Two members of the D.C. Council are calling foul on a city department鈥檚 approval of a $46 million tax abatement for the Line D.C. hotel 鈥� despite the fact that the project did not meet some of the legal requirements to receive that tax break.
Councilwomen Brianne Nadeau, D-Ward 1, and Elissa Silverman, I-At large, wrote Monday to Attorney General Karl Racine to determine whether the city鈥檚 Department of Employment Services had the authority to approve a payment in lieu of meeting some of the requirements for the tax abatement.
The agency said that it was approving a $600,000 payment from the Line’s team 鈥� to be paid in $150,000 increments over four years 鈥� into the city鈥檚 resident job training fund as 鈥渟ubstitute compliance鈥� for not meeting some of the employment requirements for the abatement. Specifically, the hotel only employed 273 D.C. residents during construction, rather than the 342 full-time-equivalent construction positions it was supposed to employ, according鈥�
