Robert R. Elliott, a Washington lawyer and real estate developer whose varied career included efforts to reform federal housing programs for the poor, help Chileans flee a military dictatorship, and wage a successful battle against a proposed Disney theme park in Virginia, died Sept. 20 at his home in Washington. He was 80.
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His daughter, New York Times journalist Andrea Elliott, said the cause was an apparent heart attack.
Mr. Elliott came to Washington in 1967 and began his career at a securities law firm helping draft the legislation and regulations of the federally sponsored mortgage giant Freddie Mac.
He served as general counsel of the Department of Housing and Urban Development from 1974 to 1977 and helped oversee the implementation of the Section 8 rental assistance program for low-income tenants.
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He also helped craft the federal government’s settlement of the 1976 Supreme Court ruling in Hills v. Gautreaux, which helped disperse public-housing tenants outside of high-poverty neighborhoods. The case, which had spent a decade winding through the courts, remedied the discriminatory practice of building high-rise housing projects in all-Black neighborhoods
In later years, Mr. Elliott continued to work on fair-housing matters. He went into private law practice and served on the boards of the nonprofit National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing as well as Fannie Mae, a government-backed entity that buys home loans and packages them into securities. On his own, he would travel to cities — including New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — to fight against efforts to raze damaged public housing units and to help build affordable housing for low-income residents.
In 1994, Mr. Elliott served as a spokesman for a Prince William County, Va., group called Protect, which opposed Walt Disney Co.’s plans for a 3,000-acre American history theme park near rural Haymarket, Va. Mr. Elliott, who owned a family farm in western Prince William County, teamed up with other landowners, farmers and environmentalists in the effort.
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Disney withdrew the project after months of intense debate between supporters and detractors over the concept of the project, including its portrayal of American history, and the development’s potential impact on tax revenue, traffic, natural resources and neighboring historic sites and communities.
Robert Raymond Elliott was born in Depew, N.Y., a suburb of Buffalo, on Feb. 26, 1941. His father was an engineer for Westinghouse, and his mother worked for a family confection company.
The valedictorian of his high school class, Mr. Elliott won a scholarship to Harvard University. He graduated in 1963 and from Harvard Law School in 1966.
While on a fellowship in Santiago, Chile, to study tax law, he met Maria Gloria Romero, and they married in 1968. He subsequently developed ties with the Chilean community in Washington and worked with the wife of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier to set up a charitable organization for which Mr. Elliott served as president in 1973 and 1974.
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After the U.S.-backed military coup that overthrew Chile’s socialist president Salvador Allende in September 1973, the Elliotts helped Chilean exiles seeking refuge in the United States. Among them was Letelier, who had been imprisoned and tortured by the new junta led by dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
On Sept. 21, 1976, Letelier and an American co-worker, Ronni Moffitt, were killed in a car-bomb attack on Embassy Row in Washington that had been orchestrated by agents loyal to Pinochet. Years later, Mr. Elliott opened the Letelier Theatre in a building he owned in Washingtion’s Georgetown neighborhood, with the space dedicated to documentary film festivals, book readings and public affairs events.
His marriage ended in divorce. In addition to his daughter, of New York City, survivors include two sons, Thomas Elliott of Livingston, Mont., and Pablo Elliott of Manchester, Vt.; two brothers; and five grandchildren.
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