An Open Let­ter From FBA Pres­i­dent Asher Corson

FOGGY BOTTOM DC — I would like to update you on a mat­ter that is impor­tant to the Foggy Bot­tom Asso­ci­a­tion, to our community-at-large, and to me, as FBA pres­i­dent and a res­i­dent. Trou­bling infor­ma­tion has come to light that Equity Res­i­den­tial, cho­sen by the Deputy Mayor of Plan­ning and Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment to rede­velop the His­toric Stevens School into a dorm-like rental apart­ment, is mak­ing every pos­si­ble effort to force its project through the District’s approval process despite strong and con­tin­ued com­mu­nity opposition.

After tremen­dous neigh­bor­hood out­cry over the award of the devel­op­ment project to Equity, Coun­cil mem­bers Jack Evans, Kwame Brown, and Mar­ion Barry—all on the Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Committee—came to our aid and made it clear that the Equity deal would not pass through their com­mit­tee. CM Brown, Chair of the Com­mit­tee, told an FBA mem­ber­ship meet­ing audi­ence that the deal would be dead on arrival in his Com­mit­tee. At that point, it seemed that the deal was com­pletely dead. We remain thank­ful for the sup­port of Coun­cil mem­bers Evans, Brown and Barry.

The dis­ap­point­ing news is that Equity, in the face of the failed project, hired a well con­nected lob­by­ist to pres­sure the District’s decision-makers to relent. As reported in the “Cur­rent,” we know that this lob­by­ist has already met with CM Evans’ office and the Deputy Mayor for Plan­ning and Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment. The good news is that CM Evans has indi­cated his stead­fast sup­port for the neighborhood’s oppo­si­tion to the Equity project. The bad news is that Equity recently indi­cated to the FBA that it is being given the green light by the Deputy Mayor’s Office to move ahead with its project, despite no com­mu­nity support.

At this junc­ture, along with other com­mu­nity lead­ers, we need to strongly empha­size to the District’s decision-makers that we do not want this project.”

In the com­ing weeks, ANC Com­mis­sioner Flo­rence Har­mon will be arrang­ing meet­ings with com­mu­nity lead­ers to shore up and gain the sup­port of Dis­trict offi­cials on this impor­tant mat­ter. Also, I encour­age neigh­bors to send let­ters of sup­port to me per­son­ally (lashercorson@gmail.com), so that I can assem­ble and give them to our Dis­trict offi­cials. It will take a lit­tle more work to ensure that we pre­vent this inap­pro­pri­ate dorm-like devel­op­ment from being built on the His­toric Stevens site. With the con­tin­ued sup­port of our Coun­cil mem­bers, the hard work of com­mu­nity lead­ers, and your indi­vid­ual efforts, our goal is to con­vince the Deputy Mayor to stop mov­ing for­ward on this ill-conceived project.