News

Status of Rosemary Village still uncertain

BY ETHAN GOFFMAN

The fate of residents of the Barrington Apartments, long known as Rosemary Village, is being decided by Greenbelt judge Duncan Keir. A cooperative since 1978, in November of 2003, Rosemary Village voted to sell the property to Fairfield Realty. Residents hope for a promised payment of $42,000 each, yet worry that all or part of the money is not forthcoming. After a series of legal battles, March 3rd is the day a ruling is expected to be announced on the ultimate deposition of the money from the sale.

Just blocks from downtown and the metro stop, Rosemary Village is in a prime position at the edge of Silver Spring revitalization. The property had degenerated over the previous years, and at the time of sale had been cited for some 6,000 code violations. Yet a faction opposed to the sale, known as the "dissident faction," believes that the Rosemary Village board was remiss in not keeping up the property, and that the residents were coerced into giving up their units at far below market value.

Stephanie Killian, Senior Planner at the Montgomery County Department of Housing and Community Affairs, dismisses these concerns, explaining that conditions had become so bad in Rosemary Village that something had to be done, and that the sale was a response to "many, many life and safety issues," including "windows that didn’t open properly, staircases ready to fall down, peeling plaster everywhere, and roofs ready to fall down."

Long-time Rosemary Village resident Margaret Pomenya disagrees, claiming that code violations were greatly exaggerated. Showing her lushly decorated apartment she asked, "Do you think it’s really truly so bad that no human being can live, uninhabitable?" The stairs, floors, windows, and fixtures seem well kept up, in sharp contrast to the pothole ridden exterior.

"This was our home," says, Pomenya, "the county stole it from us." She also claims that Rosemary Village was never appraised before its sale.

Grace Campbell, another member of the "dissident faction," also believes that co-op opponents "capitalize on division."

Campbell said, "This was a working co-op and they want the place for other people, and in the process we’re being treated worse than people in third world countries."

Campbell explains that Rosemary Village’s international status, with immigrants from Africa and diverse parts of Latin America, makes her want to stay in the complex: "I like the feeling of being in a community where I can be with people from all over the world, right here in Silver Spring." Yet their immigrant and minority status also means that residents are unsure of their rights.

Red, white, and blue flyers distributed before the residents voted to sell seem to bear out Pomenya’s claims that the developers used "coercion, intimidation, harassment and fraud." One flyer claims that a "Yes" vote on sale is necessary to insure "no further condemnations of units, no involuntary tenant relocation offsite" and "heat this winter."

Yet, according to Killian, the flyers were just one part of an internal disagreement among residents that involved, "lots of accusations back and forth." Killian adds that, "we’re just the county trying to enforce the housing code," and that "we do not accept substandard housing in Montgomery County, and we work to insure that housing is up to code standards."

So is Rosemary Village’s degraded condition a result of internal apathy, as the county argues, of a conspiracy to drive out residents, as some members of the "dissident faction" believe, or perhaps a bit of both? This question involves more than the fate of Rosemary Village; it indicates the direction being taken by Silver Spring revitalization.

Campbell claims that, "a lot of people are being displaced in Silver Spring, and it’s very sad, because people just don’t care anymore. They’re pretending that it doesn’t exist, nobody wants to get up and call it what it really is–gentrification."

Will the area follow a model in which long-time residents are pushed out as more privileged ones move in? Or will affordable housing and other protections allow Montgomery County to capitalize on its diversity, to develop a truly integrated society, in terms not just of race and nationality, but of class?

The case of Rosemary Village bears careful watching. The treatment and status of the Rosemary residents is a strong indicator of how Silver Spring handles revitalization, of what the area will look like, and who will live here, in the future.