This fall, it is very likely DC's lame-duck Mayor will seek City Council approval to give away the Chevy Chase Commons to Rift Valley Partners.
Aug 2026
The sordid track record of public land deals in DC portends that the Mayor and DMPED will try to deliver to Rift Valley Partners the rights to control the Chevy Chase Commons through a 99-year lease of the public air rights.
Whoever controls the public air rights can profit and control what happens on the land (see image below).
The privatization of the air rights at the Chevy Chase Commons will generate substantial profit extraction for Rift Valley Partners for the next 99 years by and through the city's possible permission to build privatized “market-rate” units at the site.
And let's be clear, Rift Valley's proposed 125 luxury residential units will likely be some of the most expensive homes in the city given the location and will almost certainly deepen exclusion in Ward 3.
The irony is hard to miss: the build-more champions have spent years castigating Ward 3’s exclusion, only to wield that very critique as a cudgel to force a critical public asset, the Commons, into the hands of private real estate speculators to build more unaffordable housing.
There is a track record showing how this kind of disposition with DC public land goes, here's a little glimpse:
WE NEED OUR PUBLIC LAND AND AIR RIGHTS TO BE USED TO REPAIR THE PAST DISPLACEMENT HARMS NOT PERPETUATE THEM
So instead of using public land to repair the segregation harms of the past — such as through a social housing model — the Mayor's privatization plan will do the opposite and bring lots more unaffordable housing to Ward 3.
You don't need redlines or racist covenants to keep a neighborhood exclusive when brute force construction of lots more privatized high-cost housing (now on public land) simply prevents most people from being able to afford to live there.
ARE YOU READY TO DEFEND THE COMMONS?
Will you push back this fall as Mayor Bowser, on her way out the door, will likely ask the City Council to hand over control of the Chevy Chase Commons — the public land and air rights — for 99 years to bring this privatized speculative extraction vision to fruition in Ward 3.
Will you defend this public asset and the future of the Commons?
Chris Otten
—
DC for Reasonable Development
Leave a Reply