Brown Beefs Up Main Streets, Expands Great Streets
When Kwame Brown was campaigning to unseat At-Large Councilmember Harold Brazil in 2004, he attacked the powerful chair of the economic development committee for focusing on “downtown development” at the expense of the District’s neighborhoods.

It was a popular critique; Brown easily beat the better-financed incumbent.

Now, two years later, Brown has inherited Brazil’s old job – and the challenge of trying to live up to his own campaign promises. Brown is not the first politician to call for new restaurants and stores, improved transportation and less blight in neighborhoods that have witnessed decades of disinvestment. Even Bill Clinton promised to revitalize Georgia Avenue when he first moved to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, with typical success.

But Brown has scored points with neighborhood activists during this year's budget cycle by successfully pushing for the expansion and strengthening of existing neighborhood development programs such as Main Streets, Great Streets and the Neighborhood Investment Fund.

Brown’s committee budget included a $1.8 million for the Main Streets program, including three new Main Street corridors, $400,000 to create the two new Great Streets corridors, a new revolving loan fund for Main Street small businesses, and a new program that will fund street cleaners for developing neighborhood corridors.

One of the new Main Street corridors will be in Ward 4, and North Capitol Street and Rhode Island Avenue have been designated as the two new Great Streets.

The support for the Main Streets program, designed to bolster neighborhood business corridors, is especially notable because the program was slated to receive a substantial cut in Mayor Adrian Fenty's budget.

The Main Streets program provides grants for five years to promote the growth of local businesses. Although some corridors, like H Street NE, have seen substantial retail growth and improvement, others have struggled to gain retailer participation. There are currently nine streets in the program, including Adams Morgan, Brookland, Dupont Circle, northern Georgia Avenue, H Street NE, Mount Pleasant and Shaw. The new Ward 4 Main Street will be announced after this summer.

“I think it is accurate to say that the Main Streets program has been a mixed success,” says  Deputy Mayor of Planning and Economic Development Neil Albert, though he says the program is valuable. “Certainly in some cases, like Barracks Row [Eighth Street SE, in Ward 6], it has been a very important economic development tool.”

At a hearing held last month, there were plenty of criticisms of the Main Streets program. But most of the critics wanted to see the program improved, not diminished.

“The Main Street community is extremely grateful to Councilmember Brown for having done what the Deputy Mayor [for Planning and Economic Development, Neil Albert] refused to do – continued to fund Main Streets,” says Alex Padro, executive director of Shaw Main Street.

Despite relief that there will be continued funding for Main Streets, development experts caution that it takes more than a few million dollars over a couple of years to make a struggling neighborhood thrive.

“Everybody wants this to happen quickly, but this stuff takes long-term investment. You can’t just throw very little money into something and expect it to work in two years,” quips Brookland Main Streets interim director and urban planning advocate Richard Layman.

The success of neighborhood development programs can rely heavily on external factors, cautions Layman. He points to Capitol Hill’s Barrack’s Row, considered the model of success.

“None of the other communities have the same kind of community funding capacity as Capitol Hill had,” he says. “This is tricky business.”

Part of Brown's strategy has been to emphasize the importance of overlapping programs. “Putting together Great Streets, Main Streets, the Neighborhood Investment Fund, getting the TIF money flowing, that is the successful model,” concludes Brown. “That is the model that we are going to follow.”

While Main Streets focuses on retail development, Great Streets, which is run by the District Department of Transportation, is centered around a street infrastructure. Started in 2005 and championed by then DDOT Director Dan Tangherlini, the program has won rave reviews from transportation advocates for the way that it has Department of Transportation planners thinking about pedestrians and economic development.

“In the past, DDOT has viewed its job as moving more cars, rather than using the public right-of-way to make the city better for all residents,” says Cheryl Cort, policy director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “What is so significant about Great Streets is that it actually takes a look at pedestrian safety and the quality of the pedestrian environment, at how roads and sidewalks improve retail opportunities. This is capital investment that is really meaningful.”

Cort also lauds the choice of North Capitol Street and Rhode Island Avenue as new Great Street corridors, saying Rhode Island Avenue in particular has “tremendous potential to be a very important transit corridor.”

But the $400,000 won’t go a long way towards bringing about those kinds of improvements along North Capitol Street and Rhode Island Avenue – it will only fund the planning phase. The original Great Streets program included six corridors and was funded with over $100 million gained through the sale of the advertising rights on bus stop shelters.

