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A Washington Post article about DC’s property tax lien sales sparked outrage this week. According to the investigative report, since 2005, hundreds of DC property owners have lost homes due to the sale of tax liens. One of those delinquent tax bills was only $44.

When a DC homeowner fails to pay property taxes, the DC Office of Tax and Revenue (OTR) imposes a lien on the home.  If the lien goes unpaid for a certain period of time, OTR sells the lien to an investor at an annual auction. The homeowner then owes the delinquent tax bill plus interest to the investor.  If the homeowner is unable to pay within six months, the investor can start foreclose proceedings. In order to avoid foreclosure, the owner must pay back the original tax bill, interest, and…

Over the summer, I wrote about the living wage bill passed by the DC Council. The Large Retailer Accountability Act (LRAA) increases the DC minimum wage from $8.25 to $12.50 for certain large retailers in the city. 

But DC Mayor Vincent Gray vetoed the bill today. In a letter to the DC Council, Gray wrote, “If I were to sign this bill into law, it would do nothing but hinder our ability to create jobs, drive away retailers, and set us back on the path to prosperity for all.”

It was feared that Walmart would cancel plans for new stores in the city if the LRAA went into effect. Two Walmart stores are slated to open later this year or early in 2014:  one at 5968 Georgia Avenue in Northwest and the other at 99 H Street in Northwest. A third Walmart at…

DC’s Department of Fire & Emergency Medical Services (FEMS) has been criticized for slow response times. But in August, Chief Kenneth Ellerbe announced that his organization hired 20 new paramedics and will have 30 new ambulances by the end of the year.

Of those 30 ambulances, the first six will be refurbished to allow for quicker delivery. The following ambulances will all be new, and the department will first receive seven and then the final 17.

Hiring of paramedics is critical to FEMS since 80% of their work is medical emergencies. But it has been difficult for two reasons. Firstly, there is a shortage of paramedics across the country. And secondly, until April of this year, DC law prevented hiring those who were not also firefighters.

But…

Chinatown in DC’s Penn Quarter seems like the obvious place to find authentic Chinese cuisine. But according to Todd Kliman, Dining Editor for Washingtonian Magazine, the best place for gourmet Chinese food in the DC area is Rockville, MD.

Kilman says that many Chinese immigrants first settled in Chinatown in the 1950s and 60s. But since that time, they have gradually been moving into Maryland. Edward Shen, co-owner of Seven Seas restaurant in Rockville, immigrated to the US in the 1970s and opened his Chinese restaurant in 1986. When his wife moved to Maryland from Seattle in 1993, she says, “He called Rockville a Little Taipei, meaning that I can get all sorts of gourmet Chinese food in Rockville area. ...Rockville is becoming a small Chinatown in…

The DC Public Charter School Board released a new proposal to assess charter schools using test scores from children in preschool through second grade. The standardized tests in reading and math would account for 60 to 80% of a school’s score.

Ultimately, the Public Charter School Board wants to make it easier for parents to compare schools, especially since 42% of DC public school students are enrolled in charter schools. The Board already implemented similar testing and performance management for elementary and secondary schools several years ago. But DC is one of the only states that allows charter schools to offer preschool.

Jack McCarthy, president and CEO of AppleTree Institute for Education Innovation and the AppleTree Early Learning Public…

The National Mall in Washington, DC has 20 million visitors each year. It is the site of kickball, Frisbee, picnics, festivals, protests, and even historic speeches like the one given by Martin Luther King, Jr.

When Pierre L’Enfant designed the layout of Washington, DC in 1791, he envisioned the National Mall as a large, open space extending to the Capitol. During the 19th century, the Mall was covered with vegetation and grazing sheep. Then in the 20th century, the McMillan Plan decided to make the Mall a more ordered landscape to “celebrate the fact that this was the capital of this young nation and that it was grand in scale and orderly,” according to Roger Lewis, an architect who writes for The Washington Post and is professor emeritus at the…

DC, like most urban areas, has always been an expensive place to live. But how much does it actually cost to live here?

The Center for Housing Policy recently released a report on the affordability (or lack thereof) of housing in the District. According to the report, a salary of $47,640 is required to rent a one-bedroom apartment at fair market pricing in the Washington Metropolitan area. That prices firefighters ($45,765 annual salary), child care workers ($30,522), and wait staff ($25,254) out of the one-bedroom housing market. Salary requirements jump to $56,480 for a two-bedroom unit, which is above the incomes of police officers ($54,755), legal secretaries ($53,839), and electrical engineering technicians ($53,254).

Owning a home in the DC…

The Montrose Residences are flats and two-story luxury homes in the Georgetown Historic District. These homes also come with a luxury price tag from $1.3M to 3M.

The Montrose is located at 3050 R Street in Northwest DC in Montrose Park, between Dumbarton Oaks Gardens and Oak Hill Cemetery, and across the street from the Jackson Art Center. The development is a renovation of the historic Hurt Home, which was built in 1897 as an assisted living facility for the blind.  In 1987, ownership of the property was transferred to the city. The building later became the Devereux Children’s Center, a residential and psychiatric program for foster children.

The Montrose will house 15 new homes -- four flats each on the first and seconds floors and seven…

The Otis & The Redding condos are selling one bedroom units in on the border of the Columbia Heights  and Park View neighborhoods.  Prices for each unit start under $300K.

The Otis was a vacant, decrepit building for quite some time at 809-811 Otis Place in Northwest with the back of the building along Georgia Avenue. The Redding, across the street at 812 Otis Place, NW, was also in disrepair. But Fortis, a DC-based real estate development and investment company, seized the opportunity to bring the buildings back to life with the name of the legendary musician Otis Redding.

The Otis & The Redding condos feature art deco design elements. The contemporary kitchens will include stainless steel appliances, Silestone countertops, and glass tile…

Georgetown is a historic DC neighborhood known for upscale row houses and boutique shopping. But this year, neighborhood planners have envisioned the Georgetown of the future.

Georgetown has seen an influx of 30,000 new residents in the past two years, many of whom are young professionals. Joe Sternlieb, Chief Executive Officer of the Georgetown Business Improvement District (BID), is interested in their needs. “We'll be doing some focus groups with just that demographic in September to respond to some of the ideas that have generated through our Georgetown 2028 project over the last few months because we really want to understand what do they want, what do they need, and how do they plan to get around now and in the future?”

Georgetown never had a…