The ShilohDC website (www.shilohdc.blogspot.com, accessible here) received more photo content and a format adjustment last night. The images added document each vacant building owned by Shiloh Baptist Church. Additional content on the website is forthcoming in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead. Ultimately, I intend for each vacant property's "biography" to include a history of the building and its occupants, tax assessments/taxes collected for the properties, how long the property has been in Shiloh/Trustees of Shiloh's hands, contrasts of Shiloh's properties to neighboring properties (possibly with quotes from disappointed neighbors), and property-specific crime/graffiti/litter logs. Other site content may include a list of Shiloh's non-parishioner funding sources, assessments of their occupied properties (e.g., the awnings on their daycare center are faded and broken, there is an apparently abandoned car in their otherwise dark and scary parking lot at 1531 9th Street), discussions of neighborhood activity (e.g., their continued protest of new restaurants' liquor licenses), and so forth. Other ideas are welcome.
ShilohDC is now in my Shaw Blogs and Links list.
PHOTO CREDIT: Photo was taken by Drew and documents Shiloh's vacant property located at 1600 8th Street, NW.
5 comments:
Bless you. I still owe you histories on each of the buildings. You should also include the vacant lots on Ninth, the trash behind the beige building by you, the Curtie Mae Turner day care center, and the vacant boarded-up house on the southeast corner of 8th and Q when you get around to it. I can also give you old city paper articles on my quixotic quest to see these properties rehabbed and put to good use.
Your neighbors over in ANC2F Committee on Crime and Public Safety have been plugging away at vacant properties including these. We too are disappointed with the lack of enforcement from the District. The Office of Tax and Revenue doesn't seem to want to charge the 5% vacant property tax (even while the taxes of responsible homeowners skyrocket). DCRA isn't enforcing the Vacant Property Maintenance Standard (part of DC code).
http://www.anc2f.org/CCPS-wpost-12-31-2006.pdf
See also http://www.anc2f.org/ccps.asp
Keep up the good work.
Ed - thanks for your post. I've been following with much appreciation the work of ANC2f's Committee on Crime and Public Safety. ANC2f's document library, containing correspondence sent on behalf of the ANC's committees, is really impressive.
I need a lesson on the taxation issue regarding Shiloh's properties. Can you help educate me (and other unaware readers) with what you know?
Note – the bushes in front of the pictured Shiloh vacant property at 8th and Q are not mere scrub brush but constitute a winterized butterfly garden planted by a frustrated neighbor. Representative of the fact that most of Shiloh Baptist Church’s vacant properties are surrounded by homes painstakingly restored by caring and invested citizens, a neighbor planted this butterfly garden to make the best of this Shiloh-imposed bad situation.
Shaw Rez, I intend to put together a webpage on vacant property in DC soon. In the meantime, check out National Vacant Properties Campaign
They have tried to engage DC but no one will return their calls. I also encourage everyone to email Jack Evans or Jim Graham's office about the revised vacant property laws. They will be proposing permanent legislation soon.
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