Whereas it is clear from a study of this report on the $45,000 resurvey that it would, if approved by the District Commissioners, open the door to unlimited urban renewal and bulldozing similar to the blitz that destroyed the 560acre Southwest Washington urban renewal project area. This would be the consequence despite the fact that the Housing Act of 1964 requires the administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, in working with local officials, to utilize the tools of code enforcement and rehabilitation in preference to the bulldozer technique; and

Whereas it is obvious that the Adams-Morgan urban renewal project area does not need to have the buildings on one-third of its acreage demolished; does not need to have one-third of its population and families displaced, and does not need new and fanciful housing and building standards imposed by the bureaucratic empire builders in the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency. What is needed in Adams-Morgan is strict enforcement of the entirely adequate housing and building codes the District of Columbia already has, and it needs such application of the codes without favoritism, and without application-as at present-which will provide a backdoor method of bringing the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency into the area: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Independent Citizens of Adams-Morgan demands from the Commissioners of the District of Columbia a list of the defective buildings and structures (residential and nonresidential) in detail; and objects strenuously to the terms of "slum" and "blight" which have been loosely bandied about by the District of Columbi· Redevelopment Land Agency and which have done more than anything to blight the area and impede its development, and be it Resolved, That we call upon the Commissioners of the District of Columbia to reject the Adams-Morgan urban renewal project plan developed by the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency because it does not recognize "the plight of property owners in urban renewal areas," as President Lyndon B. Johnson said is given marked attention in the National Housing Act of 1964. Nor is provision made in the Adams-Morgan urban renewal project plan, as President Johnson said of the National Housing Act of 1964, so that property owners in the area "can rehabilitate their homes and businesses instead of having to move from the path of the bulldozers."

Organizations supporting the foregoing resolution include: the Kalorama Citizens Association, the District of Columbia Federation of Citizens Associations. the Kalorama Triangle Restoration Society, the Adams-Morgan Light Industrial Institute, the 18th and Columbia Road Business Preservation Association, the Property Owners Protective and Improvement Association: the block associations, and councils of the following Adams-Morgan streets: Lanier Place, Biltmore Street, Ashmead Street, Mintwood Place, and the 1700 Block of U Street; the Committee for Progress Through Private Enterprise, and the Committee for the Rights of the Washington, D.C. Business Community.

Respectfully submitted.

Members of the executive Board of the Independent Citizens of AdamsMorgan:

Mr. DOWDY. Have you heard the testimony of Mrs. Josephson? Apparently she indicated that 90 percent of Adams-Morgan wanted this Federal urban renewal. Do you agree with her statement?

Mr. FERGUSON. Maybe not 90 percent of the people, or maybe 90 percent of the people she contacted. She has been in the area two and a half years.

Mr. DOWDY. I believe she said one and a half.

Mr. FERGUSON. Or one and a half. I have been in the area since I was in the third grade. Let us put it this way: I do not think I am springy youth by any means. We have worked very hard in our community. We were all for it at the outset, but when we were subject to so much underhandedness and we would write letter after letter trying to get clarifying information, but we still have no reply.

96-227-65-pt. 6——5

It got so bad we had to go down and see Mr. Doyle when he first came to Washington, before he was too embroiled in the red web of Washington officialdom.

Our group went down and talked with him about our situation and we found him very, very receptive to our group. They did appreciate it.

You sce, you cannot have a project of this sort built around personality cults nor can you have a project of this sort built around wholesale acts of libel, and so on, against other citizens. We have read the applications for the demonstration project and we knew where a lot of things were going wrong. We protested the fact that the application on the contract does say that Adams-Morgan Neighborhood Conference shall be the organization because Millwood Civic Organization is predominantly colored and Kalorama Citizens is all white. Here was a group we felt could work very harmoniously and when a few of us began asking questions those of us among the founders of the Adams-Morgan Neighborhood Conference-when we began asking questions for our own information from a Government agency, before you knew it they had set up the Adams-Morgan Community Council. Zoom, that quit, and here it is listed in this official relocation report as the organization through which most of the information is going to be carried.

