Who owns Baltimore's vacant houses and how to fix them up?

The first steps of a new $3 billion effort to acquire and repurpose thousands of vacant homes across Baltimore have begun with a state pledge and a package of bonds being considered by city lawmakers aiming to undo blight. (Baltimore SUN)

How removing thousands of vacants kept the total number of vacants the same

Baltimore's vacant rowhouses have vexed mayors for all the decades Baltimore has been a shrinking city. Their programs to eliminate vacant houses had colorful names: Mayor Martin O'Malley inaugurated his Project 5000 (or P5k) in 2002 and in 2010 Stephany Rawlings Blake created Vacants to Value (V2V). The SUN reported that "it took [O'Malley] two years to clear title to the first 2,250 properties. It took seven months to clear the next 33." Vacants to Value was adopted by Mayor Pugh as well ran on all the way to the current administration. The City website described the project this way:

Vacant lots and buildings in Sandtown (Photo: Philipsen)

Launched in November of 2010, Mayor Rawlings-Blake’s Vacants to Value initiative seeks to encourage reinvestment in neighborhoods impacted by blighted properties by strengthening code enforcement, promoting rehabilitation; streamlining the sale of vacant city property, and, by providing new, targeted incentives for homebuyers and developers who invest in vacant homes. 

Back then the number of vacant houses was estimated to be 12,500. Not that these programs didn't work at all, but for every rowhouse that was repurposed, one or more new vacant ones popped up due to continue
d deeply depressed property values in large swaths of the city combined with continued population shrinkage. As the University of Baltimore showed in various studies, even one or two vacant rowhouses can create instability and ruin housing values and livability on an entire block. It would stand to reason, then, to focus on stabilizing neighborhoods with those individual vacant houses, the so called middle housing neighborhoods. However, none of the programs used such an approach, instead, all aim for the biggest total numbers of eliminating vacants. 

Vacant houses are not only destabilizing neighborhoods, they also represent a huge amount of lost revenue for the City. In a 2022 report the Abell Foundation estimated these staggering numbers:

• Vacants cost the city at least $100 million in lost revenue annually. The depressed value of vacant properties creates a shortfall of potential property tax revenue of approximately $50 million each year, with an additional $22 million loss attributed to the “contagion effect” on the value of nearby properties. The city could also benefit from at least $24 million in additional income tax revenue and over $12 million in additional water and sewer revenue if 15,000 vacant properties were occupied.

  

  The infamous "black butterfly" is clearly 
  visible on this city map of vacants

The number would be even higher if  one adds in the over 9,000 vacant land parcels where rowhouses once stood. The Abell report also mentions indirect costs:

The true cost of disinvestment and decline in the physical attributes of a city is far more than direct spending on maintenance and lost tax revenue, but these are the measurable aspects of vacancy. The broader costs to communities in terms of lost residents, public health impacts, and heightened crime are less measurable but very real. In Baltimore, these costs are also highly inequitable as they are largely borne by majority Black neighborhoods and Black homeowners. The economic value to the city of solving this problem is vast.

The State has been supportive in the efforts of reducing vacants as well. Even Governor Hogan, who had a rocky relationship with Baltimore City, sent a lot of money for Baltimore rowhouse blight removal under the name Project CORE (Creating Opportunities for Renewal and Enterprise). By mid 2021 CORE had spent some $123 million and eliminated 5,000 blighted units, mostly through demolition. In fact, there was so much demolition that some parts of West Baltimore today look more like green pastures (minus the cows) than an inner city neighborhood. Even before Mayor Scott the city tried various ways of generating funds for blight removal. Mayor Pugh tried a Neighborhood Reinvestment Fund which is still in place and reported a vacancy reduction of 40% in targeted clusters. 

In spite of all that, the number of vacant rowhouses remain stubbornly high and the revitalization of the most disinvested neighborhoods elusive. The number of vacant rowhouses today is given as 13,000, less than a tenth of which are reportedly owned by the City.  Overall, 7.2% of all residential properties were vacant and abandoned in 2022, 7.9% in 2010 and 8.2% in 2015nearly constant for over a decade, despite significant efforts to rehabilitate or demolish. .Equally constant is the magic number of 5000 units the politicians aim to remove with their programs; all the way to Governor Moore's new program.

City map of investment target areas (DHCD Dashboard)

The latest State initiative 

Now Governor Moore, his housing Secretary Day and Mayor Scott are ramping up a new effort with a combined $3bn State and City funds over 15 years that once again aims to bring 5000 unit into a productive future, including renaming Project CORE into the the Baltimore Vacants Reinvestment Initiative.  

