06-8-2023: Testimony of Meg Maguire, Chair, NWOP CDC

B25-0149 – Friendship Heights Business Improvement District Amendment Act of 2023

06-8-2023

Testimony of Meg Maguire, NW Opportunity Partners Community Development Corporation at Hearing before the DC Department of Small and Local Business Development

NW Opportunity Partners CDC, a not-for-profit corporation formed in January 2021 by committed affordable housing advocates, supports the Friendship Heights Business Improvement District Amendment Act of 2023 (Friendship Heights BID).  Our organization is committed to the mayor’s goal of creating 1,990 units of new affordable housing in Rock Creek West by 2025 through bold advocacy of public land acquisition for affordable housing, robust community engagement in visualizing alternative development scenarios, and recruitment of Black and Brown businesses to help create vibrant and racially diverse communities.  No place offers more opportunity to achieve these aims in Ward 3 than Friendship Hts.

NWOP CDC has supported creation of the BID as an important tool since the inception of its precursor, the Friendship Hts. Alliance.  The Alliance has worked to bring new life to the area by cultivating small businesses in pop-up spaces, sponsoring special events, convening business owners in both DC and Maryland, and working with public agencies to lay the foundation for a new future.  With the establishment of the BID through this legislation, the potential for visionary planning and implementation is unlimited.

We believe that the BID’s success will be determined in large part by its ability to work with a wide variety of citizens’ organizations such as ours to capitalize on our collective ideas, energy, and enthusiasm for redevelopment.  This is particularly true if we are to achieve a racially and economically inclusive community in which people who work in Ward 3 can live in Ward 3.  We have urged the Council Business and Economic Development Committee to amend B25-0149 to mandate creation of a broad-based Friendship Heights BID Advisory Council to ensure that organized groups committed to various aspects of revitalization have a seat at the table, both to learn from, and contribute to, shared goals.  Only in this way can we all sing from the same page with our many different voices.

Meg Maguire, Chair, NWOP CDC

(Contact:  202-546-4536 or megmaguireconsultant@msn.com )