Opinion ID: 667573
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation Act of 1972

Text: 3 Pennsylvania Avenue connects the Capitol and the White House in Washington, D.C. In 1972, finding that the area adjacent to this stretch of the avenue was blighted and was not being used in a manner suitable to its ceremonial, physical, and historic relationship to the legislative and executive branches of the Federal Government, see 40 U.S.C. Sec. 871, Congress created the PADC as a wholly owned government corporation. See id. Sec. 872. Congress directed the corporation to devise an overall development plan for the area, id. Sec. 874, and gave it two different sorts of authority to implement this plan. Not only could the PADC carry out publicly funded construction and rehabilitation projects, see, e.g., id. Sec. 875(16), but it could also regulate private development of the PADC area. See, e.g., id. Sec. 875(8). Indeed, all private development in the PADC area had to be approved by the corporation. Id. Sec. 876(b). Thus, the PADC acts both as a developer in its own right and as a sort of specialized zoning commission. 4 Acting in its first capacity, the PADC has built new parks, widened and repaved the sidewalks along Pennsylvania Avenue, reconstructed the street itself, and installed amenities such as street furniture and trees. As of 1988, the PADC had spent approximately $100 million in public funds for such projects. Joint Appendix (J.A.) 425. 5 But this public spending was intended largely as seed money, designed to create an entirely new setting for private development. Indeed, from 1977 (when Congress gave the PADC the go-ahead) until the project at issue in this case was launched, the great bulk of the money flowing into the PADC area was private rather than public. See id. (reporting that as of 1988 the PADC's $100 million investment had attracted $1.4 billion in new private investment throughout the development area). The principal goal of the PADC's actions as a developer in its own right, then, was to attract private development to be guided by the PADC in its capacity as a zoning commission. 6 Acting in this latter capacity, the PADC has superintended two different sorts of private development: private development initiated by the developer, and private development initiated by the PADC itself through a development competition. The PADC has set forth procedures for its role in these two types of private development in a document called Development Policies and Procedures, originally adopted in 1980 and amended in 1982 and 1984. See Administrative Record (A.R.) tab 20. The sections of this document covering the two types are captioned Policy and Procedures Regarding Development of Privately Owned Sites and Policy and Procedures Regarding Development Competitions. 7 For the first sort of private development, the PADC's zoning role is relatively conventional. In essence, people who own land in the area and who want to develop it must submit detailed proposals to the PADC for approval; if they receive that approval they can build their projects without going through a development competition. (The PADC sometimes helps them assemble the parcels necessary to complete their projects, though they must bear all the costs.) 8 The second sort of private development superintended by the PADC is initiated by the corporation itself. The PADC acquires whatever parcels are necessary in addition to the ones it already owns. It then holds a development competition to decide who will develop them. Assuming both parties can hammer out the details, it sells or leases the parcels to the winner, who then proceeds with the project. Though initiated by the PADC, private development conducted under this procedure is privately financed and produces property that is privately owned. 9