“Right now, Baltimore has roughly 13,000 vacant and abandoned homes or structures and has more than 20,000 vacant lots. If we want to drive investment and we want to drive growth, we need to address the vacancy problem in Baltimore.” (Governor Moore)

The Baltimore SUN summarized the numbers: "Wes Moore set a goal of transitioning at least 5,000 vacant properties into homeownership or other positive outcomes during the next five years. Legislation passed in April pledges $50 million per year to the initiative, while state housing Secretary Jacob Day said Sunday that the state will fund an additional $27 million per year through a Baltimore regional neighborhoods initiative." 

The Mayor's neighborhoods TIF plan

Scott's overall housing plan has a few specific innovations, one of them a non contiguous tax increment financing district (TIF) that would leverage future tax revenues to finance immediate investments in neighborhoods. Two bills creating such as district and issuing bonds have been introduced. The idea is to generate $150 million over 15 years from TIF bonds. According to city hall, this is the first such TIF nationwide. State and TIF funds together will eventually add up to the $3 bn figure that has been batted around. 

At times it  seems as if anybody but the residents of Baltimore own the city. To date TIFs were mostly issued on behalf of corporations or developers who also routinely get large tax credits or concessions by swaying the Mayor, the entire City Council or the Board of Estimates, or all three. And then there are out of town private equity funds.

Higher taxes for vacants to suppress speculation

The Baltimore vacant house problem has a flavor that is not well known. The bad taste comes from speculative investors buying up cheap real estate and then flipping it to unsuspecting foreign buyers or just sitting on it doing nothing. Either way, the buildings don't get really improved. Many see this as a key reason why there are so many vacants, including those with aborted construction.

5 steps of intervention
(ReBuild Metro)

This year the Baltimore City Council finally took up the issue of slumlords and do-nothing speculators by proposing to tax vacant property at higher rates than occupied and used property. A bill was recently introduced and has the mayor's support and is co-sponsored by the entire council.

Foreign or out of town investors who buy Baltimore houses at tax sales or on the real estate market only to either "flip" them again, sometimes on the same day at a much higher price to unsuspecting far away clients or just hold on to them without doing anything are, indeed, doing nothing to turn the city around even if investment in general should be welcome. The bill to punish slumlords who sit on vacant property without investing with the expectation of some future windfall in the context of all the other activities aiming to reduce the high number of vacant Baltimore rowhouses is certainly a useful tool.

The far away investments are also troublesome because they are often based on deception or outright fraud. Buyers have been promised income from rents of tenants that don't exist because the houses have stood vacant for so long they are uninhabitable. Sometimes buyers receive proceeds form actual rents yet have still no idea that the house they bought is by no means prime real estate, not near the water but in the middle of West Baltimore, possible on a block where it is the only occupied one. 

Investors hoping some day they lemons would be valuable lemonade share one idea with locals: The idea that Baltimore cannot remain forever a laggard in urban development, population growth and prosperity and that one day its excellent location will prevail and the real estate mantra of "location, location, location" will finally come true. But their inaction makes this vision ever more distant. 

Long-term thinking isn't usually a speculator's strategy and so many of those rowhouse hoarders  stopped operation and subsequently leaving their buyers of useless homes hanging with nothing or, at best, partially started some renovations.

In Baltimore’s Harlem Park neighborhood, for example, just 53 of the 464 homes sold since 2017—12 percent—were purchased by owner occupants. In 2022, one of every five homes sold in the neighborhood (19.2 percent) was purchased by an out-of-state business, and nearly half were bought by in-state corporations with multiple-property portfolios.
“You just saw this backfill of corporate ownership come into this neighborhood, and it’s going to take years to come back from that,” Allenby says. Where real estate investors once focused on flipping houses for a quick buck, they now see rental properties as a long-term moneymaker. “These houses are just gone, likely in perpetuity, from a homeownership perspective.” (Source)

On the scale it is occurring this behavior has a chilling effect on Baltimore's recovery. The Baltimore Banner devoted two stories on the phenomenon. 

How a small group of investors turned distressed Baltimore neighborhoods into profit centers.

A reversal is urgently needed.

The solution?

