The plan seems to me to be an honest effort to cope with some of the problems of the area and there are, of course, problems-without undermining its essential character as a truly mixed community. Opponents of the Adams-Morgan urban renewal project argue, as I understand them, that the problems of the area can be solved by the efforts of private capital. They can, and should, point with pride to many of the beautifully restored homes on both sides of Columbia Road as proofs of the efficacy of private restoration efforts to solve the problems of urban blight. But the people who live in those elegant homes are not the victims of urban blight; they are all the beneficiaries. When a rundown Victorian house is condemned and carpenters and painters and plasterers get to work to fix it up, the people who move in are not the same people who moved out. They are always wealthier and, from what I can see, they are generally white-not Negro, not Indian, not any of the people who used to live in that house. On Wyoming Avenue, where I live, an apartment building and about six row houses-very similar to my own home were recently torn down. I know that the apartment building slated to replace those houses will be a lovely building. I know, too, that the people who lived in those torn-down houses won't be there to enjoy it. The man who was a night janitor at a hotel won't be there; the children we played with whose father was a pipefitter won't be there; nor will the retired persons who lived on small fixed incomes be there. This is true all over the Adams-Morgan area, where private restoration has been allowed to "solve" the problems of urban blight. Inadequate housing is vastly upgraded, but no one living in those houses could have benefited from their improvement. Personally, I don't blame private restorers. If I were renovating my own home for sale or rent, you can be sure that I would get the very most money out of it I possibly could, unless I had the encouragement of the kind of long-term, relatively inexpensive FHA money for that restoration that urban renewal promises to both private individuals and professional redevelopers. I've said earlier that there were problems in the Adams-Morgan area. There are. They are problems that private restoration, no matter how interested, cannot itself solve. I won't bore you with statistics, but I will tell you that our schools are rundown and overcrowded so that at least 100 children are on halfday schedules; some lack cafeterias and all lack libraries. Our parks are inadequate and this I can vouch for as a result of hours spent on a park bench in the past 2 years; the areas are simply not physically large enough to accommodate all the ages of children that need a park; there is absolutely no place for older children in this neighborhood to play except in the streets. And then there is poverty. Most everyone who lives in Adams-Morgan has some kind of heat and running water in his house no one, it's true, need use outdoor privies nor cook on coal stoves. But quite a few people have rats in their cellars, holes in their roofs, defective plumbing, defective cooking facilities, defective electricity. And they rent apartments or rooms in houses which, quite frankly, are not worth rehabilitating, houses built for slum living anywhere from 20 to 50 years ago which cannot possibly go any way but even further downhill. It's pointless to rehabilitate such houses; you all know about sows' ears and silk purses. They should and will be torn down, one way or another. And when they are, we get right back to the people. Where do they go when their present homes are torn down? It's argued by opponents of urban renewal, with great passion and moral indignation that they object to urban renewal in Adams-Morgan just because of those "poor helpless people" who won't have any place to live. They say that the plan makes inadequate provision for housing low-income families. Ineed it does. Part of the low-income housing provided in the plan has gone for a police and a fire station; another segment was removed for technical reasons. But at least the plan faces up to the problem and promises decent, safe, and sanitary housing somewhere to all of those displaced. Whatever the plan provides is 100 percent more than that provided by private capital bent on "saving" Adams-Morgan. You have only to look at the situation to date. The people we knew on Wyoming Avenue have all gone; no one helped relocate them; no one made any provision for finding them new homes. In an 8-unit apartment building under restoration on Belmont Road, 59 persons found themselves without living quarters; on Kalorama Road, a block from my own home, 54 people found themselves homeless; in September, 21 families, or 82 people, were put out of Champlain Street in area C. The gentlemen committed to private practical restora tion in all those cases made no provisions whatsoever for rehousing those tenants, nor is there any reason they should do so. The plan, on the other hand, guarantees rehousing to everyone put out by urban renewal, if not right in AdamsMorgan, then in comparable living conditions elsewhere. For all these reasons, then, for both the advantages and disadvantages of a truly urban neighborhood, I think urban renewal is the best thing that could happen for all of us, and I sincerely hope that the committee will find itself in agreement. Mr. Dowdy. That completes our list of witnesses, except Mr. Koockogey. (Off the record.) STATEMENT OF MRS. NELL F. STEPHENS, WASHINGTON, D.C. Mrs. STEPHENS. Mr. Chairman, I am Mrs. Nell F. Stephens of 922 I Street SE. I have a short statement that I would like to present. No one could know any better than I, as I have moved around and been put out and evicted and all kinds of things happen in the District of Columbia because of the housing conditions. I feel that this Adams-Morgan renewal plan is not going to be the plan that will take care of the needs for housing in the District of Columbia, the way I see it and the way I know it. It seems to me no one has mentioned the housing of the sick, afflicted, and helpless. Out in the area of Kalorama Road there is a nursing home. There are other homes around in the entire