-Sheely E.
I am opposed to this resolution. It is out of step with the social housing organizing for that our chapter has worked on for years, it would ally our organization with NIMBYS, and it make it harder for us to win the social housing we need while ensuring the proper use of our public lands. I encourage my comrades to vote NO.
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AGAINST-Carl R.
Comrades, I urge you to vote AGAINST this resolution. It is strategically bad: aligning ourselves with policies that will result in higher rents for working class residents of DC is not how we convince people that we represent their interests. I believe it also shows a true paucity of imagination! Housing that gets built is housing that we can later convert into social housing. Land that remains unused is land that drives up rent by keeping housing scarce, leading to displacement and rich landlords.
The process by which this has been brought to the chapter is also flagrantly wrong. The chapter has written a program, through a long collaborative process, that involved intense work from multiple groups and tendencies. It is not perfect. It will never be perfect. But it is ours - it is from all of us. This resolution cannot and is not that. In fact, itâs not coming from the Social Housing working group - itâs coming from a new working group! The chapter has moved past this disunity in action, or at least I hope it has. I urge you to vote NO.
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AGAINST-Hayden G.
Comrades,
I want social housing in DC as badly as anyone backing this resolution, and I think we are closer to it than we have ever been. With Comrades Lewis George, Raj, and Owolewa in office, we have a real shot at a municipal developer, a maintenance reserve, an Office of Social Housing, none of which exist yet. That is the work in front of us, and it is enormous.
A moratorium does not get us there. It freezes the only land the District actually controls while we build the institutions that would let us use it, and it asks our SIOs to choose between standing up new agencies with no planning behind them and breaking the housing promises they campaigned on. Neither outcome serves us. It also puts our chapter on the same side of specific fights as homeowners who oppose density in their neighborhoods and have learned to say they are holding out for something better. We should be pro-tenant and pro-housing at once. The resolution also treats every use of public land as equivalent to the dollar-a-lot giveaways that produced the Waterfront high rises, and calls for revoking RFPs that have already been awarded, which I do not think can be done.
The impulse here is right. Bowserâs land deals have not slowed displacement in Black and brown neighborhoods, and comrades are correct to be angry about that. But the answer is conditioning how that land gets used, not refusing to use it.
Please join me in voting no.
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AGAINST-Shannon M.
I strongly encourage everyone to vote AGAINST this resolution. I doubt a JLG administration would support this moratorium. Losing political capital with our future Socialists in Office (SIOs) before they even begin their term would limit our political capacity as a chapter. I trust more experienced housing experts â ones who align with DSA values and support social housing â in the next administration to push forward an agenda similar to CM Lewis Georgeâs Green New Deal for Social Housing Act. We must build more housing, push for social housing, restore TOPA, protect tenant rights, and expand rent control. This resolution would make it more of a struggle for us to build that reality, even with an SIO administration.
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AGAINST-Groundwork Caucus
The Groundwork Caucus of Metro DC DSA is writing to encourage our comrades to join us in voting no on the Resolution of Support for a Moratorium on the Privatization of Public Lands Until Social Housing Is A Viable Alternative.
We are fully committed to the project of winning social housing in DC, and with the election of Janeese Lewis George, Aparna Raj, and Oye Owolewa, we believe that we have a unique opportunity to make social housing a reality in the coming years. This is a chance for us to partner closely with our Socialists in Office to win and finally implement municipally-owned, mixed-income green social housing in the District of Columbia. It is an incredible opportunity, and one that we must approach with the careful consideration and gravity that this moment calls for.
We oppose this measure because it will not make our ability to build power in this moment easier â it will make it harder. It will not bring us closer to our Socialists in Office (SIOs) â it will drive a wedge. It will not make social housing more possible â it will put us in direct opposition to building more housing writ large, and therefore aligned with more reactionary homeowners in our city who do not wish to see greater density at all. We do not believe that our chapter should align ourselves with groups that are more closely aligned with the âNot In My Backyardâ movement. We need to be pro-housing and pro-tenant at the same time.
While we appreciate the intention behind this resolution, we see the call for a full moratorium on any development on public land until DC is ready to build social housing directly as extremely damaging to our ability to organize a broad tenant movement and to build power with our SIOs. Unlike our neighbors in Montgomery County, MD, where a handful of social housing projects already exist, we do not have a public developer. We do not have a reserves fund for maintaining municipally-owned property. We do not have an Office of Social Housing. And we cannot afford to rush to create these things in a way that may hamper the future success of DC-owned social housing projects. Blocking the immediate usage of public land for housing risks doing exactly that, forcing us into a no-win scenario where our new SIOs are faced with either standing up new agencies with little planning, or failing their campaign promises of increasing the housing supply â either of which would deeply damage our cause.
