In Shaw (an historically gentrified blog)

Yes, it is ugly

Prince of Pentworth has a more up to date picture and others are calling for the mighty hammer of HDs to come in and save the day. I say there is another way, but the problem is more than this one property. This is a unit block of ugly, historic ugly, plain ugly, and cheap modern fugly. Let's start with the fugly shall we?
If I have identified the house right the place is 26 P St NE, owned by Payam Mobin of Hollowerind Court, Reston, VA. Mobin bought the property 11/17/05 for $363,000 and should have known better, but some people want to make things hard on themselves. Anyway, Mobin decided to throw an ugly monster pop up on the thin property. I can imagine a nicer looking pop-up but it would have been pointless because of all the other stuff to consider.
Next door is historically ugly. The two houses to the left of 26 P is 22 & 24 P, both burned out shells. Owned by DM McCoy (24 P) and the 22 P St LLC at 137 R ST SW. Nicely, both are being taxed at the vacant property rate, and their assessment seemed to have jumped up by 2X. Next to those shells is a 'parking lot', whose assessment for 2008 is about 5x what it was for 2007. Next to the parking lot are Refuge of Hope Disciple Center's (Capitol Heights, MD) vacant lots, and those lots have not been taxed. No taxes apparently have been collected for 2007 for any of RoHDC's properties on P. Zip. Nada. And they've owned those lots for over a decade. What's up with that? How is it charitable, when there is no building to dispense the charity?
Next door to fugly is 28 P a vacant house owned by Sang Lee of Oakton, VA paying over $8K in taxes for 2007. On the end of the block, where P meets Florida, there is a gas station. Not terribly bad, not terribly pretty. There seems to be 3 households living on this unit block of P. Everything else is vacant or commercial or crap, or all three.
Going back to modern fugly, I looked at DCRA's permit list but sadly, it is only for those issued in the past couple of months (OCT07-FEB08). Might actually have to walk up to the damned thing and see if the permit is valid. Heighwise, it may be a matter of right because the area is zoned to allow that high because it is a commercial area. Across the street from this is the DDOT parking lot. Conceviably, one could knock down the shells, the lots, and the monstrosity and build a decent looking 4-5 level building that complements the Peoples Drug Building that DDOT occupies. But this thing is so skinny and so badly designed that it is ugly.
So ugly I can't imagine it being a sound investment, short of a halfway house. Then if, that, I'm sure it will go well nicely with whatever the Refuge of Hope might be planning.
Seriously, this side of the block would be better off razed, the three resident households compensated for their trouble and turned into a huge community garden. 'Cause it's just that F*ed up.

UPDATE:
Wrong about 3 households, make it 2. One household, 32 P St NE, owned by "HENRIETTA BERRIN" and taxed at the senior citizen rate of $0 for all of 2007 and $35.22 for 2005 is DEAD. Dead, dead, dead, dead. Deady-dead dead. Well according to the Social Security Death Index. Apparently she died May 20, 2005. Well, she's now the second dead person paying taxes I know of, wait, no, she hasn't paid taxes, 'cause she didn't owe any. Ain't DC Gov generous with the departed?

Labels: development, houses, taxes

posted by Mari @ 5.2.08