STATEMENT OF LOUIS MONTAGUE

Mr. MONTAGUE. I am Louis Montague, and I live at 1925 Belmont Road NW., Washington, D.C.

Chairman Dowdy and members of the District Committee, I own the Rock Creek Hotel at 1925 Belmont Road NW. My property consists of five buildings built in the last 10 years and a large amount of parking space. It is located in the center of Kalorama Triangle. My property consists of 86,000 square feet and is one of the largest tracts in the Adams-Morgan area.

The Adams-Morgan project is not fair to private property owners like myself. It has little support in the area from citizens who own property.

Taking Mr. Doyle's statement, some 300 of these houses exist in the area which are owner occupied. Mr. Peterson and Miss Gosch were both the sponsors of this group. Miss Gosch was living one block from my place, from one of my buildings, and I brought a couple hundred people living in there.

According to this, little groups of people are going to decide the location of 18,000 people? According to the plan little business will be replaced by the plan.

It is not exactly fair, because once that plan started I contacted the Federal Storage and explained to them the problems we are facing. They had a long talk with me about objecting to the plan.

A little later you can find in the Federal Storage Building it has been allowed to stay when other businesses have to move. Federal Storage is located on Florida Avenue.

On November 15, Mr. Wolf von Eckardt wrote a very unfair article about Adams-Morgan, presenting one side of the picture.

In the last 2 months I have tried to contact Mrs. Graham, Washington trustee, to know what was happening with the 52 acres of land which was supposed to be taken in the Adams-Morgan area, for which an attorney, Mr. Bradley, filed a defense plea on July 1, 1963. I was curious to know what had happened.

In the last report that letter seemed to have disappeared from the survey.

I expressed my opinion to Mr. Seagle. He sent me to a Mr. Gilbert. I could not talk to him anything except to say that if I write a letter they would publish it in contradiction of that long article.

I called Mr. Doyle. I excused myself for calling him at home. He divulged the information for this article.

He said he gave Mr. von Eckardt information from other people. I do not believe it is fair in an article of this size to be published by a paper. If it was published as a paid article, I would not object.

This report of Mr. Doyle's could be a mistake, but certainly these 512 acres of land must exist some place.

The Adams-Morgan project will result in a much more serious situation for low-income people, white and colored, than shown in the report of Mr. Doyle. It is true that due to demolition some 1,500 families will have to be moved, of which maybe a percentage will be able to

be relocated in the project, but after the Adams-Morgan project becomes a development project all the houses have to be brought up to standard. All those not included in the demolition will be either rehabilitated, either demolished to put in new buildings at great cost, so it will be the end of low-cost housing in the Adams-Morgan project.

Many people do not realize that. After a renewal, after urban renewal takes this project, they will control your building to demolish it and build something new. After people spend thousands of dollars in existing buildings, they will be unable to rent these units for low rent, so instead 1,500 families will be displaced. More than double that will have to go in time, so it will practically be the elimination of all the colored people from this area and of some white except for low-cost housing.

I don't know why Mr. Doyle did not give you the cost here. This cost is far above the average income of people in the Adams-Morgan

area.

What will happen is that these people will have to be moved and try to find a place in other areas of the District after this demolition.

Mr. von Eckardt talks about the 1,400 Negro families who will have to move, but he doesn't say that with urban renewal they will have to move just the same, and they will not get indemnity if their places are demolished and they are in the colored area.

I made a complete study of all these sections. I lived in this section the last 10 years. I live in it and I have been in every street. I have checked practically every building. I can tell you what is slum, what is no slum, and what you can do.

The

I do no think the Commissioners have made a serious analysis of this situation. This survey is extremely difficult to understand. The value of the land is about twice the value of the last few years. land has taken an immense improvement of value, I would say along Kalorama Road and Columbia Street. The houses are worth about 2 to 1 the value of 5 or 6 years ago.

Right now we are 8,500 units, more or less, in this old project. We have 1,200 rooms. We have 350 apartments at one place.

Here we have far more development than any other part of the city. Two large new projects are under consideration, one at the corner of Columbia and 18th Street where the movie theater is and the other one at the corner of Columbia Road and California Street.

I wrote to the Commissioner September 30, 1964, about the new survey. I live in the property. I am in charge of the whole business. The last survey one man comes to see me at 2 o'clock and I asked him what he was wanting.

He said he wants to survey.

I asked, "Are you lawfully entitled to go through the building?" He said "No."

I said, "I will show you everything you want from A to Z, under one condition. You can stay 1 day or 1 week. When you are finished that will be the last of it."

It takes him 4 hours to check all the buildings.
When he finished I said, "You make good time."

He said, "I spent more time in the other building.'

