Mr. SISK. The present price now is $15.30 a square foot, is that correct?

Mrs. ELLIS. Yes.

Mr. SISK. Of course, on the parking situation I can understand, of course, that this leads to increased expense. I am not here again familiar enough with the legal position under which the city of Washington would be required to operate. In my own home city, of course, we require any building to be constructed or for whatever purpose to have offstreet parking and do not permit any more construction without the person putting in parking. This is whether it is under urban renewal or private construction, building a church, or whatever it is. Today, you must afford off-the-street parking. I think we have come to the point where this must be provided for in the future. Washington would be derelict if it did not do this.

Mrs. ELLIS. Do you mean by that when you say offstreet parking, surface parking on their lots or underground parking?

Mr. SISK. Regardless of whether it might be underground or surface. Generally, of course, in the congested areas we are going to have to go underground, or up. We will have to have either roof parking or underground. Really, the surface itself is too precious today.

Mrs. ELLIS. Mr. Doyle did tell us that in the Chicago Loop they had this garden roof type of parking. It cost $6,000 per car space. I do not know what small business can afford such parking as that.

Mr. SISK. I agree that for small business, $6,000 per space is pretty high. But let me proceed. I do not want to take a lot of the committee's time, but let us have a brief discussion of the bill. The bill is more or less threefold and is outlined by Mr. Doyle. What it does, of course, is increase the number of those having priority. This would bring in all the people more or less affected into what you might call an equal priority. It would extend this 60-day period and then the last section sets a limitation so to speak on the leased price for land subject to the appraised value. To what extent do you feel that those provisions in the bill would give you relief from the problem which you have now? In other words, as I understand it, you are supporting this legislation.

Mrs. ELLIS. Yes.

Mr. SISK. And without discussing the merits or demerits of the bill as I understand the price is one of the real big things you are concerned with and I am certainly inclined to agree that the price does sound high in comparison to a lot of other prices quoted, but I do not see where the bill gets to the price issue at all, do you?

Mrs. ELLIS. Oh, yes, it does because it reemphasizes the land use, does it not? I do not have the bill before me right now, but I believe it does.

Mr. SISK. As I say, I am not criticizing the bill. I am trying to find out wherein you see anything in the bill that would actually be of any direct benefit to you except for the fact that it would, I believe, give an additional 6 months of time here to talk and to study and to, let's say, delay action. Now maybe we need that time. I do not know. I do not see wherein an additional 6 months in itself is going to do more than simply delay the time when we will have some operating business, we hope operating at a profit in the area.

Mrs. ELLIS. But the reason for this additional priority period-of course, as I say, I do not think we ever had it-the reason for this,

47-520-65-pt. 1- +3

though, is that if the plan is changed or any of the terms under which the property is to be leased, and that would mean for the benefit of a nonpriority developer, then the priority holders will have the right to another additional priority period in which to negotiate and take advantage of those.

You see, we fear, Mr. Sisk, that after we have used up the 180 days, whenever we get it, some other businessman if he has good, sound business sense is not going in there and build a building under the requirements they have for us and he is going to say, "I can't build here." Then if they lift those requirements and change those plans and prices, we are out. We have no chance, so that is very important.

Mr. SISK. Let me hasten to say, Mrs. Ellis, that I agree completely with you that if there is a major change in the plan and by "major" I mean a change in the pricing or change in the use pattern or whatever it might be, that certainly the present priority, if there is any good at all in being a priority holder certainly they should again be given an opportunity to participate under that new plan, but to that extent I am very sympathetic with you.

This

Mrs. ELLIS. Under the present law we do not have that protection. This would give it to us. At the end of 180 days, according to the old law, we have no more chance to negotiate. That is it. would give us the right. That is very important, that section 3. Mr. SISK. Well, as I understand, if there were a group of people who were ready to purchase or enter contract or have indicated any desire to do so, I thought you indicated to me that you, yourself, had indicated a desire.

Mrs. ELLIS. Not under the present proposals. I would not be here today if I were satisfied.

Mr. SISK. Maybe I am not getting my question clear.

Mrs. ELLIS. No.

Mr. SISK. I do not see anything in this bill, assuming there is no change in the plan, that is going to give you any lower price out of this. I can see, of course, if the time came and let us say they cut the price to $10 per foot or $12 per foot, or something that this would give you an additional opportunity.

Now it is my understanding both from the testimony of a year ago and the testimony this morning that that is certainly the intent of the RLA at the present time and it is my understanding that they consider this to be the intent of Congress in the initial legislation on this.

I do not see any indication on the part of the Agency or the Board to deny you that in the event there is a change. It is my understanding that after the most recent adjustment which was a 10-percent adjustment, that everyone was to be notified and the statement was put in the record this morning that this would be given in the event of any future change. So I am only trying to pin down to the extent of the value of the legislation itself in developing this in the most expeditious way and getting on with the job, so to speak.

