As Black History Month winds down, third-generation Washingtonian Gregory Adams thinks about what’s become of the Northwest community he’s lived in for more than 40 years.
Though the U Street corridor, where Adams purchased a home with his late wife in 1984, still has remnants of what once made it “Black Broadway,” he is growing more disillusioned about the business closures and demographic changes that have taken place since the turn of the century.
“People who lived along the U Street corridor… in some of the houses, I’ve seen them go. “It wasn’t [that] they were dying off. They couldn’t afford to stay,” Adams told The Informer. “People driving into the city from the suburbs to go to church. It wasn’t everyone’s decision to move out of the city. It was an economic necessity.”
In 2023, Adams and seven residents formed Black Neighbors of 1617 U Street, what he described as an effort to stop Office of Planning’s upzoning of a nearby plot of land on which Third District Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) headquarters and Fire Engine Company 9 currently sit.
The map amendment in question would allow for mixed-use development, including residential, retail and municipal buildings through the construction of a 10-story building (MU-10), instead of a four-story structure (MU-4) as allowed at the time.
The Black Neighbors of 1617 U Street counted among those who questioned whether the proposal aligned with the 2021 Comprehensive Plan, or if it would even spur housing affordability amid area median income calculations that don’t reflect the District’s economic reality. Coalition members took their qualms to the D.C. Zoning Commission out of frustration with, as Adam explained, the manner in which D.C. Office of Planning advanced the map amendment.
“They were supposed to consider the cost to the community, particularly the long-term residents of the community,” said Adams, whose home stands across the street from the Third District Police Station. “They didn’t contact any of my neighbors. They didn’t talk to any of the Black residents of the neighborhood. They didn’t talk to Black churches in the neighborhood.”
In 2024, after more than two dozen meetings, the D.C. Zoning Commission settled on the Office of Planning’s modified upzoning proposal that, much to D.C. Councilmember Brianne Nadeau’s chagrin, is estimated to yield 52 fewer affordable units, and 175 units overall, due to only the V Street NW side of the land getting upzoned.
“Office of Planning effectively cut off the potential for more of all of the above with its half-measure to appease specious opposition arguments,” Nadeau said in a July 11, 2024, statement. “That opposition, which primarily argued that there would not be enough affordable housing, succeeded only in eliminating the potential for at least 50 new affordable units, and in reducing the size of a future public plaza.
Adams, a likely member of the opposition that Nadeau mentioned, told The Informer that, with the Office of Planning’s partial acquiescence to his comrades’ concerns, there’s still work to be done.
“It didn’t really solve the problem because there’s no guarantee that whatever’s put on that property will include really truly affordable housing,” he said.
As the RFP (request for proposals) process gets underway, Adams and other members of the Black Neighbors of 1617 U Street are still making the push for what they deem affordable.
“We’d like the city to actually consider a social housing program,” he said, “which would basically really guarantee affordable housing.”
The Conversation About ‘Gentle Density‘
Last year, the D.C. Office of Planning embarked on what will eventually become DC 2050, the first full rewrite of the District’s Comprehensive Plan in 25 years. The agency will shape the final product, which determines how and where future development will take place in the District, in collaboration with elected officials, D.C. residents, and community organizations.
Advisory Neighborhood Commissions (ANCs), including that which has jurisdiction over U Street NW, are also taking part in that process. Earlier this month, ANC 1B advanced a resolution in support of “gentle density” which would, as ANC 1B Chair Miguel Trindade Deramo said, liberalize the use of single-family homes in the expansion of housing.
“Working within that existing framework….how do we add more people?” Trindade Deramo told The Informer. “A couple ways are allowing the homeowner to subdivide the home and turn it into several apartments or condos. Another answer is allowing people to build accessory dwelling units, but behind their home facing an alley [like] in a carriage house.”
During its Feb. 5 meeting, ANC 1B adopted a resolution that Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Francois Barrilleaux (Single-Member District 1B02) introduced in support of “gentle density” throughout the District. Well before the meeting, the resolution caught the ire of housing advocates who say Barrilleaux’s resolution lacks affordability requirements for newly-constructed units, as well as provisions that pave the way for family-sized housing.
These advocates, members of what’s known as Save DC Public Land, say that the “gentle density” resolution, if embraced by D.C. Office of Planning, will exacerbate the displacement of marginalized residents across the District. Emails the coalition gathered through the Freedom of Information Act highlight attempts by Karen Gaal, public safety director of the MPD Third District Citizens Advisory Council, to revise the “gentle density” resolution so that vacant properties, not single-family homes, are considered sites of “gentle density” development.