To win these broader reforms, we will need to organize for them and pass a Green New Deal for Social Housing. Come January, assuming the best for Novemberâs general election, we will have a Mayor primed to administer Social Housing in Janeese Lewis George. We will have Councilmembers ready to organize their colleagues to finally pass legislation that has been stalled for years. And we will need to bring together a broad movement of residents â tenants, coop members, and homeowners alike â to assert the pressure weâll need to get the Council to see this legislation through.
And in the meantime, we cannot stand in the way of building housing every place the District can â and that means leveraging public land To throw up new roadblocks to housing means aligning ourselves with the NIMBYs who seek to oppose multifamily housing in their neighborhoods, sometimes under the guise of âholding out for the perfect solution.â We will alienate those who are allies in this fight, including urbanists who may not align with all of our ideals but do want to see more affordable housing built across DC. We will also alienate ourselves from coalitions we have been involved with, who know that winning social housing will not be done by making demands that halt progress in building more densely across the District. We need a broad coalition to do something this ambitious, and we must be prepared to lead this fight.
That is not to say that we believe the public land giveaways of the Bowser administration have been remotely successful in stemming the tide of mass displacement faced by far too many of our Black and brown neighbors. And that is why we look forward to working with our SIOs to make sure that the power we hold in public lands is leveraged to its fullest ability, which can be done in a variety of ways. We can work with SIOs to ensure that the District maintains an ownership stake so private development on public land can be brought under District control once we have won social housing. We can fight alongside our newly elected SIOs to make sure that developers are finally held accountable to the public when building on public lands â and that they deliver the truly affordable housing our communities need. We can organize around the Comprehensive Plan that will be voted on next year to ensure our zoning laws allow for greater density across all 8 Wards, allowing for more housing to be more easily built in more places, and that developers are prioritizing 3- and 4-bedroom units so families can continue to grow in the communities they love. The proposed resolution falsely conflates these methods of land management with the $1 land giveaways weâre all opposed to â the same giveaways that led to the unaffordable high rises in Waterfront. It also calls for the revocation of RFPs that have already been awarded, which is not only infeasible, but likely impossible. This is why our endorsed candidates in DC have not adopted the stance in this resolution in their platforms: it doesnât account for the realities of governing.
Instead of focusing narrowly on blocking the building of more housing by holding out until we can develop the perfect ideal of social housing, the chapter should focus our attention on organizing tenants and people across DC to fight for a permanent and sustainable structure for social housing, for better zoning laws so housing can be built more easily, for stronger tenant protections and tenant assistance programs to end displacement, and for greater accountability from developers â especially those who benefit from public funding.
Our chapter must commit itself to fighting on all terrains possible â alongside our Socialists in Office â to ensure that DC builds the leading Social Housing office in the country. We can do that. But by taking our chapter out of alignment with our endorsed electeds, by taking on a hardline stance that does not confront the complexity of making sure housing gets built, we risk removing our ability to effectively engage in the fight for more affordable housing.
Please join us in voting no.
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AGAINST-Kirk G.
I strongly encourage everyone to vote against this resolution. This resolution will put us in direct conflict with our soon-to-be newly elected socialists in office (SIO). While there is overwhelming support for building more affordable housing through a range of policy mechanisms, we havenât established a social housing authority in the District yet. Thereâs a push to get there through Councilmember Lewis Georgeâs Green New Deal for Social Housing Act, alongside other priorities like restoring TOPA and expanding rent control. This resolution risks derailing years of organizing behind those priorities â the same priorities our SIOs campaigned on. This will have real political consequences and jeopardize the work this chapter has put years of effort into. Vote no.
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IN FAVOR-Kerry K.
KERRY KEMP
Statement of Support
for the DSA Public Land Working Groupâs
Resolution Calling for a Moratorium on DC Public Land Giveaways
Until a Framework for Building Social Housing is Developed
My name is Kerry Kemp. I am a 50+ year resident of the District of Columbia, a new member of DSA, a member of the Public Lands Working Group, and a long-time activist for social and economic justice issues. DC is giving away limited valuable public parcels and control of the air rights while its residents are being priced out of the city. Public land is one of the Districtâs most valuableâand increasingly scarceâpublic resources. Once public land is privatized, the public may never get it back. For that reason, I support the proposed DSA resolution calling for an immediate moratorium on the privatization, sale, disposition, or long-term transfer of public land and public air rights until DC adopts a binding framework for developing social housing on DC-owned public land.