Mrs. ELLIS. Well, after 5 years I cannot understand their concern now about even a 6-month delay. Really, I cannot. I asked Mr. Doyle one time if he could do without his salary for 4 years because some of those businesses have never been able to go back in business.

But I think they would be willing to wait another 6 months if they would be able to go back. Under this contract, they cannot. So I cannot understand Mr. Doyle's concern now about the delay. But this last part of the bill would certainly lower the price. If the Redevelopment Land Agency intended to carry out the intent of Congress, why they did not instruct their appraisers to appraise the land according to the use to which the land was to be put, the number of stories, and the type of businesses that would be there instead of fair market value unless it is because they had some criticism for some of the cheap prices they had been giving other people. But I do not see why the expense of the bulkhead and all these other considerations should be used as a hammer over our heads and force us out of business.

Mr. SISK. You feel the new Review Board will not be fair in their appraisals?

Mrs. ELLIS. Well, I note from the letter I received they were instructed to give fair market value instead of the language that is in the law.

Mr. SISK. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Dowdy. Thank you, Mrs. Ellis. We will include in an appendix to these hearings, when we get through I suppose, certain testimony which was taken by our subcommittee last fall in connection with the waterfront, and two paragraphs from the report made last year, pages 49 and 65. (See appendix pp. 71, 73.)

Mrs. Ellis, your full statement and enclosures, and some letters to the chairman, will be placed in the record.

(The documents referred to follow:)

BACKGROUND

Mr. Chairman, my name is Sarah E. Ellis, 1011 E Street NW., Washington, D.C.

After 32 years, our family business on the waterfront, the Cy Ellis Raw Bar & Seafood Restaurant, was closed by order of the Redevelopment Land Agency at the end of 1959. There has been no effort made to relocate our business by that Agency, despite their misleading reports. The same situation applies to a majority of the displaced businesses of the waterfront.

The so-called "Downtown Progress" plan now threatens to place the bulldozer at the door of our other business, located at 1011 E Street NW., established in 1936, across the street from the Old Weser's Oyster Bar of my ancestors, which formerly operated on the site of the Harrington Hotel and served such historic figures as Daniel Webster and his contemporaries.

The promoters of "Downtown Progress" (who are not the representatives of downtown business in the general sense) are amazingly, extraordinarily, fanatically hungry to obtain the ruthless Federal power of eminent domain in order to assemble land, to seize real estate power, to destroy buildings, and to eliminate hundreds of small businesses which serve the central city in the traditional American manner of family-owned enterprise.

Many of these buildings could have been-probably would have been rebuilt or upgraded, if it had not been for the ominous threat of the "Downtown Progress" bulldozer. As an example, I call your attention to the major remodeling job which was undertaken by Murphy's Variety Store on F Street and the new Safeway building on F Street which were undertaken in spite of the "progress" threat.

The record stands that rebuilding and revitalization of the downtown area has lagged behind other areas, namely, the L Street, the K Street, the Pennsylvania

Avenue areas.

"Down Progress" will continue to depress the central city as long

as they use the threat of their bulldozer.

THE WATERFRONT

RENEWAL OF THE SOUTHWEST

When the urban renewal laws were enacted by Congress, the great need for slum clearance in Southwest Washington was an emotional issue, cited by many national leaders, with the need for action on the fighting front of city revitalization very evident, complete with pictures of slums at the feet of the Nation's Capitol Building.

"What has been the record?"

After 15 years, the Southwest area of the Federal City is still an undeveloped prairie with no community life. Thousands of families have been displaced and scattered to the four winds. In most cases they were forced into housing which was worse than that which was destroyed. In most cases these families were forced to find their own roofs outside the District of Columbia. In the Southwest area, 748 small businesses were displaced. Those displaced businesses which were relocated by the RLA could be counted on very few fingers.

At the rate of this record, the Small Business Administration is fighting a losing battle. The RLA can destroy small business much faster than all forces of Government and of community cooperation can possibly re-create.

In the meantime, the corporate taxes, the income taxes, and the payrolls of these businesses have been lost to the Treasury forever.

"Is this a way to mount a war on poverty"?

NEED FOR MORE CONGRESSIONAL ACTION

The District of Columbia-particularly the Southwest-which was to be the showcase of the Nation, has turned out to be the disgrace of urban renewal: 1. Families displaced without relocation (people removal).

2. Small business destroyed (irrevocably).

3. The normal municipal tools of zoning, building codes, health and sanitation regulations, fire hazard rules, taxation methods have been ignored almost from the moment RLA had expressed interest in bulldozing.

