City of Alexandria, Virginia
Office of the City Manager
Alexandria City Hall
301 King Street, Suite 3500
Alexandria, Virginia 22314-3211
www.alexandriava.gov
Telephone: 703.838.4300
Fax : 703.838.6343

This week, the City of Alexandria filed two motions in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in an attempt to bring about a speedy resolution of the lawsuit brought by the Alexandria Resident Council (“ARC”) against the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”). In the lawsuit, which has been pending since November 2002, ARC seeks a Court order blocking the redevelopment of the former Samuel Madden Homes Downtown (“SMHD”) housing project and the construction of a mixed-income townhome-style community that includes modern, replacement public housing. Under the redevelopment plan, which the City and its housing authority have been working on for over a decade, all of the 100 housing units formerly at the SMHD property are to be replaced on a one-to-one basis with modern publicly-assisted housing units.

The two-block SMHD property, located in Old Town Alexandria, is now vacant and has been cleared for construction. Overall, the SMHD redevelopment calls for the construction in Alexandria of 100 new publicly-assisted townhome-style housing units, 52 of which would be located on the former SMHD property interspersed with market-rate townhome units, and all of which would be of much higher quality than what was previously on-site and better integrated into the community. The remaining 48 public housing units would be constructed in three other areas of the City.

The SMHD redevelopment plan, with its 100 units of market-rate housing to be sold to individual purchasers and 52 units of public housing, is an innovative public/private partnership that relies on federal, state, local, and private funding to replace the former dilapidated SMHD housing (which was originally constructed as military barracks in the 1940s) with modern publicly-assisted housing in a revitalized mixed-income community. The plan received praise from the public and all concerned parties, and was unanimously approved by the City Council and the City Planning Commission after extensive public hearings and debate. At the City Council public hearing concerning approval of the plan, no one spoke in opposition to it -- all who spoke were in favor of the plan. “This level of universal public support is virtually unheard of for a public housing redevelopment project,” said Alexandria Mayor William D. Euille.

Federal District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson previously denied ARC’s motion for a preliminary injunction blocking the project, finding that the City would suffer irreparable harm if the project were halted and that the public interest weighs in favor of completing the redevelopment as expeditiously as possible. In addition, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied a request by ARC for a temporary injunction. HUD has since given its formal approval to the redevelopment plan, and has granted permission to the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority (“ARHA”) to proceed with construction. Nevertheless, ARC’s lawsuit remains pending in the federal District Court, casting a cloud over the project and the SMHD property. The pendency of the lawsuit has stalled the redevelopment by preventing the acquisition of title insurance and the other steps that must be taken before construction can begin.

In the first of this week’s motions, the City argues that Alexandria and its residents have a direct interest in the outcome of the case, and the City seeks permission from the Court to participate in the lawsuit. In the second motion, the City asks the Court to undertake an expedited review of the case, in the hopes of a speedy, favorable ruling that will allow the redevelopment to move forward.

These actions by the City (taken together with the private developer for the project) were necessary in order to give the redevelopment project a chance to move forward this year. Without expeditious action by the Court dismissing ARC’s lawsuit, or a voluntary “with prejudice” dismissal of the suit by ARC in the next few weeks, the project may lose the millions of dollars of tax-credit funding granted for the project earlier this year by the Virginia Housing Development Authority. Because these grants are issued only once per year, losing this funding would, at a minimum, delay construction on the project until the fall of 2004, and may entirely derail the innovative public/private partnership that makes the redevelopment possible. “The City, together with the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority and others, believes that the time for litigation is past, and that it is time to move forward with this long-anticipated redevelopment plan,” said Mayor Euille. “The City is hopeful that this week’s actions on its part will help achieve this goal.”
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