He called me a few days later to ask me a trivial question, if I have the percentage of toilets for employees in my building. The per

centage is absolutely correct: I have one for men and one for women. I tell him, "You check with the District Building what it is."

Two of the new buildings are obsolescent, he says. I rent a furnished apartment in that place. I run $200 a month. I have people like an ambassador living in my buildings.

These two buildings do not face the street but they face each other. It is a three-story building. They have two violations-it does not have an elevator and because the main entrance does not face the street. It is a fantastic philosophy.

The buildings were built in the District of Columbia for a new code. At the time of the code there was no parking obligation. Now you come to see a building. I don't know why he don't ask every building be obsolescent. It is a fantastic philosophy to say that the new building which has a store in a residential area is obsolescent and a building which has an apartment in a commercial area is obsolescent. It is all in this thing.

I think that survey has been made with a great deal of prejudice. Do you realize the man spent only 4 hours to analyze 120 units and five buildings?

I do not know what he did with the $40,000 allowed him to make the survey.

The commercial roominghouse is also a very interesting thing and maybe a few people decide that they do not want hotels or roominghouses in their areas. Why? A roominghouse in a city like Washington is a necessity. We have many Government employees of low grades 4's, 5's and 6's-who come here to Washington and need a roominghouse as a place to stay; mostly single people.

Anyway, the Windsor Park has 50 units adjacent to them classified as a roominghouse. A roominghouse if it is kept well is not objectionable. They are part of the city life and we have some in all parts, all over the city. You may decide you want one bath for every two or three rooms but that is a matter of code.

If you decide to eliminate the roominghouse, you should also eliminate the hotel in the area. That was planned before the Hilton Hotel was started so they decided that the Hilton Hotel and mine could stay but we cannot increase. There is an argument with him if we want to put in an additional room. The Hilton Hotel is not in full conformity, based on Mr. Doyle's philosophy.

I think to have two types of law in one city, one to apply to whole of the city and one to apply to a specific area, is not a very reasonable approach to develop a modern city. Here in Adams-Morgan and the old city is an immense progress shown. Here are people who ask for information from the RLA and he says "still deteriorating."

If he takes his car he will find more new construction than any place else in the city. I have lived for a long time in that section. We have many problems and one of the problems is to furnish low rental to people who can qualify for low-cost housing but also low rental for people just above that minimum who need a place to live. I do not think that the Adams-Morgan project has provided anything practical in that way.

To obtain a vote they said one line of houses is going to stay. Take square 174. The people who are members of that little group decided that their houses stay and the people across the street, their houses are demolished.

In squares 25, 66, or 63-I cannot remember-we have the same situation. One of the members was a member of the board so they kept the houses here [indicating] and demolished the one across the street, the same physical condition. I cannot believe that in a democratic country abuses of that sort can be the law of the land.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Mr. DOWDY. Thank you.

I have a couple of statements here for inclusion in the record: one from Frank D. Rogers and one from Dr. Myron B. Smith. Neither gentleman is here but their statements will be made a part of the record.

(The statements follow :)

STATEMENT OF FRANK D. ROGERS, JR., 1717 LANIER PLACE NW., WASHINGTON, D.C., NOVEMBER 17, 1964

Mr. Chairman and committee members, as an owner of two fine homes on Lanier Place in the proposed Adams-Morgan area, and as an alternate delegate from the Lanier Place Protective Association to the Adams-Morgan Planning Committee, I hope that the House District Committee and the District Commissioners will take a very hard look at the plan being pushed for the so-called Adams-Morgan area by proponents of urban renewal. The Kalorama areawhich includes a considerable portion of the proposed Adams-Morgan project area-is one of those named by the new Historic Landmark Committee of the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission on Fine Arts for preservation as part of our cultural heritage because of its visual beauty and interest. As such it ranks alongside historic Georgetown, and the historic Capitol Hill area, as being worthy of preservation.

The inclusion of the Kalorama area, and the Meridian Hill area, in the newly published list of historic landmarks, marks a growing recognition by the District government of the importance of these areas. Immediately to the north of the Kalorama area, and to the west of the Meridian Hill area, is a third area of great cultural and historic value: which appropriately might be called the Harvard Yard area, supported on the west by Rock Creek Park and the National Zoological Park, on the north by the broad expanse of Harvard Street, which is the eastern gateway to the zoo, by Columbia Road, Ontario Road, Lanier Place, and Adams Mill Road. The intelligent interest in the residential values of this close-in area is strikingly shown by the fact that in the one block of Lanier Place alone which is within the proposed Adams-Morgan urban renewal project area eight houses have been bought and are being restored in the best historic Georgetown and historical Capitol Hill tradition. This is in the fact of the debilitating effects of the Adams-Morgan project. If left to private enterprise, the entire Adams-Morgan area proposed for urban renewal would blossom, as historic Georgetown and historic Capitol Hill have blossomed, and for the same reasons. Proof that this is so will be found in the fact that private initiative and private enterprise is spending from $50 to $75 million in the Adams-Morgan area at this time, on such great structures as the Washington Hilton Hotel, the two Cafritz Universal Buildings north and south, and many other significant building, remodeling, and restoration projects. The $50 to $75 million figures I have mentioned were taken from recent news articles in the Evening Star, and Washington Afro-American.