area. What is going to happen to these people who are housed in these homes? Where will they go? How will they be cared for? Because I am a nurse and because I have great consideration for all people, for all humanity, I beg of you to consider this statement in behalf of all peoples of the District of Columbia, remembering the sick, afflicted, and helpless. Mr. Chairman, housing is very bad all over Washington. We know that. I myself did get an infection from pigeons which I have not gotten over yet. This has been some few years back, but I still have a slight touch of it. There are so many insanitary conditions that people suffer from, such as that, which should be corrected in the District of Columbia. My Nation's Capital City should be the best, most elaborate and beautiful city in the world, but how are we going to do it with conditions existing all over Washington as we know them? For instance, just in the block that I live, 922 I Street, just off 10th Street, the house that my husband and I have just taken has been renovated, but there are still conditions around our doorway which are very bad. I mean on that street. It is just around the corner from the Marine Barracks. That entire southeast area could be used as a project, I should think, to correct the housing conditions and for the improvement of the District of Columbia. I would like that to be brought to the attention of this committee, not only this committee but the entire U.S. Congress. Mr. Chairman, I hope that what I have said will be helpful to you. I do not know whether or not the National Presbyterian Church at 18th and Connecticut have come into this area or not, but as a Presbyterian and a former member of the National Presbyterian Church, I attended a congregational meeting last week, although I was a visitor and had no vote, concerning the tearing down of the National Pres byterian Church, which is a landmark. There are many, many conditions out there. People do not want it torn down. If this AdamsMorgan project takes that area in, I would greatly appreciate, as a Presbyterian, consideration be given and let other members of the church, the council, Dr. Elston, Dr. Smith, Dr. Stone, and others, make statements concerning this. I would say let's restore our church and make it a showplace for the District of Columbia, for all people. Just a few years ago a party went to Scotland for the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the oldest Presbyterian Church in the world. We go to foreign countries to see these beautiful landmarks, and particular buildings, but right here at home we are destroying them. Let's preserve them. Let us do this for our Nation and the future of America. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. DOWDY. Thank you. Your letter will be made a part of the record, too. (The letter referred to follows:) Congressman JOHN DOWDY, Chairman, House Subcommittee No. 4, WASHINGTON, D.C., MR. CHAIRMAN: Because of the great controversy high rents-both business and residential sections of Washington, D.C., civil rights is dominating. A rent control board, helping all "displaced persons" and business people seems to be the solution in solving this great problem. RLA and Urban Renewal Administration should get together on this great problem. Certainly, public hearings should take place when changes of plans are contemplated, as in the case of Adams-Morgan renewal plan. Hope this will be a help to this committee. Thank you. Mrs. NELL F. STEPHENS. Mr. DOWDY. We shall make a part of the record at this point a series of resolutions submitted by the Independent Citizens of AdamsMorgan. (The resolutions follow :) INDEPENDENT CITIZENS OF ADAMS-MORGAN, Re Adams-Morgan proposed urban renewal plan. Chairman, Commissioners' Planning and Urban Renewal Advisory Council, DEAR MR. WOLFSHEIMER: Thank you for your letter of March 17, 1964, inviting us to explain our thinking regarding the proposed Adams-Morgan urban renewal plan. For the information of your Council, the Independent Citizens of AdamsMorgan is an organization which is broadly representative of the citizens of the area, and includes homeowners and businessmen of both races. Many of our members, as well as some nonmembers who hold similar views, have, at one time or another, been members or supporters of the Adams-Morgan Planning Committee or the Adams-Morgan Community Council, or both. We do not oppose urban renewal per se, but feel that, as currently practiced by the Redevelopment Land Agency, it is in great need of improvement and reform. The general proposition of improving our beloved city and benefiting our fellow man is irresistibly appealing to us all. As president, I have been authorized to express the following views to you by vote of the members at a meeting held on March 24, 1964. RELOCATION The most indefensible provision of the Adams-Morgan plan is its relocation plan. The Washington Post of June 30, 1963, reported that the Adams-Morgan area has more than 17,000 people, including 7,400 Negroes, and that one of the principal disappointments of the official plan is that it will displace an estimated 1,585 families, including some 5,700 persons, about one-third of the total AdamsMorgan population. The public housing units planned for will take care of only a small part of those who will be displaced. In this connection, your attention is invited to the splendid statement of Walter N. Tobriner, President of the District Board of Commissioners, on the WWDC program, "City-Side," which was reported in the Washington Star of March 22, 1964. Mr. Tobriner is quoted as saying, "This, I think everyone acknowledges, was a mistake in the planning of the Southwest redevelopment area. We should provide, as a bare minimum, that those families who are dispossessed by redevelopment schemes should be properly, adequately, and sanitarily housed in the project itself, and not compelled to move out and create slums elsewhere. We hope not to repeat that mistake in future redevelopment projects." In this connection also may we quote the opinions expressed by Mr. Phil A. Doyle, Executive Director, RLA, in a colloquy with Representative B. F. Sisk, an ardent supporter of Federal urban renewal, as reported