This goes in two places here at the outset. It is listed that the Adams-Morgan Community Council shall be the organization, which is all right, too. After you elbow somebody out, whether legally or illegally, you have to have something to fill the vacuum. I guess it is well they had an organization where people would not ask questions and would not mind not getting answers to their letters where they seek information so they can act intelligently.

Mr. Dowdy. Would you say these block organizations represent the majority of the people in the various blocks who Mrs. Josephson said came in and voted for this plan?

Mr. FERGUSON. I would not say, because I know of many a vote they have taken and we have not had a chance to take it back to our block organizations. Our block organization is 21 years old and we have-in fact, it will be 22 years old on February 14-only 30 members when a big issue comes up. We have around 15 or 20 at other meetings. That is far less than we had originally because it was 100 percent owner occupied.

We have difficulty in listing the interests of what is now becoming an overwhelmingly larger number of people. There are a lot of them, newcomers, and a lot of them do not know what we mean when we say block organizations.

In answering your question, I would say that hardly any block organization, as such, represents hardly more than a third of the residents in the area. Of course, you have to break this thing down as between owners and prideful citizens who rent. There is a difference between that and people who just come in to use a home to sleep and do their drinking and carousing, and so on. It is far different. Mr. Dowdy. From our talks and conversations, I believe you are proud of your neighborhood and we want to keep it?

Mr. FERGUSON. We are proud of our individual homes and we want to have a better environment. That is why we have taken certain steps. We have taken further steps about the results of this moratorium which we are feeling to this day. One whole end of the block, exactly up to a point where this field officer told one of our members they are going to take the premises, it is just going down far worse this year than last year and far worse than the year before, and the year before that.

Mr. Dowdy. That is because of the moratorium placed upon upkeep?

Mr. FERGUSON. I would certainly think so.

Mr. DOWDY. And code enforcement?

Mr. FERGUSON. Yes.

If the force and power of government wants to do a thing it can do it. When it does not want to, it shows up as it showed up in our block. All we have to do is to look out the window and ther is no theory about it. There is the actual daily observation based on what

we see.

Mr. Dowdy. Thank you.

There is one more witness I want to hear before we adjourn. That is Mrs. Josephine Bailey, and I think you mentioned her. You may proceed.

STATEMENT OF MRS. JOSEPHINE M. BAILEY, PRESIDENT, BLOCK COUNCIL OF THE 1700 BLOCK OF U STREET NW.

Mrs. BAILEY. Congressman John Dowdy, Chairman, and members of Subcommittee No. 4 of the House Committee on the District of Columbia, my name is Mrs. Josephine M. Bailey. I am president of the Block Council of the 1700 Block of U Street NW.

Our council was formally organized on February 14, 1943. It has been a continuous community action group since its founding. Residents living on both sides of the block comprise our active membership of some 30 persons. According to our constitution, the block council was created

to encourage the maintenance of property in such a way as to enhance property values, the health and safety of area citizens, and the beauty of our city.

For nearly 22 years we have worked with this goal constantly before us.

In the interest of saving time at this hearing, I respectfully direct your attention to the "Statement of the Block Council of the 1700 Block of U Street NW.", on page 2056 of the transcript of hearings on Adams-Morgan before your subcommittee, May 17, 23, June 14, and July 19, 26, 1963.

Our block council's statement makes it very clear that we gave unqualified support to the Adams-Morgan demonstration project, officially approved in December 1958. Through a grant totaling $204,000, including $125,120 in Federal Government contributions, the project, under provisions of section 314 of the 1954 Housing Act would eliminate what was then 8 percent blight in the Adams-Morgan

area.

Our statement, on the other hand, complained of the high rate of turnover in the assignment of Adams-Morgan field office community organizers to area C, of which our block was a part; of greatest importance, however, is the complaint of our council that

there was little or no *** evidence that absentee landlords of deteriorating properties were compelled to adhere, without exception, to the District of Columbia Housing and Building Codes.

(This was one of the major points of our complaint list given the community organizer at the May 24, 1959, meeting of our block council.)

On November 6, 1964, we received copies of "Adams-Morgan, Democratic Action to Save a Neighborhood." This is an official report of the Adams-Morgan demonstration prepared by the Office of Urban Renewal, District of Columbia, in cooperation with Stein & Narcou Associates and American University.

