Froom legal team member Cynthia Pols:
Dear Plaza Supporters,
We have an important update on the status of our litigation regarding preserving the Adams
Morgan Plaza that we see as a very positive development.
We have learned that Truist has given the entire Plaza lot to Jubilee Housing, which is an Adams Morgan nonprofit that provides affordable housing for low-income community residents. There are
several Jubilee projects in the neighborhood and two new ones that are underway in the
Kalorama and Ontario Road area of Adams Morgan. We generally have a good impression of the
Jubilee projects in the neighborhood as to both building appearance and living environments.
We suspect that this decision by Truist was heavily influenced by its recent failures in court.
As you know, the DC Court of Appeals rendered a very favorable decision on December 22,
2022, which said that AMRD and our partners in the litigation (the Kalorama Citizens Association) have “standing” to pursue this case on behalf of our members and that easements may be created by an offer by the landowner and acceptance by the general public throughout use of the property (the Plaza in this case). Much of what Truist and its predecessor, SunTrust, argued in this case—that our easement needed to be in writing and recorded in DC’s land records and that it could only be granted to and held by the DC government—was in fact not an accurate characterization of the law.
Then, on September 14, our new judge in DC Superior Court, Judge Donald Tunnage, denied
Truist’s request for a summary judgment (a verdict without a trial) based on a couple of secondary theories that Truist argued invalidated the easement. Judge Tunnage heard the Truist lawyers out and then essentially said that Truist could not ask the court to invalidate an easement that it continued to deny existed. He further found that a trial was necessary to resolve the key legal points relating to the existence of the Plaza easement: (1) whether the original builder of the Plaza in the 1970s, the now-defunct Perpetual Savings and Loan, had made an offer to donate the Plaza to the public; and (2) whether the public had accepted Perpetual’s offer by making use of the Plaza on a continuous basis.
We have linked a copy of the Truist-to-Jubilee deed, which indicates that Jubilee plans to construct about 40 housing units on the site and that the maximum household income for tenants eligible to rent the apartments will be 60% of the area median income. Forty units is less than the 52 units that PN Hoffman planned for the site but we do not know enough about Jubilee’s plans to know whether the site can also accommodate a public space like our Plaza. Jubilee has released a positive statement that indicates a strong interest in working with the community as it finalizes plans for the site. Jubilee has also reached out to our legal team and requested a meeting to start the process rolling. So, the initial signs of an interest in reaching an agreement are promising.
The lawsuit will continue on, with Jubilee replacing Truist as the defendant, unless and until we reach an agreement with Jubilee. We also expect that further proceedings in the lawsuit will be delayed for perhaps as long as six months while the parties seek a workable and acceptable solution for both sides.
We see this as a very positive development in the case and look forward to working with Jubilee
to seek a mutually beneficial solution with our objective being the same as it was in the
litigation: to preserve the existing plaza space to the maximum extent possible. We have also linked an October 9 article in the Washington Post, which provides a decent
summary of these recent developments.
We will keep you posted as we learn more about the process and Jubilee’s plans.
Cynthia Pols
ACT NOW for YOUR PLAZA! 