“The $400,000 funding is only for the design phase,” says Brown. “We know that it is going to take at least a year to just do the planning.”

But he also acknowledges that the council would have to allocate substantial capitol funds for the projects in the future, in all likelihood more than $20 million.

Perhaps Brown's greatest impact on economic development so far will come because of his decision to abolish the National Capital Revitalization Corporation and the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation, the District's two independent development agencies.

During the May 15 legislation session, Brown introduced a budget amendment to create a new entity, the Economic Development Authority, to take over the large development projects that were previously under the control of NCRC and AWC. Fenty was opposed to the plan, lobbying for more direct control over economic development. At the time Brown argued forcefully against giving the mayor more control, saying that “the mayor will have enough on his plate with the takeover of the schools.”

But on the final reading of the budget, Brown reversed himself and substituted language that transferred the responsibilities of the two agencies directly to the mayor. The move surprised many, including neighborhood activists who had lobbied against a direct transfer to the mayor.

According to Brown, Albert convinced him that Albert’s office would add enough capacity to be able to take over all of the responsibilities. The legislation also mandated that the deputy mayor would be responsible for meeting all of the affordable housing, local employment and environmental criteria that were part of the AWC requirements.

“We also agreed that if the capacity is not there, or it is not working out, there is still the possibility of creating the EDA,” adds Brown. 

Brown will host an economic development roundtable in Ward 4 on JUNE 29, at 6 p.m. It will be held at Emery Recreation Center, 5701 Georgia Ave., NW. To contact Brown, call 202-724-8174 or email kbrown@dccouncil.us.

Lemp Nominated to Direct OLA, Agency Maintains Funding
Mayor Adrian Fenty nominated Mercedes Lemp to become the permanent director of the Office of Latino Affairs on May 24, after she was one of three candidates forwarded to him by the Commission on Latino Development.

Lemp was initially appointed interim director in January, although her appointment was criticized by some who believed she did not have enough experience working within DC’s Latino community.

“I am ecstatic that I can continue the work that I have started and especially to start putting some more strategic programs into place,” said Lemp. She added that her priorities would be improving public education for Latinos and gaining full implementation of the Language Access Act.

Prior to her appointment as deputy director of OLA in August 2006, she led Language ETC for four years, a nonprofit providing English and literacy training to DC immigrants, primarily Latinos.

Also during this past month, the council maintained OLA's $500,000 budget increase from the previous year, even though councilmembers had to scramble to allocate the funds.

Last year the agency received an extra $500,000 for its $2.8 million grant program, which funds nonprofit health and education services, such as those provided by Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Care, the Central American Resource Center and the Barbara Chambers Children’s Center. The money was included as a one-time grant, however, and therefore was not included automatically in the 2008 budget.

During the May 15 budget hearing, Jim Graham [D-Ward 1] and Carol Schwartz [R-At-Large] repeatedly worked to cobble together funds to reauthorize the grant. 

“The $500,000 funded 13 additional organizations that we wouldn’t have funded to begin with,” said Lemp, “We are so grateful that Councilmembers Graham and Schwartz worked so diligently to make sure to put that money in the budget.”

For more information about OLA’s programs, call 202-671-2825, or visit ola.dc.gov.

Bowser Pledges Great Constituent Services, “Independence”
New Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser was sworn in on May 15 at 7 p.m. at the Wilson Building. Yvette M. Alexander was sworn in on the same evening to represent Ward 7.

“I have a lot to live up to, replacing Adrian Fenty in Ward 4, whose shoes are not easy to fill,” said Bowser after taking the oath administered by Superior Court Judge Anna Blackburne-Rigsby. She went on to pledge to make sure Ward 4 received “the same great services it deserves” and to be an “independent member of the council” representing the ward.

Both Bowser and Alexander received a three-day orientation put on by the other councilmembers, a new process introduced by Council Chair Vincent Gray.

Bowser won the special election in Ward 4 on May 1 with 41 percent of the vote, filling the seat Fenty vacated when he was elected mayor.

At press time, Bowser had not yet hired a chief of staff. Tamaria Mabry was hired as her constituent services coordinator.

She will sit on the Committees on Economic Development, Public Safety and Judiciary, and Public Works and the Environment.