Community Development Law Clinic Update
Thursday, September 27, 2012
(0 Comments)
Posted by: Bradford Voegeli
The Community Development Law Clinic (CDLC) continues
to preserve affordable housing and support charitable organizations in the
District of Columbia. The clinic has
eleven active cases for the Fall 2012 semester. CDLC student attorneys began
their casework in late August and have been involved with many exciting
developments.
Student attorneys Julie Case, 3L, Omeed Tabiei, 3L, and Andrea
Zahrastnik, 3L, are helping their client, a limited equity housing cooperative, to
finalize the process of converting all rental units in the building into
cooperative units. The client can
accomplish this without displacing any residents, all of whom are low-income
tenants that qualify for Section 8 federal housing assistance. The use of the limited equity cooperative
model will ensure that the building remains affordable for all current and
future members of the cooperative.
The story of this client is one of perseverance, and this
conversion process is a welcome culmination.
The cooperative formed out of a tenant association that won a hard
fought battle to save the building. In
2003, the prior property manager, assuming control of the limited partnership
that owned the building, refused to renew the property’s Section 8 subsidy and
attempted to evict the tenants. With pro
bono assistance from Crowell & Moring, which CDLC arranged, the tenants
successfully sued to enforce a contractual right to purchase the building. After withstanding appeal, the tenants
incorporated the cooperative in 2010 with the assistance of CDLC student
attorneys and obtained financing to purchase and rehabilitate the
building. The cooperative now owns a
fully refurbished building, and CDLC proudly expects to help the client realize
its goal of full conversion this semester.
CDLC has additional victories to celebrate. Another client that is also a limited equity
housing cooperative received news on Sept. 10, 2012, that it is one of five
recipients, out of roughly 18 applicants, for which the District of Columbia has
approved for the FY 2012 Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. This program provides a restricted supply of
tax credits to investors in exchange for funds contributed to develop
affordable housing. Upon receipt of the
award, the client will have about $935,000 free of debt, with which to perform
extensive repairs to its building! CDLC
student attorneys helped the client apply for the funds last semester, and
student attorneys Caitlin Cavness and Andrea Zahrastnik are excited to assist
the client in moving forward with its development goals.
To expand educational opportunities for students and
assist in post-Katrina development projects across the Gulf Coast Region, CDLC
entered into a co-counsel relationship with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil
Rights Under Law in January 2012. Student attorneys Kelly Douglas and Carl Engstrand continue the
project. They will aid in the formation
of a nonprofit organization that intends to build a recreation center in which
it will provide after-school education and care. The student attorneys will also prepare the
organization’s application for federal tax exemption. Their other client is a community land trust
in a culturally and historically significant community established by free
African-American men and women soon after the end of the Civil War. The student attorneys will assist the
community land trust in pursuing a plan to use over twenty scattered parcels of
land to develop affordable housing and preserve wetlands. CDLC would like to thank Lawyers’ Committee
for Civil Rights Under Law and the Mississippi Center for Justice for making
this collaboration possible and providing a unique experience for our students.
|