- Relying on private, for-profit real estate developers to build new housing has not solved DCâs housing affordability crisis and has led to the ongoing displacement of black and brown DC residents
People who live in the District of Columbia, especially people with moderate or lower incomes, have struggled with a housing affordability crisis for many years. The American Community Survey 2019-2023 conducted annually by the U.S. Bureau of the Census found tremendous differences in median household incomes among DC households by race, with Whites having a median household income in 2023 inflation-adjusted dollars of $166,774 and Blacks having a median household income of only $60,089.
Data compiled by the DC Deputy Mayor for Planning and Evaluation from U.S. census data from 2013 to 2023 show that a large percentage of DC households are cost burdened or severely cost burdened. The housing cost burden weighs especially heavily on households with incomes below 80% of the Area Median Income (AMI) (as of April 1, 2025, the AMI was $163,900 for a family of four in DC).
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Low-income households (51-80% of AMI): Forty-seven percent are cost burdened; 7 percent more are severely cost burdened.
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Very low-income households ((31-50% of AMI): Seventy-one percent are cost burdened; 27 percent more are extremely cost burdened.
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Extremely low-income households (0-30% of AMI): Eighty-seven percent are cost burdened; 74 more percent are extremely cost burdened.
Prominent DC leaders, real estate interests, and others argue that providing public land and other subsidies to large and well-connected corporate commercial and residential developers is what is necessary to expand the economy, create new businesses and job opportunities, and ensure adequate revenue to meet the cityâs infrastructure and other needs.
In recent decades, city leaders have provided millions of dollars of public land and other subsidies to private developers to build new housing and commercial properties. Such subsidies have led to the construction of an extraordinary amount of new housing, but the vast majority (84%) of this new construction has been expensive Class A studio and one-bedroom housing units that existing DC residents with moderate or lower incomes are unable to afford.
The construction of Class A housing by private, for-profit developers in DC has caused rising property values and rents and resulted in the massive displacement of longtime DC Black communities, much in the same way that urban renewal did. From 2000 to 2013, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition found that Washington, DC, was the most gentrified city in the nation. In the coalitionâs 2020 report, DC became the 13th most gentrified city. There is no question that systemic racism plays an important role in the gentrification process.
- We cannot build our way out of the affordable housing crisis by subsidizing private, for-profit developers
Will Merrifield, Esq., the founder and executive director of The Center for Social Housing and Public Investment in Washington, D.C., challenges the idea that the private, for-profit sector, a group of people made up of Wall Street bankers, private equity behemoths, and large-scale development firms is the right sector to solve the housing crisis.
The hyper-financialized development model being employed by the real estate industry and their Wall Street backers does not invest in existing communities or the people in them. Instead, this model displaces people and extracts wealth. In this model, developers gobble up land in areas of the city that have faced decades of disinvestment. These developers then speculate on that land until they realize an opportunity to cash in. When the time is right, the industry invites a flood of Wall Street backed money into the neighborhoods. They do this while touting new development as a positive under the guise of âcommunity revitalizationâ. Like a dam breaking over a village, this flood of capital washes away people who have lived in these communities for decades. Once the big Wall Street money hits, land values soar. This invites more speculation as housing that was once affordable is demolished, making way for more expensive housing to be built in its place. for more expensive housing to be built in its place.
- Social housing built on public land could provide permanently affordable housing for DC residents outside of the speculative market
DCâs housing affordability crisis will never be solved if DC leaders continue to provide multimillion public land and other subsidies to private, for-profit developers and real estate investors to build luxury housing that displaces existing DC residents. I believe that it is time for DC leaders to take housing policy out of the hands of Wall Street and support the construction of permanently affordable social housing.
Social housing, as defined by The Center for Social Housing and Public Investment (CSHPI) headed by Will Merrifield in Washington, D.C., is âa publicly owned, mixed-income housing model that treats housing as a human right, not a commodity. A key feature of the model is that it replaces speculative private capital with public funding to produce housing for the common good.â The core principles of social housing are the following:
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Public ownership: Social housing is publicly owned, prioritizing community needs over profit.
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Mixed-income communities: It integrates people of different income levels to build diverse, resilient neighborhoods.
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Self-sustaining and scalable: Developments pay for themselves within 20 to 30 years, eventually generating revenue to fund more housing.