in "Urban Renewal in the District of Columbia, Part 2, Hearings Before Subcommittee 4 of the Committee on the District of Columbia, House of Representatives," pages 430 through 436, in which the following points are brought out: (1) "So far as concerns income, 25 percent of the families in the District of Columbia are eligible for public housing" (p. 433, Mr. Doyle). (2) "You ought not to be investing all the public money and time and effort that goes into these projects and then in an effort to get something which you can say is meeting the needs of middle-income families, getting something which is going to be, in terms of the room size and other amenities, substandard from the day it is built. And I think that the cost of that kind of housing, whether we like it or not, is going to be certainly beyond the means of any except the upper middle-income people, because that is just what construction costs are these days. So if we are going to say you are not going to have urban renewal except as you get the land redeveloped for truly middle-income people, you won't have any urban renewal" (p. 431, Mr. Doyle). (3) "Well, we better keep some of the old, then, and quit tearing it down if we cannot work out a program where we can put these families-and certainly we have more than our share of them in the District of Columbiainto reasonably decent housing by these programs of slum clearance; then to me, the whole program has failed to meet its purpose" (p. 432, Representative Sisk). However, on page 435 we find the following exchange: "Mr. SISK. You mention about this Adams-Morgan. Now, as I understand the Adams-Morgan, you indicate you were going to attempt in Adams-Morgan to meet some of the needs I was talking about. "Mr. DOYLE. Yes. "Mr. SISK. All right. Now in these plans, do you plan to temporarily replace those people over there until the project is completed, and then you propose to allow these people to come back into that completed project, is that correct? "Mr. DOYLE. Well, yes. I really think-that is a rather mechanistic view of human conduct. Many people share it. I think all you can do is, in this area where we are going to clear about 25 percent of the area, is to get sites assembled, and if the people living in those structures can be temporarily relocated elsewhere in the project until the new units are up, well and good. But to stage the whole thing so that we do not clear every site before we start reconstructing any site. I think also that I, at least, would like to see offers solicited and organizations which will operate under section 221 (d)3 of the Housing Act-National Housing Act-and to set a price which would be consistent with what least expensive new unit you can build. And then to get proposals from as many such organizations as you can, and to award it to that one which seems to give the best promise of giving the best unit at the cheapest price." Many of our members were present at a planning committee meeting at which Mr. Doyle was being questioned about this same point some time during the past 4 years, and remember hearing him say, "What difference does it make if I move 5,000 out, just so I move 5,000 others back in again?" We feel that this is an enormously serious problem which should be thought through in all its implications, not only for Adams-Morgan, but for the entire city, before decisions are reached concerning any further urban renewal projects. We certainly do not sense that Mr. Doyle shows any sign of comprehending the human agony involved for the individuals and families displaced. Nor do we feel that Adams-Morgan should serve as a dumping ground for all the leftover public housing applicants from other areas still awaiting housing after all these years. We think some solution should be found before any more existing housing is destroyed. DISPLACEMENT OF SMALL BUSINESSES Your council will also want to study very carefully the proposed removal from the Adams-Morgan project area of 141 (out of a total of approximately 200) small business firms. Approximately 1,000 jobs are provided by these small businesses. Most of these businesses are concentrated in areas B and C. The NCPC comprehensive zoning plan of 1950 specifically provided for the presence of small businesses in the middle of area C, in addition, of course, to the commercially zoned areas of 18th Street and Columbia Road. Some of the businesses located here have already been displaced once before by urban renewal from the Southwest project, and they now face a second upheaval. More than 40 percent of the small businessmen displaced by urban renewal in Washington, D.C., to date have failed to reopen their doors. This has been said to be the highest rate of failures in the Nation. This problem is receiving intense study by the Congress at this time and is the subject of legislation before the House District Committee and the Senate and House Special Housing Subcommittee. A great deal of new construction and renovation work has been done in the last few years among the businessmen of the area, for instance: 1827 Adams Mill Road, new Gulf service station. 1820 Adams Mill Road, Adams Mill Laundromat, remodeled. 1818 Adams Mill Road, Paul's T.V. Service. 1810 Adams Mill Road, Spanish-American Delicatessen, remodeled. 1836 Columbia Road, Royale Angus Beef House, remodeled. 1824 Columbia Road, Ambassador Jewelers, remodeled. 1847 Columbia Road, American Trophies, remodeled. 1845 Columbia Road, Sunny Shop, oriental imports, remodeled. 1815 Columbia Road, Comet Liquors, remodeled. 1811 Columbia Road, Custom Hi-Fi, remodeled. 1805 Columbia Road, Grand Union grocery store, remodeled. 1803 Columbia Road, A & B Liquors, remodeled. 1801 Columbia Road, Dart Drugs, remodeled. 1789 Columbia Road, Gartenhaus Furs, remodeled. 1787 Columbia Road, Allen Lock & Key, remodeled. 1785 Columbia Road, Orchid Dry Cleaners, remodeled. 1779 Columbia Road, New Riggs Bank Building, remodeled. 1777 Columbia Road, Avignone Freres Caterers and Restaurant, remodeled. 1769 Columbia Road, Quality House Dry Cleaners, remodeled. 1767 Columbia Road, High's, remodeled. 1759 Columbia Road, Self-Service Laundry & Cleaners, remodeled. 1751 Columbia Road, new Giant food store. |