On page 74 of this demonstration project report we were shocked to read the following:

Rehabilitation of structures was not pressed in area C because it was obvious that if any buildings in Adams-Morgan were to come down, the most likely candidates would be in area C. Therefore, the two organizers who were, in succession, responsible for area C were compelled to use different methods from the other organizers in stimulating compliance with Housing Code requirements. For the most part, only repairs absolutely essential to health and safety were required in these buildings.

Our shock was compounded by this further admission, also on page 74 of the report:

Thus, as the "demonstration" ended less than 23 percent of the residential structures in area A and 20 percent in area B remained to be brought into compliance. The compliance record in area C would undoubtedly have been better except for the fact that 255 residences were "held for planning" because of the possibility that they might be in a demolition area in the event of urban renewal. Nevertheless, 148 of the remaining 225 residential structures in area C, or 66 percent, were brought into compliance through the voluntary program.

In the first place, the final report of the Adams-Morgan demonstration project, quoting the approved application to the House and Home Finance Agency for the $204,000 grant

To be submitted a few weeks before the close of the project (and) will include (a) a description of the entire project; (b) changes brought about; (c) analysis of accomplishments, unforeseen problems, and failures, if any; (d) detailed recommendations for continued activity in the area; and (e) a statement concerning the relation of the findings to other communities.

Our executive committee met on Saturday, November 14, 1964, and authorized me to emphasize the following points:

1. To protest, strongly, the issuance of this demonstration project report fully 4 years after the agreed-upon and officially approved deadline.

2. We also protest the highhanded predetermination of what buildings are to be demolished, for this act is not only unethical from any point of view, but is entirely alien to the basic functions and goals of the demonstration project.

Today, our block council members and all other residents of area C in Adams-Morgan are trapped in neighborhoods which, by the legally questionable acts of the Redevelopment Land Agency, have

become more blighted and worse environments than they would have been without the demonstration project.

Thus, we question the legality of Government-enforced blight upon area C.

3. We protest and question also the authority by which 255 residences have been "held for planning." As citizens, we demand to know the standards and criteria used to select these 255 residences and to know their location by addresses.

4. We also have every right to know whether these 255 residences "held for planning" were included in the $45,000 Adams-Morgan resurvey just completed at the request of the District of Columbia Commissioners.

Finally, on September 1, 1964, we know the property owners who are members of our block council paid property taxes that reflected the 64 percent increase in land assessment over and above that of last year.

We deplore the fact that because of the Government-contrived slum environs in area C we find ourselves paying higher property taxes on premises located in an area that is now more substandard than we had ever known it to be during most of the lifetime of many of us.

In the name of the block council of the 1700 block of U Street NW., we thank you for this opportunity to be heard on the serious matters discussed here.

Mr. DOWDY. Thank you, Mrs. Bailey.

We will now adjourn and return at 2 o'clock.

(Whereupon, the subcommittee recessed at 12:40 p.m., to reconvene at 2 p.m. the same day.)

AFTER RECESS

STATEMENT OF LT. COL. EDWIN C. ADAMS, ASSISTANT ENGINEERING COMMISSIONER, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA GOVERNMENT; JOHN S. CROCKER, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT, OFFICE OF URBAN RENEWAL, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA GOVERNMENT; AND FRANCIS G. BRUINSMA, HOUSING INSPECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF LICENSES AND INSPECTIONS, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA GOVERNMENT

Mr. DOWDY. The subcommittee will come to order. Colonel Adams. Colonel ADAMS. I have two District employees and, with your permission, I would like to ask them to come up with me.

Mr. DowDY. Certainly. Introduce them for the record, please. Colonel ADAMS. Sir, the gentleman on my left is Mr. John S. Crocker, who is Executive Assistant to the Office of Urban Renewal, District of District government; and the gentleman on my right is Francis G. Bruinsma, from our Housing Division, Department of Licenses and Inspections of the District of Columbia government.

Sir, I have a prepared statement or introduction, if you wish to hear it.

Mr. Doway. You may proceed.

Colonel ADAMS. I am Lt. Col. Edwin C. Adams, Assistant Engineer Commissioner, District of Columbia government. This statement pertains to the status of the Adams-Morgan renewal proposal.