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Affordability: The model aims to maximize affordability while remaining financially sustainable.
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A public option: Social housing offers a non-market alternative, encouraging competition and lowering overall housing costs over time.
Social housing could work in DC. Locally, Montgomery County in Maryland has shown that with a minimal up-front investment, a government agency operating in the DMV housing market can stand-up a network of social housing that is replicable and scalable. Recently, the country created a $50 million revolving housing production fund that is projected to create around 750 units of municipally owned social housing in the first four year. As explained by Will Merrifield, the cost to the country for all this is only about $600,000 a year. Montgomery County is using taxpayer dollars efficiently and effectively to create a decommodified network of social housing. For these and other reasons, I support the DSA resolution calling for an immediate moratorium on the privatization, sale, disposition, or long-term transfer of public land and public air rights until DC adopts a binding framework for developing social housing on DC-owned public land.
AGAINST-Julia P.
This proposal is politically untenable and fundamentally misunderstands the actual political and legislative pathway to implementation of social housing in Washington, DC. Given that there is no social housing authority currently established and that it will likely take years of legislative work (and significant economic investment) to establish one, it seems a bit premature to foreclose the possibility of any sale to private developers for the purpose of building more desperately needed residential units. We are not going to win social housing by holding the city hostage until the program is ready to roll out.
Insisting on total, unconditional cessation of all public-to-private land transfers without a social housing program in place to pick up the slack will slow down housing development in DC, and associating our endorsees with this dogmatic proposal will harm their credibility as they prepare to take office and implement the (actually viable) social housing, tenant protection, and anti-displacement policies they have developed over the past year. Idealistic wishcasting and moral bludgeoning are no substitute for genuine political progress.
I also find it incredibly disingenuous and intellectually insulting that the authors have repeatedly implied that chapter endorsees support this proposal when none of them have actually made any statement showing favorability towards it, nor, to my knowledge, have they even been asked for their opinions.
Please vote NO.
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IN FAVOR-Chris O.
VOTE YES â PUBLIC LAND WORKING GROUP RESOLUTION CALLING FOR A MORATORIUM ON THE GIVEAWAY OF PUBLIC LAND AND AIR RIGHTS.
In the words of DC native, longtime public land advocate, and Ward 7 mother, Schyla Pondexter-Moore: âPublic land is a very, very, precious thing that we need to cherish, that we need to keep, especially here in Washington DC. And our current administration and administrations before have been selling off public land to private developers over and over like a monopoly game. So the fight for this land is a war.â https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX9CaTCcq-g
September 2026
Comrades,
Iâve seen a lot of displacement in the 26 years Iâve lived in DC. U.S. Census data shows that the District lost roughly 60,000 Black residents between 2000 and 2020, during a period when the city itself was growing.
I fundamentally find the loss of tens of thousands of our neighbors from DC wholly unjust and it is in this objective context that I firmly believe the dissolution of public land into private hands hasâand will continue toâfurther the ongoing harm against our neighbors who have struggled to remain in the hometown city that, in many cases, their ancestors helped build.
That is why I am asking you to support the call for a moratorium on the disposition of our limited and valuable public landâso that we can stop handing these assets over to private interests and instead ensure they serve the people and communities who have borne the brunt of gentrification and displacement over the past two decades.
Please see endnotes for additional citations.
Here are the key points why I support the Public Land Working Group resolution calling for a moratorium of in DC public land giveaways and ask you do the same
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Public land should be retained and used for the public goodâincluding decommodified, municipally controlled social housingânot surrendered to private profit.
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DCâs track record of land deals objectively demonstrates social theft, whereby private real estate speculators get control over our public land and air rights for little or no costâon top of the city committing hundreds of millions more in public subsidies, infrastructure, tax abatements, and financing.
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The result is too often lots more expensive market-rate units and very little if any of the truly affordable housing needed by working-class DC residents and families.
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This status quo public land privatization fuels displacement, gentrification, and rising housing costs while transferring public wealth into private hands.
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A vote for this resolution gives DSA and its candidates a clear political position: end the privatization and giveaway of DCâs public land and letâs move towards using our public land to repair the displacement harms of the past, not perpetuate them.
Comrades, please vote YES on the PLWG resolution calling for a moratorium on public land giveaways.
Supporting narrative and citations:
I have been part of the Public Lands Working Group for the past 18 months, organizing to protect DC public land from privatization. During that time, the PLWG has hosted numerous public meetings with many different constituencies from around the city. Our latest Zoom meeting on August 17 had more than 50 people in attendance with ANCâs, civic groups reps, and it included presentations from representatives of the Center for Social Housing and the Green New Deal Coalition DC.
