The District of Columbia neighborhood that lays claim to the Washington Convention Center and a flurry of new development also is overrun by vacant, dilapidated properties that stifle the community’s progress, a residents’ group said in a recent survey.
The Mount Vernon Square Neighborhood Association pinpointed 100 vacant properties in the area bounded by New York Avenue Northwest to the south and N Street Northwest to the north, between First and Seventh streets. Of those, 71 were vacant buildings and 29 were empty lots.
“The high concentration of vacant property has placed the historic fabric of the neighborhood at risk,” Mount Vernon Square Neighborhood Association Vice President Si Kailian said in a letter to Mayor Adrian Fenty and the D.C. Council. “Vacant property, especially when concentrated in a small area, is a magnet for vagrants, drug activity, illegal dumping, prostitution and other crime.”
The survey noted dozens of unsecured properties in terrible shape. There’s a hole in the side of 1232 New Jersey Ave. The basement entrance to 1211 Fourth St. is collapsing. Police sealed the home at 1103 Fifth St. as a drug house. Trash and other “growth” is accumulating at 318 M St., a former barbershop. The row house at 454 N St., which the D.C. Office of the Attorney General owns according to the report, has no roof, door, windows or floors.
“Frankly, there are properties that people use as a regular toilet, which is unfortunate,” Kailian said Tuesday.
The group called on the District to provide the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs with more resources to tackle the problem, to ensure vacant properties are assessed at the appropriate real estate tax rate — five times the standard levy — and to better maintain government-owned properties.
DCRA recently launched a more aggressive vacant-property team that it says is out every day identifying, inspecting and registering vacant properties. A new D.C. law authorizes the agency to immediately secure unenclosed vacant properties and then charge owners for the work.
DCRA spokeswoman Karyn-Siobhan Robinson said the department works closely with community associations on the vacant property problem and can focus its efforts on a specific neighborhood, “resources permitting.”