There is no silver bullet to overcome the thicket of low market values for decades of racism, disinvestment, lack of services, liens for unpaid bills and general neglect. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and following this maxime unintended consequences line the path to revitalization. So do bad feelings. Communities lost faith, have no trust, fear gentrification and generally think that they are not heard and that whatever investments are not for them. 

Real time dashbord of Baltimore Housing (VBN stands for vacant 
building notice, the City's term for vacants)

Neither the City land-banking all the vacants nor complete reliance o private investment will solve the vacancy problem. Nor will large and stubborn investment in the vast areas of highest need (as the Enterprise Foundation tried) nor trickle investment as performed by many non-profits and community development corporations alone will work. 

The most successful undertakings seem to come from initiatives that Sean Closkey has spearheaded, first with Telesis and now with ReBuild Metro in Barclay and  Johnston Square. His approach can be summarized as being limited in scale, intensely local, relentlessly systematic, adjacent to strength and equitably with the community. The ReBuild organization described the approach in a 2023 report.

In summary: If the city can manage to get those new TIFs off the ground, if the State maintains its support funding, if the taxes on vacant properties succeed, and if the funds are used wisely, systematically and not in a scattershot manner, there could still be a chance to eventually revive the vast areas of disinvestment in West, Northwest and East Baltimore. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

I have written many times about the problems and the potential solutions to the problem. 

• Can the State save blighted communities in the City with $700 million? (2016) Here
• Can demolition of vacants add value? here
• One way to have fewer vacant rowhouses here 
• Homesteading instead of flipping -The myth and reality of the Dollar House here 

HarborPlace on the ballot - or maybe not?

Justified challenges or legal shenanigans?

In a surprising turn of events the Titanic isn't any longer smoothly sailing into a safe harbor of a ballot question approval. Instead, a circuit judge found ballot question F about HarborPlace confusing and hard to understand and invalidated it. The question begins "with the purpose of amending the provision dedicating for public park uses", then meanders in an endless boundary description to end in expanding the allowed uses in the park "to include commercial uses, multifamily residential development and off-street parking" as well as increasing the area where such uses would be allowed. In a more surprising turn, the judge also found that amending the City Charter isn't the right vehicle to address this type of land use and zoning question and hasn't been right even when it was done the first time around nearly half a century ago ago for the current pavilions. 

A 2025 vision of revamping the pavilions (MG2 Architects)

The ballot language was drafted by the city solicitor and approved by the State Board of Elections. This approval was disputed in the Circuit Court by a group of Baltimore residents opposed to MCB's development proposal. Should the judge's decision stand, the ballot question would be invalid and MCB would not have the rights to build the stuff they propose.

The Election Board quickly appealed the judge's decision to the State Supreme Court which now has to decide when and how it will take up the issues.

The wording of the ballot question is just another step by the city administration bending over backwards in paving the way for MCB's redevelopment proposal from rezoning to the Mayor standing with the developer every step of the way. 

Challenging the wording is legitimate.

Naturally, the Circuit Court agreeing with the petitioners contesting the ballot question caused cries of foul from the Mayor, city councilman Eric Costello and even a SUN editorial.  All pay little attention to the legal matters at hand, namely the wording of the ballot question and instead attack the judge directly and arguing that the judge overstepped her bounds and robs city residents their democratic right of self determination. Costello even tweeted about the "worst kind of voter suppression". Mayor and councilman seem angered by the court's location outside the City in Anne Arundel County where the Board of Elections is located. 

Question F on the ballot: What?

The crying that the judge jeopardizes democracy is ironic considering that the confusing ballot question is only the last step in of many steps of depriving city voters from a real say in the matter in the first place. From the time when Mayor Scott found MCB friend Bramble as a willing buyer of the pavilions to today the matter was presented as a forgone conclusion with no serious alternatives. Voters are to believe it is MCB or nothing. Clearly this true. Frankly, HarborPlace would have a much better chance to actually see the improvements most that everyone agrees are needed in a timely manner if one would pursue a less grandiose plan. 

Why some people oppose MCB's development

With the appeal still pending its a good time to  review again why many say that changing the City Charter was a bad idea in the first place and why allowing high-rise apartment towers, an indoor mall and an office building in any city park is a bad idea, and this particular city park is no exception. 

Let's contrast MCB's key arguments with observable reality.

Pro: MCB's key argument is that the pavilions are obsolete, must be demolished and that HarborPlace has become so downtrodden that only a very big change can help bringing people back . They further argue that their $490 million project that includes 900 apartments will bring the amount of additional people to the area that are needed to support the shops, restaurants within the project and beyond. In fact, MCB says that their project and the revival of HarborPlace will be a catalyst for reviving all of downtown. 

