Today, the DC Department of Housing and Community Development rejected a Freedom of Information Act request by the Van Ness South Tenants Association.

The request submitted by VNSTA states:

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. (Date Range for Record Search: From 01/01/2023 To 07/25/2023)

The reason for the request is approximately eight years have passed since the DC Council approved legislation mandating a user-friendly, public database of rents. Such a database would enable DC residents to search for information about rents in various apartment buildings.

Reports have indicated that the database, which is slated to be released this fall, does not contain historical data — i.e., it currently is not a useful research tool. If true, this also means that DC renters, policymakers and the press cannot investigate systematic overcharging by some companies in the rental housing industry. While some residents, like those of 3003 Van Ness who were harmed, have received restitution for overcharges, thousands of other DC renters may not know that they were overcharged.

The Van Ness South Tenants Association, representing the tenants of the apartments at 3003 Van Ness Street, NW, submitted on January 31, 2019, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for rent records of seven properties owned or operated by Equity Residential Corporation or its affiliates. The DC Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) processed the request, releasing data on February 21, 2019.

The records reveal that Equity Residential very likely has incorrectly reported the rents received on many of its apartments in rent stabilized buildings, vastly inflating many of the figures. At 3003 Van Ness, Equity was pressuring tenants into signing leases listing the “rent” as several hundred dollars or well over one thousand dollars higher than the amount actually received per month. Equity based annual increases on these inflated figures, breaking DC rental housing law.

The data can be found in three compressed files:

DC Department of Housing and Community Development Rejects VNSTA’s FOIA

VNSTA receives rent records of Equity Residential properties via FOIA