**This resolution is prescient**and urgently needed. DC owes its longtime and deeply rooted working-class residents and families the expectation that our limited and valuable public land will be fundamentally used for the public goodâpointedly to repair the racist harms of the past, rather than perpetuate displacement.
Private capital does not serve our most vulnerable residents, itâs not in their way nor should we expect the gift of altruism from these speculators. Their motivations are clear, they want to maximize profit and externalize as many costs as possible.
In contrast, using our state-owned land and air rights, the public sector can more efficiently build the truly affordable housing we need, especially in down economic times. Because working families and people require shelterânot because a Wall Street pro forma says the return is or isnât high enough.
A favorable vote on the PLWG resolution allows DSA to take an unequivocable stand on an absolutely crystal-clear political demand: DC must stop giving away public land to private capital.
A favorable vote would also give our cadre candidates a powerful political tool, a political message they can shove directly into the faces of real estate speculators, developers, and their well-funded advocacy arms: That the people who elected them want the $1 public land giveaways and status quo displacement harms to end..
Under DCâs current corporate bourgeois redevelopment rubric, publicly owned land and air rights have been jettisoned into private speculator handsâsometimes for as little as $1. And the giveaway does not end there. The public then pays hundreds of millions more in infrastructure, tax abatements, subsidies, and direct public financing to make the private project viable (Please see endnotes for some citations).
To review, under the privatized IZ trickle-down status quo public land deals, we give the speculators the land. We give them the air rights. We pay to prepare the site. We build the streets and infrastructure. We subsidize the project. And then we are told that we should be grateful for whatever crumbs come back. Socialist principles require opposition to this corporate liberalization and disposition of our limited public assets.
Scroll down for an an animation showing just four of DCâs more recent privatization land deals. Also, see**this slide from the Center for Social Housing illustrating** just how bad the Wharf deal was for the public.
THE HARM WILL CONTINUE UNLESS WE TAKE A STAND
The same small cohort of well-connected real estate interests in DC always offers empty expectations as to the return to the public by these public land privatizations deals. They promise tax revenue. They promise âaffordable housing.â They promise economic development.
But what have these deals actually delivered? Too often: de minimis tax revenue (or zero when tax abatements come into play) and large luxury residential developments designed primarily for wealthier single professionals. Dense buildings dominated by expensive studios, one-bedroom apartments, and condos (With 70%-85% of all new projects consisting of expensive market rate units serving one person).
And while the real estate investors profit from the public asset they acquired and can bank, surrounding communities, especially those more vulnerable to gentrification absorb the consequences: rising land values, rising rents, rising housing costs, and accelerating displacement.
The track record is clear: the state has repeatedly used public land not to stop displacement, but to fuel it. And in the process, the city has been foolish enough to give away the actual income-generating component of these assets, the land and air rights themselves.
The means of production embodied in public land and air rights are being used to benefit well-connected corporate real estate interests resulting in expensive housing for a relatively small slice of wealthier DC residents. Meanwhile, working-class residents and familiesâthe people struggling hardest to remain in their cityâare left behind.
With a favorable vote, DSA can take an absolutely crystal-clear position: the status quo public land deal rubric must end. Housing redevelopment on public land should instead move toward a decommodified, municipally controlled social housing model.
We can use this resolution to openly advocate that DC stop using state-owned assets to unnecessarily facilitate private extraction and gentrification. We should retain these assets for the benefit of longtime DC residents and use them to provide housing supply freed from private profit motivations.
This is especially true during difficult economic times. When private developers and speculators cannot or will not build, only the public sector has both the capacity and obligation to ensure that truly affordable housing is produced to meet the needs of working-class residents and familiesânot simply wherever private capital can extract the greatest return.
This is the right time to support our cadre candidatesâand potential new membersâthat the Metro DSA takes a principled stand against the extraction of public wealth for private profit. Our public land and air rights must serve our people and the public needs, not corporate greed.
Comrades, please vote yes on the resolution.
Chris O.