Gaal, a member of the ANC 1B Economic Development Committee, also pushed for community input and the use of data from the government and peer-reviewed, independent sources, rather than members of the real estate industry. She didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trindade Deramo said there’s more community engagement to come, as it relates to “gentle density” and other aspects of the Comprehensive Plan.
“It’s not a comprehensive solution to the number of units that we need in the city in order to meet demand,” Trindade Deramo said, “but it’s one way to address that question of just how do you add more people in the city in a way that’s gentle.”
He decried the notion that “gentle density” would aggressively destroy the fabric of single-family neighborhoods.
“They’re quieter, we understand that, but obviously we need to add more people to the city,” Trinidad Deramo told The Informer. “A gentle way to do that is to divide an existing home into a number of apartments that…preserves the look and feel of the neighborhood, but also allows more people to move in through an increase in density.”
A Local Historian Weighs In on What Used to Be
Journalist and historian Briana Thomas didn’t speak directly to “gentle density” or 1617 U Street NW, part of what’s known as the Strivers’ Section Historic District. She did however point out the hoops and hurdles that members of any community have to jump through when weighing in on urban development matters.
“In general, the community does try, but voices aren’t always heard,” Thomas told The Informer. “Part of the issue is just actually [providing] more of a platform for people to know about the changes that are coming, and then to stick with it until they see it through.”
Last month marked five years since Thomas published “Black Broadway in Washington, DC.” The 192-page book details the unique history of U Street NW, starting at the Reconstruction Era, and ending around the 1950s, when African Americans had already established thriving businesses while under the thumb of segregation.
Since the release of “Black Broadway in Washington, DC,” Thomas has conducted tours along U Street NW, and collaborated with the National Association of Realtors to highlight what she calls a history decimated by gentrification. In making her case, Thomas points out that, out of more than 300 Black-owned businesses that existed along U Street NW at the height of its existence, only three are remaining.
“Those three are Ben’s Chili Bowl, Lee’s Flowers, and Industrial Bank,” she told The Informer.
As for newer entrepreneurial endeavors, Thomas said that their stay along and near U Street NW often gets cut short.
“I see new Black-owned businesses come into the area, and within a year,” Thomas said, “they’re folding because they can’t afford to actually hold property and stay within that community. There’s a lot that still has to be done in terms of progress.”
In recent years, Thomas has weighed in on urban policy while engaging ANCs representing LeDroit Park and a portion of U Street NW where developers built a condominium next to Bohemian Caverns, a historic restaurant and jazz club that closed a decade ago.
Those experiences, she said, have shown her what’s within the realm of possibility when it comes to preserving history.
“The city can create ordinances that [guarantee building] reuse in a way that [the building] doesn’t just become office space,” Thomas told The Informer. “A good example of that is Bohemian Caverns. A large part of why that building is still there, and that history is still saved, is because there’s an ordinance that says places that come in here have to be associated with music and nightlife.”
As far as affordable housing is concerned, Thomas said that that crusade should take place well before the construction of new property.
“There has to be systems set in place before building is finished that says this is what you have to maintain and keep for the lifetime of this complex,” Thomas told The Informer. “The way it’s working now, you can get inclusionary zoning, and then rates can change and so do the percentages. The first few years of opening up an apartment complex, they have to have a certain amount of the units that uphold it, but after a number of years, they can change those policies.”
In 2022, D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) introduced the Green New Deal for Housing Act, which aims to preserve affordable housing via social housing. If approved by the council, the District would fund this concept, which is mixed-income housing and the reinvestment of rent payments into lowering rent and expanding housing across the District.
The Green New Deal for Housing Act went to what was then the council’s Committee on Housing and Executive Administration, where committee chair D.C. Councilmember Anita Bonds (D-At large) conducted a public hearing. In 2023, when Lewis George introduced the legislation again, it went to the Committee on Housing and what was then the Committee on Business and Economic Development, chaired by D.C. Councilmember Robert White (D-At large) and then-D.C. Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (I-At large), respectively.
Neither committee conducted a hearing for Lewis George’s bill.
As Lewis George runs for D.C. mayor, Adams is taking up the mantle for social housing. He said seeing this vision come to fruition is a matter of ensuring that U Street NW can be, not just a monument and nightlife hub, but a place to live comfortably.
“I’d like for it to be more here than historic markers [about] what used to be here and there,” Adams told The Informer. “It’d be nice for people to still be there and for others to be able to move into the community.”