The D.C. Council Tuesday handed Mayor Adrian Fenty command of multibillion dollar developments on the Anacostia River waterfront and in the inner city, brushing aside concerns that the government is taking on too much responsibility.
In its unanimous final passage of the Fiscal Year 2008 Budget Support Act, the legislative vehicle to implement the District’s $5.9 billion spending plan, thecouncil also revoked property tax breaks enjoyed for years by the owner of the floundering Greater Southeast Community Hospital, and restored $250,000 of a $500,000 grant to the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., it had previously eliminated.
“Congratulations, colleagues, you’ve just finished the budget,” said first-term Council Chairman Vincent Gray. “Or the budget finished us.”
Under the adopted plan, the Anacostia Waterfront Corp. and National Capital Revitalization Corp. will be dissolved and their assets and liabilities shifted to the Office of Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. The quasi-governmental agencies are responsible for revitalizing waterfront and inner-city communities, including the Nationals’ stadium neighborhood, Southwest waterfront, Skyland Shopping Center and Reservation 13.
Neither fulfilled expectations, said Ward 2 Council Member Jack Evans, and the mayor’s office is primed to move the projects ahead faster. But Council Member Carol Schwartz argued the executive and legislative branches, both readying to assume control of the D.C. Public Schools, will be overwhelmed with work.
“I’m telling you, I fear that we are biting off more than we can chew,” said Schwartz, who abstained from the vote.
Fenty praised the decision, saying in a statement it “cleared the way for a more focused, effective and accountable economic development strategy in the District of Columbia.”
On Greater Southeast, Council Member David Catania led the charge to revoke a property-tax abatement enjoyed by the hospital’s manager since 2002. The money netted from that break was to be used to improve the critical Southeast D.C. facility, Catania said, but instead the hospital is crumbling.
“These expenditures never happened and frankly never will,” Catania said.
Property tax revenue paid by the hospital in the future, an estimated $1.2 million ayear, will be directed into a dedicated Greater Southeast capital needs fund.
