WASHINGTON — A District of Columbia Council committee will consider a plan next week to double to $500 million the city’s cap on bonds backed by payments in lieu of taxes as well as authorize a $40.2 million PILOT bond deal tied to a large affordable housing complex in southeast Washington.
The District Council’s committee on finance and revenue, chaired by councilman Jack Evans, will consider a bill to issue the PILOTs for public infrastructure in and around the Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg housing complex, an enormous $500 million development that will feature 1,700 housing units that is being built by a handful of private firms.
The deal would be one of the first to take advantage of a law that went into effect in April 2005, allowing the district to capture 100% of the taxes from property that was not previously on the city’s tax rolls — typically federal land acquired by the district.
Capper Carrollsburg was a severely distressed public housing complex consisting of 707 units that the city is in the process of demolishing with the assistance of a $34.9 million Hope VI grant it received from the federal government in 2001.
When completed, the 1,700 units will be divided equally between apartments sold at market rates, deeply subsidized housing, and “workforce” housing. The city has advertised it as the first Hope VI project in the nation that will fully replace all of the deeply subsidized housing units that it demolishes.
A district source said that the city would probably sell the bonds “pretty quickly” if the lame-duck council approves them this fall. The district would probably sell the bonds on behalf of the District of Columbia Housing Authority, which in turn would probably privately place them with a developer, the source said.
The district has turned to PILOTs for a number of projects recently. In June it approved two resolutions that authorized up to $230 million in bonds backed by PILOTs to help finance public infrastructure for a $1.6 billion development along the Anacostia River in southeast Washington.
The first bill approved the issuance of up to $90 million to finance public infrastructure on the site of the Southeast Federal Center, a 42-acre parcel that will eventually house 5.3 million square feet of retail, housing and office space, plus a 5.5-acre riverfront park and esplanade. The district plans to sell the issue through private placement with Forest City Washington, the local arm of a Cleveland-based developer hired to redevelop the entire site.
The second bill approved the issuance of up to $140 million for infrastructure around a new headquarters for the U.S. Department of Transportation, adjacent to the Southeast Federal Center. The bonds will be issued for the Anacostia Waterfront Corp., the district’s redevelopment arm, which will use the funds to finance public infrastructure on the site.
Meanwhile, the city is still mulling how to finance the 1,225 parking spaces it is obligated to construct for a new $611 million Washington Nationals baseball stadium. Mayor Anthony Williams is expected to introduce emergency legislation today that may finance the parking with bonds. It would be considered at the council’s legislative session tomorrow.
