The Mayor’s Office of Legal counsel today denied an appeal by the Van Ness South Tenants Association regarding the denial of a FOIA request by the DC Department of Housing and Community Development.

The FOIA request by VNSTA stated:

We request the most up-to-date draft version of the Rent Control Housing Database mandated by DC law under §42–3502.03c. Public Accessible Rent Control Housing Database.

We request access to an operational version of the database so we can review its functioning before it is released to the public later this year.

VNSTA’s appeal of the DHCD denial of the initial request stated:

There is an urgent public need for a publicly accessible database of rents, which was mandated by the DC Council via a the “Rent Control Housing Clearinghouse Amendment Act of 2015 (B21-0119).” The District of Columbia has failed to deliver the database for eight years, depriving DC residents of important information that likely would slow the rising cost of rental housing.

The appeal also argued that:

If the database had been produced in a timely manner, renters, the DC Council, and the press could have used the historical information to easily detect the “rent concession” scam, by which some landlords falsely reported rents and systematically overcharged customers.