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A real estate investment and property management company is asking the tenants of a Columbia Heights building to pay $991.55 more in monthly rent for capital improvements, as New Columbia Heights first reported. However, this is just the beginning of a discussion, according to the group that owns the building.

The increase at 3501 13th Street NW, according to a capital improvement petition filed by Urban Investment Partners in mid-September, would pay for the replacement of all windows and some kitchen and bathroom features, installation of a new elevator, lobby and hallway upgrades, and more. The building was purchased by UIP for $6 million during a foreclosure auction last year.

“The previous owner, if not obvious by the foreclosure auction, was not spending a lot of money on managing or improving the property, [or] the physical condition of the building, for quite a long time,” UIP founding principal Steven Schwat said in an email. “One of the limitations the previous owner had to deal with was the exceptionally low rents in that particular property.”

Schwat said the building “is in need of substantial improvement dollars.”

“The capital improvement petition is one of several tools D.C. Rent Control Law includes to allow housing providers to spend capital improvement dollars at a property with the assurance of securing a return on the capital improvements installed,” he continued. “If not for these tools, many properties in D.C. will and have fallen into derelict condition.”

But the amount of the increase, which would double the rent for many tenants, is at question. According to the Office of the Tenant Advocate, “Increases to cover improvement costs in individual units can’t be more than 15 percent more than the original rent; and, to cover building-wide improvements, no more than 20 percent.”

The landlord can only make the increase after all improvements are done, and it can only be in effect long enough for the landlord to recover the costs of the improvements. D.C. regulations allow the landlord to spread the costs of building-wide improvements over 96 months and individual unit improvements over 64 months.

Schwat said he had to check on that part of the petition, but added, “I am sure that we have filed according to the current regulations.”

An anonymous tenant who spoke to New Columbia Heights views the move as an effort to push Section 8 tenants from the building.

Schwat said the petition is the “beginning of a discussion with the tenants at the property.” The tenants were ordered to appear for a hearing at the Office of Administrative Hearings on Friday, October 24. “If you do not appear for the hearing, you may lose the case,” the petition states.

“Hopefully via meetings and discussions, we [UIP and the tenants] can work together to come up with a plan that is mutually beneficial to all,” Schwat said.