A Washington D.C. project to clean up and repair dilapidated buildings in the city is coming under scrutiny for shoddy work and millions of dollars in public money that are virtually unaccounted for.
"The project was among hundreds of repair jobs subsidized in recent years by a $30 million fund established to rid the District of dangerous, dilapidated properties."
"As tenants across the city complain of squalid conditions, the DCRA is struggling to account for the millions it has spent."
"Records show the agency has repeatedly directed jobs to small home-improvement contractors without business licenses, in some cases for costly projects at empty buildings. Years later, haphazard oversight and record-keeping at the DCRA make it difficult to track what projects were ordered, whether the city paid a fair price, or how much work was done."
"The fund is a crucial piece of the city's efforts to protect renters in rotting buildings. Because of a thriving real estate market, landlords in the past four years emptied hundreds of rent-controlled apartments, then made millions of dollars by converting the apartments to condominiums. Some landlords forced renters out by refusing to make repairs; city inspectors have chronicled more than 3,000 housing-code violations, including leaks, broken stoves and toilets, cracked walls and no electricity, at newly vacant buildings."
FULL STORY: Little to Show for the Price
Adaptive Reuse Successes in Dallas
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D.C. Revamps its Vision Zero Plan to Eliminate Traffic Fatalities
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People don’t kill cities. Freeways do.
US to reduce Colorado River water deliveries to Mexico
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New Jersey’s second-largest city bans standalone data centers
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Amtrak not solely to blame for New Jersey commuter rail's unreliability, report finds
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EPA erases limits on planet-warming pollution from power plants
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Phoenix announces new on-demand transit service, more frequent RAPID buses
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FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
Eagle County Government
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
Nashville Planning Department
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello
Journal of the American Planning Association