Raze Permits Filed for Park Morton for 2021 Groundbreaking

• August 19th 2020

by Nena Perry-Brown

Between an appeal from neighbors and fears of displacement from residents, it has been a long road for the redevelopment of the Park Morton public housing community. Now, the DC Housing Authority (DCHA) is filing raze permits to prepare for development to take place.

DCHA has applied for raze permits for 610, 620, 630, and 640 Park Road NW (map), and 615-617 and 651 Morton Street NW (map). Razing is expected to take place next year at the earliest, and DCHA executive director Tyrone Garrett stated at a Board of Commissioners meeting last month that the agency will not ask residents who live in these buildings to vacate while the public health emergency is ongoing.

The three-phase Park Morton redevelopment is planned to deliver 462 mixed-income units, including 147 replacement units for existing residents. However, the development is already behind schedule due to the previous appeal, which earlier this summer resulted in the first phase of the development being remanded back to the Zoning Commission for reconsideration.

The first phase would have been on the current site of the Bruce Monroe Community Park at Irving Street, Georgia Avenue, and Columbia Road NW (map), delivering a 189-unit apartment building, a 76-unit senior apartment building, and 8 three-bedroom rowhouses, including 90 replacement units and 111 units for households earning up to 60% area median income (AMI).

Initially, Park Morton residents were going to be able to relocate into the newly-built units on this site. Amidst the appeal, however, the Park Morton Steering Committee shared plans to instead begin development on the current Park Morton site, which is the subject of the raze application. 

The first phase of development will now be a 142-unit apartment building in the 600 block of Park Road NW (map), including 40 replacement units and 44 affordable units at 60% of AMI. Another 47 townhouses and stacked flats are slated for Morton Street, including 17 replacement units and another unit affordable at 60% of AMI.

The Community Builders and Dantes Partners are leading the development, which was brokered through the New Communities Initiative; Torti Gallas Urban is the master planner and Soto Architecture & Urban Design is the architect.

Correction: The replacement unit counts have been updated and architects have been corrected since publication.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/raze-permits-filed-for-park-morton-for-2021-groundbreaking/17212.