DC resident since 2000
ANC Commissioner (2008-2010)
Homeless services & public library advocate
ENDNOTES:
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The last decade shows how DC taxpayers have been fleeced in public land lease-aways and sell-offs (see some examples below). News article, âD.C. Does Bad Real Estate Dealsâ published in the District Dig, by Jeffrey Anderson, on March 17, 2016, https://districtdig.com/2016/03/17/d-c-does-bad-real-estate-deals-but-why/, âIndependent appraisals show the proposed sale [of 965 Florida Avenue], at $400,000, to be more than $5 million below real property value.â
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News article, âA Reimagining in Washington Divides the Neighborsâ published in the New York Times, by Eugene Meyer, on June 23, 2015, https://archive.ph/dedZE, City taxpayers are funding all upfront costs at the McMillan Park land deal consisting of at least â$78 million in predevelopment costs, including fees to lawyers to obtain zoning and other approvals, and for site preparation, preservation and amenities.â
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News series, âDeals For Developersâ, produced by Julie Patel and Patrick Madden for WAMU 88.5, updated on May 13, 2013, https://apps.npr.org/deals-for-developers-wamu/, âMillion-Dollar Properties, $1 Deals: Parcels of city land â often valued at millions of dollars â have been awarded to politically connected developers, some for pennies on the dollar. Since 2008, D.C. lawmakers have approved 20 of these land deals, at a loss of more than $200 million in city assets.â
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Press Alert, âThe Legacy of $1 Public Land Deals May Continue in the District of Columbiaâ, DC for Reasonable Development, December 15, 2022, http://www.dcfeedback.com/fit2print/dc/3135, âCouncilmember Anita Bonds: âI really think that doing the dispositions on these surplus properties we really need to slow down enoughâ pointing to the fact that there arenât many public parcels left to giveaway and that there isnât a comprehensive plan for our public land. âYou canât buy a Snickers bar for a $1â said Trayon White, Ward 8 Councilmember. Councilmember and 2022 Mayoral candidate, Robert White said, âWe need to do a lot betterâ and said heâs working on reforming the public property surplus legislation.â
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Editorial, âDC Wharf Brings Up Familiar Problemsâ published in the Georgetown Voice by the Editorial Board on October 27, 2017, https://georgetownvoice.com/2017/10/27/dc-wharf-brings-up-familiar-problems/, âThese two themesâthe undervaluation of property and political connectedness of developersâare consistently seen in the Districtâs handling of contracts for development projects. The property for these projects is often exchanged with developers at prices drastically under the market-rate, at times on the order of tens of dollars to millions of dollars as in the case of the Wharf property, and the companies awarded contracts by the District regularly donate hefty sums of money to public officials. ⌠In the view of this editorial board, the trend around this country of using public money to fund private investments is dangerous, and city governments and their citizens should be extremely wary of such projects.â
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Webpage, âReal Estate Projectsâ published by the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, URL: https://dmped.dc.gov/page/real-estate-projects
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Online database, âProject Pipeline Database (PPD)â as linked to under the DMPED Real Estate Projects Pipeline and published by the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, âView real estate projects by wardâ, URL: https://octo.quickbase.com/nav/app/bgk8b4c4n/action/appoverview
AGAINST-Tim S.
This resolution asks the chapter to align with wealthy homeowners who oppose new construction to keep their property values high on the basis of vague utopian posturing, and against our own electeds, as well as pretty basic good governance. The principles underlying the resolution are good in theory, but what this resolution would mean in practice is that our chapter is committed to opposing policies like WMATA selling underused parking lots to build housing. Itâs bad that one of the better tools municipal governments have to increase the housing supply also enriches capitalists, but the solution to this is for us to greedily take as much power as we can to change the rules of the game, not to tell our electeds and our constituency that they need to go to bat for NIMBY class interests to be good socialists. If we take this position, our electeds will ignore us, people who care about housing affordability will wonder what we were thinking and then also ignore us, cynical homeowners will exploit it to pretend their efforts to enrich themselves are principled, and no socialists or working class people will benefit whatsoever. Please join me in voting no.
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AGAINST-Tyler S.
This measure would put our chapter in direct contradiction with the member-electeds we just elected to council and elevated to mayor. This would kneecap our ability to push for affordable housing and it is not thought through in terms of actual applicability, and instead focuses on rewarding a small group of ineffective activists.
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IN FAVOR-Amanda L.
I find the language in this resolution useful for a few reasons. One, it makes it very clear that we want decommodified housing, which is the basis for DSA pushing for social housing as a model. And two, it acknowledges that this city must retain control of public land to do thatâthis is especially useful in any discussions about housing where others may mean something different when they talk about affordable housing. Building more housing is not the same as decommodifying housing. Building more affordable housing is also not necessarily the same as building social housing, which must be permanently affordable and democratically owned.