Alternative plan by Mahan Rykiel 2015,
no more Pratt Street pavilion

Con: The reality is that the pavilions were indeed neglected for a long time and that in the end a lot of the tenants had left. However, they were considered structurally sound when Ashkenazy bought them they did not find them obsolete. Before they abandoned the project they hired Seattle Architects MG2who drew up to to bring the buildings up to modern standards, presented them to the city's design review and even made some improvements to the Pratt Pavilion. The reality is, too, that MCB has legacy tenants operating in the pavilions to this day (The Cheesecake Factory) and has added a slew of new tenants doubling the occupancy rate in a short time. 

Con: The reality is also that the millions of visitors each year who visit  HarborPlace dwarf anything that 900 residences can offer. People come for events such as the wine village, the Christmas village, the ice rink, visiting tall ships or simply to enjoy being at the water. The fully redesigned Rash Field open space is always full of people. The attraction have never been the buildings but the activities.

Pro: MCB's project is large and injects potentially a large amount of money into the City's economy. The private cost of $490 million for the buildings relies on an additional $400 million of public money being spent on fixing the promenade, bringing the total to one billion dollars. Public investment would enlarge the park area by adding parts of Pratt and Light Streets to HarborPlace and connecting the McKeldin Plaza. Pratt and Light Streets would be turned into attractive urban boulevards that are a pleasure for pedestrians and easy to cross. MCB's project includes about the same lease area of restaurants and shops as the current pavilions, with income form the apartments supporting the commercial uses. 

Pratt and Light Streets today are more highway than
urban boulevard

Con: The reality is that the restaurants and shops were originally intended to be amenities to the enjoyment of the Inner Harbor. Their original success was based on very careful programming and scheduling regular events. They were never meant to be profit centers but engines to add value to the entire area.

 Baltimore has similar cases in Belvedere Square, at the Cross Street Market or at Cross Keys where the mix of shops and eateries is seen as a necessary amenity adding value to the surrounding area. 

The shops and restaurants at HarborPlace similarly could add again value to the surrounding areas and MCB would profit from them since they are controlling one property at the corner of Light and Pratt and another one on Pratt across from the World Trade Center. The construction of mixed use towers there would be far more useful with the same revitalization effect.

instead of this proven approach MCB turns the $80 million problem of the pavilions (market value plus estimated debt on them) into a $490 or even $ 1billion problem if one adds the expected public investment. It isn't known how much of the $490 million cost is underwritten and how MCB would convince lenders that they can build 900 apartments without a single designated on site parking space or that they have accounted for all the extra cost that comes from building highrises on fill that was once water.

 Baltimoreans just have to look around to see how well those supposedly game changing mega projects fared in the past,  from the "Superblock" to La Cite's Poppleton renewal to Port Covington or EBDI. Some never came of the ground and all of them shrank substantially in the process. Failures can also be seen for smaller projects closer to the Harbor: After the demolition of a beautiful landmark the News American Site (now controlled by MCB) has set vacant for decades. The Mechanic Theatre was also demolished with no reconstruction in sight. The former McCormick Spice company was demolished and it took over 30 years until at least one phase of redevelopment was completed with resdiential highrise (which di not noticeably alter how many people are in the area). 

MCB rendering of their proposal (Our Harborplace website)

Pro: MCB picked up several suggestions that were part of earlier redevelopment plans, namely connecting McKeldin Plaza, reducing Light Street and making Pratt Street more attractive. The ideas were on the table but languished. MCB's proposal has moved them to a solution accepted by City DOT. MCB hired a landscape architect and designed the additional spaces as Freedom Park and a series of well landscaped spaces. These improvements would make the waterfront indeed much more accessible and attractive and enhance any activity there. MCB also suggests fortifying the promenade by lifting it by 3' against rising sea-levels. 

Con: Of the $400 million expected public improvements only some $70 million are actually secured. The Red Line shown by MCB on Pratt Street would be better connected to Metro if it ran on Baltimore Street. A "preferred alignment" has not yet been selected by MDOT. Lifting the promenade by 3' would drastically later the experience of the water and does little to protect surrounding areas where other parts of the promenade remain on current elevations.

Pro: MCB points to numerous global waterfront projects that consist of a mix of parks, commercial uses and residences, many of them very successful and well liked, including The Wharf in DC, Toronto's waterfront, and New York's Battery and Brooklyn Park projects.

