Before Nathan Brown was forced to move, he could have been seen playing basketball in the parking lot of Temple Courts in Northwest Washington or laughing with his neighbors while they barbecued.
Brown was among hundreds of residents who lived in the Temple Courts and Golden Rule housing complexes, close to what is now the NoMa neighborhood, who were relocated more than a decade ago as D.C. pushed to revitalize the impoverished area through the New Communities Initiative.
On Monday, Brown and city officials celebrated the official ribbon cutting of the new development at the site commonly known as Northwest One — the first of the New Communities projects to follow through on a promise to reserve space and welcome back residents who once lived at the property.
“Make no mistake, the journey wasn’t easy. We’ve seen time and time again how many communities in the District don’t have the opportunity to return,” Brown said at the ceremony. “This building is more than just a building, it is a memorial to those we lost in this neighborhood. It is a statement that native Washingtonians will not be displaced.”
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Launched by the city in 2005, the New Communities Initiative was designed to solve the problem of redeveloping areas without displacing residents. Under the plan, the city committed to preserving every unit of public housing in four neighborhoods established in the program while adding other affordable and mixed-family housing options. The old buildings were to be torn down, residents dispersed and then welcomed back into new, mixed-income units.
The program — at times divisive and controversial — has made slow progress as it’s run into obstacles, criticism and lawsuits over nearly two decades. But Monday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Rise at Temple Courts was celebrated as a win — with 220 residential units, including a total of 150 dedicated affordable homes, 65 of which will be replacement units for once-relocated residents returning to the community.
“Northwest One is the site that ignited the New Communities Initiative,” said Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D). “Years ago, Golden Rule and Temple Court residents advocated for change, which took longer than originally envisioned, but today we’ve delivered on the promise made by our city more than 15 years ago.”
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The original Temple Courts housing complex included 211 units and was acquired for redevelopment in 2007 and torn down in 2009. Residents were given vouchers to help pay for affordable housing elsewhere in the city or neighborhood. So far, 61 of the original residents have moved into the new development, four are slated to move in January, and others, like Brown, have moved on to other plans.
“My family doesn’t have plans to move into Rise at Temple Courts because now I’m organizing for the next dream, to become a homeowner in the District of Columbia,” Brown said at the ribbon cutting.
At the Northwest One site, the city invested $13.8 million in funding for the redevelopment of the first phase of the project. Construction began in November 2020 and was completed in July this year. Once the entire project is completed, Northwest One will include about 700 new mixed-income rental units, of which 211 will be public housing replacement units for the former residents of Temple Courts and Golden Rule.
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Other significant moves on the New Communities Initiative have come this year. Redevelopment on the Barry Farm site in Southeast — subject of intense battles over historic preservation and displacement in the rapidly gentrifying District — began this summer with construction of the Asberry, a mixed-use building set to be completed in early 2024 with 108 affordable housing units for people 55 and older and 5,000 square feet of commercial space along Sumner Road SE.
The entire completed project at Barry Farm, officials say, will yield a mixed-income community with at least 900 affordable housing units, 380 of which will be reserved for previous residents. The city also closed on the Park Morton site, located in the Park View neighborhood in Northwest.
“I couldn’t think of a more fitting way to end the year by celebrating the success of the New Communities Initiative by being here,” said Sheila Miller, director of the New Communities Initiative.
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