A chance to do things differently? How the Greenleaf Gardens redevelopment plan could fulfill its goals.

Last November, the DC Housing Authority (DCHA) selected a co-developer for its planned redevelopment of Southwest’s Greenleaf Gardens community and embarked upon a precedent-setting approach to engaging Greenleaf Gardens residents.

Now, DCHA has brought that co-development team into its first meetings with residents and stakeholders to explain the proposal that so inspired confidence in DCHA’s selection committee. Here’s what that proposal entails and how it relates to what DCHA required in its request for proposals (RFP).

The winning proposal

The co-development team Greenleaf District Partners, led by Pennrose, EYA, and the Bozzuto Group, has put forth a preliminary vision for a four-phase, 1,400-plus unit development covering the existing Greenleaf Gardens development, roughly between Third Street and Delaware Avenue from Eye to M Streets SW, and between First Street and Delaware Avenue from M to N Streets SW. Of the new construction, 493 units would be replacement units for each of the housing units currently at Greenleaf Gardens. The remaining units would be mixed-income with some at market-rate and some below.

The development would also include about 35,000 square feet of commercial space along M Street, two acres of open space in a revamped Lansburgh Park, around the King Greenleaf Recreation Center (which will remain), and along Delaware Avenue and First Streets. Overall, the development would total up to 2 million square feet.

While the specific details of how those units will be spread and phased across Greenleaf’s current footprint are still to be determined, the proposal indicates multifamily buildings of up to eight stories further from M Street and up to 11 stories tall fronting M Street, 130 townhomes off Third and Eye Streets and off Delaware Avenue on the current site of Greenleaf Midrise, and 83 condo units above commercial space in one of the buildings on M Street.

In order to realize DCHA’s intention to build first (ie. deliver new units for current residents to move into before razing their homes), the development team is offering a surface parking lot at Capitol Park Plaza and Twins (whose owner is also on the development team). The site on G Street SW can support a matter-of-right 86-unit development. A second build-first site comes courtesy of a development Bozzuto is doing in partnership with Westminster Church at their site at 400 Eye Street SW. The proposed planned unit development would include 123 senior affordable units (and 99 market-rate units) and is currently moving through the zoning approval process. The latter project will happen in any case, and Westminster Church was also a partner in one of the other development teams that competed to redevelop Greenleaf Gardens.

The winning proposal aligns closely with the 2017 Redevelopment Plan put together by HR&A Advisors* and Perkins Eastman, although the 2019 request for proposals does not require this. The 2017 plan contemplated a development with at least six phases alongside a string of neighborhood park spaces, including at least 116 mixed-income townhouses or townhouse-style units, multi-family buildings up to 75 feet tall along Delaware Avenue off Eye Street and up to 90 and 110 feet tall fronting M Street, and some ground-floor retail along M Street.

Nothing set in stone – yet

While this sounds like a good starting point, a lot of details remain outstanding, as DCHA and the co-development team reiterated throughout its two December meetings. In fact, the entire redevelopment is expected to take at least 10 years to complete.

DCHA will need to negotiate the specific ownership and deal structure for each parcel involved in the redevelopment. Each current Greenleaf Gardens site will have to go through a Section 18 demolition and disposition application through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), a process which also enables DCHA to secure federal housing vouchers for those residents who request them. Then, each new development site (excluding the build-first sites mentioned above) would have to go through design, zoning and entitlement approval processes. Additionally, financing will have to be secured for each development site.

That’s not to mention the negotiations between DCHA and the co-development team that only began in November. Following the board’s vote of approval, DCHA is on a 180-day clock to consummate the co-developer relationship with Greenleaf District Partners with an operating agreement before the more extensive planning described above can begin. DCHA will also have to return to the Board for votes of approval before submitting any “demo/dispo” applications.

Residents are meant to stay updated each step of the way in monthly meetings with DCHA and the co-developer. Greenleaf Gardens Resident Council President Dena Walker is also starting a residents-only advisory council in hopes of strengthening resident advocacy throughout the redevelopment process.

But while DCHA and members of the development team have assured Greenleaf residents that their feedback and participation will help shape the particularities of the redevelopment, it is by no means an easy or straightforward road to completion.

Build-first doesn’t mean “Move once”

In the meantime, many residents will continue experiencing poor living conditions if they have to remain in their units for years while awaiting for the approval, entitlement and construction processes to complete. And this presents one of the contradictions DCHA is faced with: during December’s meeting with the Greenleaf Neighborhood Advisory Council, stakeholders expressed their concern that residents may feel uprooted if they have to make one or more interim moves before relocating to their newly-constructed replacement unit. DCHA representatives responded that they also prioritize ensuring that residents only have to move once.

However, one of the “build first” opportunities the development team proposed is moving current residents who are interested in doing so to vacant units at Capitol Park.

Also, DCHA’s renovation plans for the 2021 fiscal year previously included making nearly three dozen vacant units in Greenleaf Gardens move-in ready in order to consolidate residents and, ideally, prepping certain sites early to proceed with Section 18 raze applications to HUD. The specific details of where those renovations and consolidations may take place across the Greenleaf properties are still to be determined, however, based on what DCHA and the development team agree is the most feasible first phase.

That first phase will require DCHA and the development team to negotiate a master developer agreement (each phase will likely have its own), so the chances of residents having an idea of what the first phase will entail by the end of this year are slim. And based on the meetings held over the past couple of months, some residents seem less concerned with how many times they move than getting out of their current units.

Setting priorities and avoiding pitfalls

Of the questions asked by residents during their December meeting, most were about opportunities to move in the short-term due to concerns about public safety and unit disrepair. For stakeholders on the Advisory Council, concerns also included whether construction of replacement units would be prioritized over construction of market-rate housing, as previous DCHA redevelopments have seemingly made replacement units an afterthought. One nearby example of this is less than a mile away at the former site of the Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg Dwellings off South Capitol Street, where public housing units were demolished starting in 2004 yet over 200 replacement units remain unbuilt.

“You at least have the experience of what didn’t work, of what stalling points or what logjams there were with getting units built and land deals and all that,” Debra Frazier, former Arthur Capper resident, activist and archivist, stated during the Advisory Council meeting. “Take your experience of failure, and let’s make Greenleaf a success.”

Senthil Sankaran, DCHA’s senior vice president of Capital Programs and Real Estate Development, seemed to agree specifically on how the agency is now trying to place more emphasis on better communication and updates throughout the process, but also cautioned against the Arthur Capper juxtaposition. “While Capper seems to be an easy comparison given its proximity, I think the approaches are very different,” Sankaran stated. “This is not a HOPE VI property, this is not one where we are demolishing and relocating folks, this is definitely one where, from the get-go, from the start, where we are securing build-first opportunities to prevent displacement.”

Ultimately, however, Arthur Capper is both the closest in proximity and perhaps the most glaring example of a perhaps well-intentioned public housing redevelopment-gone-arguably-wrong in DC**. DCHA has a lot of work to do over the next several years to prove to residents of Greenleaf Gardens, its other public housing properties, and communities citywide that the agency has learned from previous — and ongoing — missteps.

*Editor’s note: A member of Greater Greater Washington’s Board of Directors is also a partner with HR&A Advisors. Our board has no influence over editorial decisions, nor content, in any way.

**Also, development team-member EYA developed the townhouses for the Arthur Capper redevelopment.