The Public Land Working Group was formed and continues to center site-specific parcels, not only like 1617 U St, but also the RFK stadium. The stadium is an example of why DSA, along with progressive coalitions across the city, need to fight for municipal control of land instead of leasing land and air rights while bargaining for concessions. This resolution is not meant to re-litigate specific sites. Rather, through organizing around these sites, the working group has increased neighborsâ awareness of how housing development in DC currently works and how it could be different. I am one of those neighbors near 1617 U. Seeing flyers for this, attending social housing infoshops in the area put on by the group, door knocking neighbors to host a block party where we encouraged people to learn about social housing, bringing neighbors and ANC commissioners to tour social housing in Montgomery Countyâ that is all part of the strategy.
I see this resolution as complementary, not opposed, to DSAâs overall efforts to advance social housing. Strategically, the language of this resolution helps us clarify what it means to decommodify housing, which gives us a starting point to educate and mobilize more neighbors at a hyper-local level. That kind of broad awareness and support will give incoming socialists in office more leverage to implement social housing, and pressure other elected leaders to get with our program.
Beyond our chapter membership voting to pass this resolution, the working group would love to work with other interested members. A few examples of what we could do together: 1) creative ways to get folks thinking about housing like block parties, writing workshops, and infoshops, and 2) advocacy at the ANC level, which is really important not to overlook given the increasing calls for gentle density proposals at this level that donât prioritize municipal control of existing public land. If you are interested, please reach out!
IN FAVOR-Christina F.
I am writing in support of the resolution for a Moratorium on the Privatization of Public Land. While I understand the argument that we donât want to alienate our new allies, one of the tenets of Janeese Lewis Georgeâs campaign was Dignified Homes DC. This is social housing in all but name. Our request for a moratorium doesnât have to be adversarial, it can be a tool to show all our elected leaders that there is a groundswell of support for social housing AND there is opposition to the current status quo. A resolution for a moratorium wonât be enough, but the request, whether or not successful, will generate conversation and better awareness of social housing overall.
Further, there is a perception of corruption with these types of land deals. Whether or not that is verifiable, social housing doesnât have the same incentive structure for corruption so can be a means to bolster citizensâ confidence in government. Research shows that higher levels of public trust lead to healthier, happier, and more resilient citizenry.
While weâve seen the pitfalls of previous iterations of public housing policy, we only learned the true costs decades later. The new policy de jour appears to be public land giveaways restricting residential developers to allocate space for lower incomes, but like all contracts, these have expiring terms. Once those terms expire, the city will have fewer resources to address housing unavailability. DC is selling the future of affordable housing for a perceived quick win today.
IN FAVOR-Preshona A.
I am a low-income, working class, BIPOC Ward 7 resident. I have been leading a homeschool group here east of the river since 2014. This is my statement in support of the moratorium on public land give-aways:
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Selling public land to private developers has been a terrible violation to Black and brown working class residents of DC.
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A moratorium (end) to this practice is the first natural step to stopping this practice of private extraction that harms so many of us.
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We all deserve pretty things that we can afford; this decommodified social housing model on public land allows us to pool our incomes together so that we can enjoy diverse, rooted, and truly affordable DC communities.
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I must also say that I am genuinely confused as to anyone opposed to this moratorium within a socialist movement - particularly with no viable alternative presented. This is a fundamental step to socializing the housing economy, and it protects working-class Black and brown families from being kicked out of the city we work hard to live in.
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For more information breaking down why this is a significant problem in DC and why this proposal is a viable alternative: bit.ly/dchousingcrisis
And on behalf of the majority of our tenant association here in the District of Columbia, we are in support of this moratorium.
IN FAVOR-Oye O.
STATEMENT OF SUPPORT: RESOLUTION FOR A MORATORIUM ON THE PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC LAND
I am Oye Owolewa. I am a DSA member, a pharmacist, a former ANC Commissioner in Ward 8, DCâs elected United States Representative, and the Democratic nominee for Council At-Large. I live in Congress Heights.
I have watched what happens when decisions about land in my ward get made by people who do not answer to the neighborhoods around it. The federal government is building a $524 million DHS campus at St. Elizabeths West, and not one DC resident had a vote in Congress on it. That is federal land and a federal process, but the pattern is familiar. When our own government disposes of our own land, residents often learn the terms after they are settled.
Public land is leverage the District already holds. Every time we hand a parcel over, we spend it, and we do not get it back.
