Pamela McKinney: Community benefit agreements are another example of why DC’s development process is flawed

Under current DC zoning regulations, advisory neighborhood commissions have the right to negotiate community benefit agreements with developers with the aim of providing a financial investment into the community. These agreements, widely known as CBAs, have become a common tool for ANCs during the development process and are held up at zoning hearings as examples of the developers’ goodwill and their positive working relationships with ANCs. 

However, there are many issues with CBAs that the District government has failed to address. CBAs are typically negotiated in secrecy between ANCs and developers. ANCs, in theory, could ask for almost anything from developers in these CBAs. In Southwest — which is covered by ANC 6D — previous CBAs have included office space and free rent for 30 years for a community center; technology investments for Amidon-Bowen Elementary School (initiated not by the ANC but by the school’s PTA, which fought against a project that would impact the school community); and most recently, a $100,000 grant to the Southwest Community Foundation (SWCF). (Disclosure: As president of SW Community Gardens, I work closely with Donna Purchase, SWCF president and president of the Southwest Neighborhood Assembly, which is SW Community Gardens’ fiscal agent.)

Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6D typically shares these CBAs, on a surface level, at its monthly meetings, which are open to the public. The finer details — such as how and why a particular group was selected for donations or grants — are generally not discussed, nor are they challenged. From what we can see, potential oversight — from the developer or Zoning Commission — on the structure and administration of these CBAs rarely comes to fruition. The developer may impose restrictions on how the funding provided through the CBA is used, but this is not always the case. What instead happens is that the community at large is shut out of the CBA process, leaving ANCs to decide where funding is most needed and who will receive it. This process is inherently flawed, especially when ANCs do not operate in good faith.

Take for instance the recent Zoning Commission case (20-34) for the Cotton Annex at 300 12th St. SW, which falls under the purview of ANC 6D and was the subject of a March 18 public hearing. The project by Douglas Development does not provide any additional affordable housing above the minimum 8% required by law. Instead of doing so, the developer offered $100,000 via a CBA to the SWCF, which was created in 2015. The problem is that one of the ANC 6D commissioners, Andy Litsky, sat until recently on that foundation’s board of directors. (The group’s website listed him, at least through mid-March of this year, as one of five members, meaning he was a SWCF board member while he negotiated the CBA for SWCF as an ANC commissioner.) This was not disclosed at the ANC’s March 8 public meeting, where Litsky voted in favor of the project, nor was it disclosed in the ANC 6D report to the Zoning Commission. We see this as a troubling conflict of interest, but additionally the documents in the zoning record never even discuss how the SWCF will use these funds. Since this project was a design review case, the Zoning Commission asserted it could not rule or comment on the inherent conflict of interest in this CBA; the commission proceeded to approve the application.

The SWCF’s most recently available Form 990 shows that it received less than $300 in donations in its first two years in operation. The foundation saw revenue jump to $15,000 in 2017 and then, incredibly, to $250,000 in 2018, when it accepted funding from the developer Mill Creek via a CBA. Now, in 2021, it will receive an additional $100,000 from Douglas Development. 

The SWCF website states that the foundation seeks “to provide a formal means for improving the quality of life in the quadrant through philanthropic giving,” and that it “seeks and encourages innovative and sustainable initiatives, projects, programs and events that enhance the community.” While this sounds good, there is no mechanism on the website for an organization to apply for a grant, nor any instructions on how to do so. There is no paid staff, so the five-member board makes all the decisions. How did an organization go from raising not even $300 to raking in $250,000 three years later? This wouldn’t have been possible without the complicity of the Zoning Commission and the DC Office of Planning in approving CBAs without any examination into the particulars of each agreement.

Meanwhile, we are in the midst of a global pandemic with our Black and brown neighbors adversely affected, food pantries in Southwest working hard to handle a significant increase in requests for food and support, public housing residents still unable to get needed repairs for their units, and affordable housing a continuing struggle for thousands of DC residents, predominantly Black and brown. The current CBA process does nothing to further affordable housing needs, end food insecurity, or close the digital divide that has been made even more visible and consequential due to the pandemic; nor does it even involve the community in the process. In order for the public to provide input on where help is needed most, the decision-making process for CBAs must include community members — not just developers and a few ANC commissioners.

Pamela McKinney is a Ward 6 resident and a member of SW DC Action.

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