4. Normal consultation with the business community has been avoided; bankers, parking experts, economists, small business experts, nonprofit housing groups. 5. A confused, relentless blanket of property seizure has oozed over the landscape, destroying homes and businesses, communities and churches, and human lives at great public expense.

6. Justification of the huge public cost has not yet been established; great prairies of waterland do not produce tax revenues; families which are destroyed do not produce sound Government; small business which is destroyed produces no revenue to city or Federal Government.

Surely, the District Committee should ask for a justification of this program before any more lives and any more businesses are destroyed.

WATERFRONT TIMETABLE

Despite the fact that the waterfront has been repeatedly cited as a key feature of the Nation's urban renewal showplace-the Southwest projects-the delays and waste have been almost unbelievable.

Repeatedly, outside consultants and planning groups have been hired at public expense to do the work which RLA and the National Planning Commission were reluctant to perform. After 4 years, not 1 square foot has been leased or sold, rebuilt, or redeveloped.

For several years, the Agency blamed the waterfront delays on a need to build a new bulkhead.

That bulkhead was completed in June 1963, but not one spadefull of dirt has yet been turned over in the redevelopment of parcel No. 90, the waterfront.

PARKING

A special land use study for the waterfront was prepared by the Real Estate Research Corp., Chicago, and offered to the public February 15, 1961. Upon the basis of this research study, the priority holders submitted their proposals and applications only to discover that RLA is not following the recommendations of their own consultants.

In particular, RLA has chosen to ignore professional standards for waterfront parking and has proposed a canyon of low parking garages on both sides of the new street-Water Street.

Furthermore, the RLA plan would require restaurants and shops to be built on streets while the parking area underneath would become a community property with no relation to the parking needs of the individual businesses.

We have asked RLA for an explanation of how this grotesque plan can be managed or how it can be financed under normal business or banking procedures. You can guess that there has not yet been any satisfactory solution suggested. Furthermore, RLA has resisted proposals for submitting the problem to a committee of reputable bankers and parking experts.

Mr. Chairman, the committee will probably remember that when it was proposed that the city should build an underground parking garage at Farragut Square, with gardened roof, the Congress turned down the project when it was determined that the cost would be $7,000 per car space, even with low-interest Federal financing. In spite of this, RLA has no hesitancy in trying to force a similar construction project upon the priorityholders of the waterfront with a brandnew soft fill which is interlaced with steel anchors and tie rods.

Another aspect of this situation is the picture of a restaurant on stilts over an underground cesspool, subject to seepage and sewage flooding. I cannot imagine the health inspector approving of this arrangement where food is to be served.

Mr. Chairman, we can hardly forget that when we were granted a hearing before the National Capital Planning Commission to protest the peculiar parking plan, we went through a cruel hoax of a hearing. The plan had already been approved and was on the printing presses before that hearing was convened and before we testified.

The fiercest resistance we have encountered from RLA has been to our plans for providing on-site, customer parking (which is the lifeblood of the neighborhood restaurant business).

Our purpose in wanting to provide surface customer parking is simply that we wish to reestablish our displaced businesses in accordance with the priority legislation provided by Congress.

The Real Estate Research Corp. strongly emphasized the waterfront need for customer, surface parking, at least one car space for each 22 restaurant seats. Personally, I have more faith in that report of the experts than in the proposals of an Agency which ignores its own professional consultants.

Every time we try to explain our problems to RLA, we get the impression that everyone has turned off a hearing aid. Although a few meetings have been held, there has been no real communication between the Agency and the priorityholders. Perhaps for this reason, there has been no disposition of real estate.

SITE SELECTION

Since the land use study of 1961 and particularly since the report of the nonprofit consultant organization (Washington Channel Waterfront, Inc.) in 1963, we have tried repeatedly to enter into site selection discussions.

Even after WCW recommendations for sites for priorityholders, we have noť been successful in getting these conversations started.

An immediate stumbling block has been parking, of course. The Agency has repeatedly protested inability to allow anything but underground parking. Another block to site selection talks has been a very quaint and interesting answer: Oh, well, the priorityholders can't afford to lease this land anyway. What secrets has RLA been trying to keep from priorityholders, from Members of Congress, from the public? Is it a guilty secret?

A complete revelation of their crystal ball secrets would be extremely interesting reading from the citizens of the District.

PRICE

At long last, the Agency has announced prices for waterfront property-up to $17.30 per square foot (later qualified by a gesture reduction of 10 percent). However, this price has not been implemented by permission to talk about a given site; therefore, the price is meaningless for purposes of negotiation.

This pricing procedure ignores a long list of considerations normally included in land utilization surveys and, particularly in the waterfront case.

First, the intent of Congress has been ignored, or flaunted, because the prices are completely out of line with the standard costs of those displaced businesses which Congress directed should be returned to the waterfront.