D.C. Is Being Sued For Gentrifying. Here's What To Know About The Case

A D.C. lawyer has filed a discrimination lawsuit against the city on behalf of three native Washingtonians and CARE, a community group with over 20 members. The suit claims that the city’s housing and urban renewal policies have discriminated against some of the District’s longest-standing residents in favor of attracting millennial renters. The suit is seeking more than $1 billion in damages.

So, what exactly does it allege?

The complaint points specifically to city policies like the Adrian Fenty Administration’s Creative Action Agenda and Vincent Gray’s Creative Economy Strategy, which are specifically geared toward remaking D.C. as a city for “creative” workers. According to Aristotle Theresa, the lawyer who filed the suit, the city’s successful attempts to attract these kinds of workers have come at the cost of D.C.’s low and middle-income African American families, who have been pushed out of the city by skyrocketing housing prices.

“The city is intentionally trying to lighten black neighborhoods, and the way they have primarily been doing it is through construction of high density, luxury buildings, that primarily only offer studios and one bedrooms,” the suit reads.

Many of D.C.’s policies—like the policies of large cities across the country in the mid-aughts—were based on the work of Richard Florida, an influential urban theorist who wrote the seminal text on the “creative class.” His 2002 book The Rise of the Creative Class describes a specific kind of worker, often young and working in fields like technology, science, art and journalism. According to his theory, the key to a successful city economy lies in the hands of these workers, who have very particular ideas about where and how they want to live.

“Creatives prefer indigenous street level culture—a teeming blend of cafes and sidewalk musicians and small galleries and bistros, where it is hard to draw the line between performers and spectators,” Florida once wrote.

According to the complaint, former Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration set about creating such an environment to attract these workers, and the two administrations since have kept it going. Theresa says these policies have been directly discriminatory on the basis of age and source of income, as well as having a disparate impact on the city’s African-American communities.

“D.C. residents’ access to rental property [is] predicated at least in part on membership in an invented discrete class which directly discriminates on source of income,” he writes in the complaint.

The suit names several defendants, including the Office of Planning, the Zoning Commission, the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, Mayor Muriel Bowser and former Mayor Adrian Fenty.

What does the city say?

Nothing so far. A response to the suit is due by June 25. The Attorney General’s Office told theWashington Post that it won’t comment on pending litigation. The Zoning Commission and the mayor’s office told DCist the same thing.

Who's filing the suit?

Aristotle Theresa is a D.C. civil rights lawyer who lives in Anacostia. He’s represented several D.C. residents and community groups in cases fighting big redevelopment projects in gentrifying neighborhoods. He was most recently involved in the Barry Farm case, in which residents of the public housing complex successfully sued the D.C. Housing Authority for the way it was handling redevelopment. The area is being razed and rebuilt with many new (and more expensive) units, meant to economically integrate the area. Residents have been afraid of they would end up getting evicted from the complex and left without housing.

Theresa is filing the suit on behalf of three African American women who say they’re fearful of getting pushed out of the city due to redevelopment and climbing housing costs. He is also filing on behalf of a community group of more than 20 members. Theresa says they are seeking class certification for the lawsuit.