Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration is spurning a D.C. Council plan to ensure developers are meeting promises to build affordable units and hire District residents, arguing the work “is already being done.”
The Compliance and Enforcement Agency, proposed by Councilman Kwame Brown, would target roughly 80 projects under the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development that represent billions of economic development dollars.
Developers have agreed to provide a certain number of affordable units, to hire a certain percentage of D.C. residents and to subcontract with a certain percentage of local and disadvantaged businesses. The agency, Brown said, would make sure those promises are met.
Deputy Mayor Neil Albert acknowledged his office has no compliance arm, though individual agencies “already have programs and compliance experts in place doing this work.”
“We are moving quickly to eliminate red tape and do away with stifling bureaucracy,” Albert told Brown’s committee. “We do not believe creating another government agency, another layer of bureaucracy, which would effectively be charged with doing work that is already being done, moves the District in the right direction.”
Brown questioned whether Albert has the staff to monitor a project from start to finish.
“I think it’s clear we don’t have an effective program,” Ward 8 Councilman Marion Barry said.
Affordable housing advocates widely backed the proposed agency. The Rev. Anthony Motlet, president of the Anacostia Community Land Trust, said the office would offer “stronger oversight and accountability of the many contracts and projects” under the deputy mayor.
Barry introduced legislation Tuesday to create an oversight division within the Department of Employment Services specifically to monitor agreements that require the hiring of D.C. residents.