A clear position from this chapter is worth something to a Councilmember sitting across from a developer asking for a parcel at a nominal price. It sets the terms before the negotiation starts instead of after.
So I support this resolution to keep public assets in the public domain, and I will carry it with me. On the Council I will push for social housing as the preferred and default use of public land suitable for residential development. I will push for continued public ownership and control written into the terms of any disposition, rather than traded away for expensive studios and one bedrooms and an inequitable affordability with an expiration date. And I will push for real reporting on what communities actually receive when public land changes hands, so we can see whether we are truly meeting the needs of the people who need it most.
Public dollars require public standards. So does public land.
IN FAVOR-Far
I am writing in full support of this Resolution put forward by the Public Lands working group. I think as socialists we need to be embedded in our communities and helping tackle local problems. Calling for a moratorium for the giveaway of public lands, is both an easy stance for socialists to get behind, but is also directly informed by the local community who it affects. I am convinced by the motivators of the resolution who articulated the reasons why passing a resolution like this would help their advocacy work and push the campaign towards a tangible win. I encourage everyone to support.
IN FAVOR-Robin D.
Support for the Public Land Working Group Resolution Calling for a Moratorium on the Giveaway of Public Land and Air Rights.
My name is Robin Diener. I am the director of the Library Renaissance Project, and a long time observer of DSA, who recently took the step of becoming a member.
In 2007-08, I witnessed firsthand the making of The West End Deal. It showed me how public land deals were done in Washington, DC: behind closed doors, as special favors negotiated between Councilmembers and their friends in the real estate industry.
Literally in the midnight hour before a Council vote, a secret negotiation between the Mayor, Council, and a favorite real estate speculator ultimately resulted in the giveaway of three public propertiesâonly blocks from the White House and worth more than $75M. The public was being asked to surrender a library, a police station, and a firehouse to then-Councilmember Jack Evansâ friend and developer Anthony Lanier.
But people organized. We brought enough heat into the streets that the Council was forced to repeal the giveaway. https://archive.ph/UfuMb
Afterward, we fought to change the law, re-coding DCâs land disposition process to require greater transparency and more public hearings, a law still in place today: https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/10-801
More than fifteen years later, however, I have seen a parade of public land deals and had to reckon with the obvious limitations of our effort towards reform. The details are now buried in financial development documents that most residents will never see, let alone fully scrutinize, effectively putting this public-work in the shadows as much as before the law was changed.
And the result remains fundamentally the same: the sale or long-term leasing of our cherished public landâand including our public air rightsâto private interests, often for very little in return with almost no accountability of the empty promises such as for âaffordableâ housing. https://savedcpublicland.org/the1617project/2023/07/10/dcs-sordid-track-record-of-public-land-giveaways/
If we are serious about mitigating displacement and protecting rooted communities, particularly those most vulnerable to being pushed out of this city, we must protect our valuable public property. Public land and air rights are one of the few assets we collectively own. Once sold or committed for generations to private speculation, it is extraordinarily difficultâif not impossibleâto get back. Our public land should serve human needs, not corporate greed.
Thus, I stand with the Public Land Working Group and allies who seek to end the routine disposition of our public property.
I will be voting YES on the resolution calling for a moratorium on the giveaway of public property and public air rights and ask DSA members to do the same.
Robin Diener.
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Some background:
The Secret Deal and the âTake Backâ
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The 2007 âEmergencyâ Legislation: In 2007, Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans introduced and passed a sole-source public-private partnership contract giving three incredibly valuable pieces of public land in the West End over to developer EastBanc without a competitive bidding process. [1, 2]
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The Public Outcry: Activists and neighborhood groups were furious that Evans used emergency legislation to bypass public notice, completely locking out the Foggy Bottom/West End Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) and community input. [1, 2]
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The Council Takes it Back: Facing immense public backlash over a lack of transparency and a potential âsweetheart deal,â the D.C. Council was forced to reconsider and rescind the sole-source contract. In 2009, the District officially opened the land swap up to competitive bidding. [1]
The Aftermath
Ultimately, after opening up the process, the city still ended up selecting EastBanc anyway. Evans introduced a new, formalized bill to carry out the $150 million project in 2010. [1]
Years later, this specific project resurfaced in a major way during the 2019 ethics investigation that ended Evansâs career. Investigators discovered that Evans had voted in favor of subsequent technical amendments to provide funding to the site (specifically the Squash on Fire facility built alongside the library) while secretly working as a paid consultant for EastBanc through his firm, NSE Consulting. [3, 4, 5, 6]
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com