There once was a row house at 460 Ridge St. NW, until it collapsed. The property’s owner — the D.C. government — swiftly moved in after the building fell in November 2007, razed what was left and secured the lot with a chain-link fence and padlocked gate.
It looked Thursday as if District workers have not returned since. The fence had been pushed to the ground. The still-padlocked gate was disconnected from the fence. The lot was covered in garbage. And the weeds had grown taller than the average adult.
While D.C. leaders are moving to secure vacant buildings and properties left to languish by private owners — Mayor Adrian Fenty recently announced plans to secure vacant buildings with an “impenetrable” steel fence — it is unclear how much effort the District puts into caring for city-owned buildings that have fallen into disrepair, or city-owned lots that have overgrown.
“It’s their obligation to maintain it just like it’s our obligation to maintain our property,” said Cary Silverman, president of the Mount Vernon Square Neighborhood Association. “I don’t think it’s the responsibility of the community to file a complaint every three months when the property goes to hell again.”
There are more than 6,000 vacant buildings, parcels and lots in D.C., according to the tax office, and the District owns more than 1,000 of them. Most are not deemed a nuisance.
The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs responds to complaints about poorly kept properties, but it is the Office of Property Management’s responsibility to track and maintain most D.C.-owned land and buildings. D.C.’s two housing agencies also maintain dozens of residences under their purview.
DCRA last received a complaint about the property in January 2008.
Sean Madigan, a D.C. government spokesman, said the District has a dedicated crew constantly checking city-owned properties, “especially the larger ones,” to ensure they are well taken care of and “well groomed.”
As for 460 Ridge, a D.C. property since 2004, he said: “We’re going to dispatch a crew immediately to get out there and take care of this.”
The largest owner of vacant property in the District is the D.C. government, said Ward 2 D.C. Councilman Jack Evans, who represents Ridge Street. It is critical that the city get these properties “into someone’s hands who can turn them around and develop.”