Incremental steps instead of a mega project?

Con: The reality is that in most of those cases the waterfront promenades, parks and public spaces were funded by the for profit portions of the developments, such as apartments. 

Also: In most cases the residences don't sit directly along the water but are well set-back. In none of those precedents were apartment towers built in a long ago designated public park.  

Conclusion

In conclusion, the argument that 900 apartments placed inside the park are necessary to revive HarborPlace is not convincing. 

Apartment towers, no matter how well designed are definitely not an attraction and likely would introduce conflicts between public uses/events and private homes. 

And yes, Baltimore voters should have a say in this drastic change of the City Charter, even if the Circuit judge thinks that the extra protection of this public park should never have been anchored in the City Charter. But the question must be understandable and simple. It should say something like this: "with the purpose of adding commercial uses, multifamily residential development and off-street parking on 4.5 acres of the designated public park known as HarborPlace". 

Fixing up what is wrong with HarborPlace without changing the City Charter and within the old zoning restrictions would be a faster, much cheaper and way less disruptive approach than Bramble's Fata Morgana, regardless how the Supreme Court of Maryland will decide on the ballot question.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

 

The most myopic way to do "comprehensive" re-zoning

 Baltimore County, the largest jurisdiction in the Baltimore region, has only seven council members who yield incredible power. For example in zoning.

Baltimore County Masterplan: Ransacked by the
Council

This was once again on display this week when the county council voted about nearly 400 zoning issues in a process that is as obtuse as its name: Quadrennial CZMP. This stands for comprehensive zoning map process, whereby the "map" part stands for the fact that this is geographically specific zoning that shows on the map (versus changes to the zoning code that can happen any time). The operation goes over two years from the time applications are allowed to the day of the vote and is repeated every four years. In those two years all applications for re-zoning are placed on a log of issues that are posted online. Each county resident can apply for zoning changes on any parcel of land that is zoned. Each issue is reviewed and commented by the planning department and the planning board of the county, both can suggest modifications to the original application. 

Mixed use that could be TOD: denied for Lutherville

The rationale for doing all the re-zoning in one consolidated process sounds convincing. It allows to see the bigger picture of what all changes combined would do to the County as a whole and how those changes would advance or hamper the goals and objectives of the county masterplan. That is the theory. The practice is quite different and actually resembles the opposite. 

It is hard to know where to begin with a critique of the process or describe all the places where it goes off the rails. As former Baltimore County planning director Keller stated in the Baltimore Banner, "the system pretty much sucks". 

To begin with, this round of rezoning falls half way into the old 2020 masterplan and halfway into the new 2030 masterplan which is now in effect. In other words, applicants went by a plan that was on its last breath when they filed for zoning change while the council voted when the new plan is already in effect. Zoning is an act of planning that by definition must look forward and think ahead.

Online access to the log of issues

The adoption of the new masterplan in itself was another example of the council power going awry. The council with its almost absolute powers ran rough-shot over the plan in the last moments of it being adopted as the guiding document and after years of preparation. Several renegade council members took the most important designation of the plan, the nodes out. One council member nixed out all nodes in his entire district, a random and capricious act. The Planning Director sums this up in his "director's report" on the CZMP:

Council’s amendments removed, or altered, a number of the Node Place Types that were provided in the draft Master Plan 2030, creating voids in the Place Type mapped areas. These have been designated as Undefined in the land use Place Types. The absence of a land use designation in these areas prevented determinations of consistency or inconsistency with Master Plan 2030. 

 The planning department did, in fact look at all the issues in the aggregate in a time consuming process that included "research regarding development proposals, zoning history, applicable school capacity, infrastructure and field visits", review of "comments from several county agencies, meeting with the applicants and attending public hearings to obtain community comments. The director's report summarizes:

 A total of 389 rezoning requests were received, totaling 9,439.55 acres. Requests for the NC zoning designation, alone, totaled 2,174.84 acres. The Department of Planning recommended zoning changes to 73 issues which involved 725.89 acres.

So far so good, the planners riddled down the chaos to a manageable change, had the council not messed up the new masterplan and weren’t the Masterplan out of sync with refining... But the orderly and systematic review of the planning department becomes much less meaningful when they have to hand the entire issue log over to the Planning Board which is far more developer friendly and recommended way more zoning changes than the department.  