The Adams-Morgan urban renewal plan takes absolutely no note of this tremendous building boom, a boom which is without parallel in any commercial-residential area in the District of Columbia at this time. The Evening Star reported on December 12, 1964, as follows:

"District Engineer Commissioner Charles M. Duke said today that several city departments have been asked to provide information to help the Commissioners make a decision on the Adams-Morgan renewal question.

"Duke said the Commissioners need information on health and crime conditions and new building construction in the Adams-Morgan area to help them decide whether it needs a Federal urban renewal program."

This would seem to be very late in the day for the District Commissioners to take note of the new building construction in the Adams-Morgan area, but it isn't too late to reject the Adams-Morgan urban renewal project because this

project is totally unnecessary if for no other reason than that private enterprise has already spent three times as much as the $26 million which the Adams-Morgan project will provide in Federal and District contributions to the area, and if left to the devices of the marketplace will undoubtedly spend several times as much

more.

The District Commissioners will be judged by history for their decision on this Adams-Morgan project, just as they will be judged by history for their contribution or lack thereof-toward the preservation of historic and cultural landmarks and areas of the Nation's Capital, such as the Kalorama, Meridian Hill, and Harvard Yard ares which belong to all the people of this Nation and not to the present occupants alone. Response to local pressures of special interest groups, and a handful of businessmen motivated solely by self-interest, will condemn them to the dustbins of history.

Other cities with long experience in historic preservation have found positive measures which effectively encourage property owners to preserve historic and valuable buildings and landmarks from the bulldozers. The essential and priceless ingredient for successful preservation and rehabilitation efforts in Georgetown, Capitol Hill, Foggy Bottom, and the Kalorama, Meridian, and Harvard Yard areas is private enterprise and long-range, intelligent, dedicated self-interest on the part of property owners.

The District Commissioners, the members of this committee, and all other clearthinking citizens should contrast this constructive approach with that advocated by the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency. Only a half-dozen or so historic buildings were retained in the entire Southwest urban renewal project area, and the Adams-Morgan urban renewal project plan doesn't even mention historic preservation.

For this reason alone, as well as for other reasons advanced here today, the present Adams-Morgan urban renewal project should be rejected in its entirety. Remember that Federal Urban Renewal Commissioner William L. Slayton, and FHA Commissioner Philip Brownstein, recently told a Washington, D.C., meeting of ACTION that the Government is "not equipped" to handle rehabilitation projects. The Adams-Morgan project has been presented to District citizens as a rehabilitation project. It is certainly not this type of project; it is, rather, a bulldozer-type project which takes no note of the provisions of the Housing Act of 1964 or of President Johnson's statement that "The plight of property owners in urban renewal areas is recognized in this measure. Provision is made so that they can rehabilitate their homes and businesses instead of having to move from the path of the bulldozers."

STATEMENT OF DR. MYRON B. SMITH BEFORE THE HOUSE DISTRICT COMMITTEE

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear here today at these hearings on the Adams-Morgan urban renewal project, which the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency has cruelly misrepresented to the citizens of our area, and of the District, as a rehabilitation project. It is not a rehabilitation project. It is, rather, the same type of bulldozer project which the RLA carried out in the Southwest urban renewal project. The proof of this is that 30 percent of the buildings in the AdamsMorgan project are to be razed, although RLA's own figures show only 31 buildings as having major structural defects.

One-third of the population is to be displaced, 1,585 families, 75 percent of whom are Negroes.

So the same pattern may be clearly seen. It is patently absurd to present the Adams-Morgan project as a rehabilitation project. This project is definitely out of line with the code enforcement and rehabilitation purposes of the Housing Act of 1964 adopted by the Congress and signed into law by President Johnson. Remember that President Johnson, in signing that act said:

"The plight of property owners in urban renewal areas is recognized in this measure. Provision is made so that they can rehabilitate their homes and businesses instead of having to move from the path of the bulldozers."

If the Adams-Morgan project actually was a rehabilitation project, RLA would be working with the people of this project area, instead of working against them. I include as part of my testimony the views of the Lanier Place Protective Association on the Adams-Morgan project, which were presented on November