Update on Shiloh's Vacant Property Re-Classification

As you likely recall, in March I reported that six of Shiloh's seven vacant properties on 8th and 9th Streets, NW, were no longer listed as vacant by the DCRA or the Office of Tax and Revenue. After the issue garnered considerable neighborhood scrutiny, all six properties were re-classified as Class 3 vacant in the online tax database. However, the issue of whether Shiloh would be able to benefit from the inadvertent re-classification -- thereby avoiding having to pay about $150,000 in taxes per the vacant rate -- remained unclear.

This month's D.C. North sheds light on the issue and makes it sound as though the church will not have to pay taxes as if the re-classification never occurred (check out the article online here). In part, D. C. North reports that:

Nicholas Majett, DCRA’s deputy director, has not clarified whether the church will be charged with the bill, which comes to $150,000, plus interest and penalties. “We’ll do what we do with any property—we make a decision based on evidence submitted,” he said. But Majett isn’t certain that making Shiloh pay is the right thing to do. “I think it’s an egregious act” to charge a retroactive tax bill, he said. “Times are hard for everybody.”

I don't think the church should benefit from a mistaken re-classification of six of its seven vacant properties. Doing so would be inequitable to every other vacant property owner who received no such erroneous windfall, would take the teeth out of the vacant property tax rate, and could give rise to a slippery slope of allowing taxpayers to benefit from any administrative error (as far as I know, the cause of the error in this case is still unknown). Further, after the church's years and years of redevelopment inaction without facing the vacant tax rate, I can't imagine that development would be hastened by failing to apply the rate in full force.