The real kicker, though, is that the councilmen (yes they are all men) don't have to abide by neither what the planning department recommends nor what the Planning Board finds, nor by anything what the public told them. 

In the voting reality that took place once again this week, each council member has not only the last word on voting up or down on the application itself or the recommendations they can actually change the zoning in the the final vote to something different altogether. Yes, that's right! What actually stands at the end of a 2-year arduous process may have nothing to do with what the applicant wanted or what the planners and planning board members recommended. It may be a decision that has never been vetted by anyone at all and it will stand for four years unless somebody can prove to the Board of Appeals that there was an actual error, that it was grievously capricious or that the area in question has undergone such drastic change after the zoning was enacted, that it would be absurd to uphold it.  

In that vain, and in a move that defies all planning logic, Councilman Jack rezoned a former mall that is now a partially occupied shopping center in Lutherville right next to a light rail station not to mixed use (as applied for) as needed for a transit oriented development, but to DR16, ie. relatively low density housing which makes all existing use "conditional", i.e not "by right" anymore but subject to being revoked when any change is planned. 

What if the other council members find a particular move of a colleague especially obnoxious or egregious? In theory, they could vote the district representative's motion down. In reality, though, this has never happened in the history of the council. In part, this has practical reasons. No council member can understand the complexity of nearly 400 zoning issues and even less discuss them in a session where all are supposed to be voted into law. But the "councilmanic courtesy" principle goes beyond those practical matters. It  is an overall "gentlemen's" agreement  that applies the rule of "mind your own damn business" to countywide planning where it surely isn't appropriate. 

It is particularly inappropriate in a county that has a severe housing shortage and is under a mandate to create 1000 affordable housing units in 10 years. It is inappropriate in a county where NIMBYs are at time openly or veiled racist and where the population is stagnant because there is nobody who guides development in a manner that is rational and above board. 

Council members cannot take donations while the CZMP is underway, but, of course, they take them before and after to an extent that citizens' trust in local decision in Baltimore County is largely lost. Or as the chair of the policy advocacy group "We the People" writes in an email to members:

Why does this all matter? Because allowing each Councilmember to run his or her district as an individual fiefdom divides us from one another, and deprives us of the opportunity to build on our collective strengths. We are not seven individual counties, united by a loose alliance of roads, sewers and water pipes. We are One County. (Nick Stewart, We The People)

Division is a big loss in a time when only confidence in democratic institutions can hold the society somehow together. Gaining such trust is still the easiest on the local level where "potholes" are neither Republican nor Democrat", but it Maryland's third largest jurisdiction needs a very different council for that. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

 

A Vision for Baltimore (Part 2 - A Strategy)

Recently I reviewed the Morgan State Capstone thesis work by Nicholas Chupein about urban highway removals and specifically concepts to remove the JFX titled "Windows of Opportunity" and a new, not yet published book by internationally known architect V. Chakrabarti about "connected design titled "The Architecture of Urbanity - Designing for Nature, Culture, and Joy" . After some consideration I think that combining a new transportation paradigm with the concept of urbanity and connectivity would make a solid foundation for a new vision of Baltimore.  See part 1 here

A new sound is coming from the Mayor

The several dozen Baltimore residents that recently made it to a public outreach meeting under the title Downtown Rise heard a very different tune about traffic directly from their Mayor.  Gone was the talk about congestion that dominated decades of public meetings about transportation. Instead the Mayor talked about walkability, connections and transit and how prioritizing those aspect would revive downtown.

Mayor Scott speaking about a walkable downtown
(Photo Philipsen)

Baltimore lags farthest behind in transportation and walk score when compared to peer cities.[...] Baltimore has historically prioritized regional vehicular mobility over pedestrian connectivity.[...] A high-quality pedestrian experience can be created with investment in diverse mobility options for a more livable, connected downtown neighborhood. (Downtown Rise 10-year plan)

From Mayor Brandon Scott to Downtown promoter Sheilanda Stokes one after the other official went to the podium to praise the benefits of a city built around walk access to amenities, built for the residents rather than suburban commuters and focusing on an attractive "public realm" rather than a high throughput of cars. 

Investments in the public realm are critical to increasing equitable access to resources and enhancing livability (Slide from Downtown Rise)

The presenters pretty much followed a line of thinking that many cities had long embraced and that MSU student Chupein had laid out in his study titled "Windows of Opportunity". He placed the idea of removing the lower JFX into the context of the international movement of reconfiguring urban transportation by removing urban highways, strengthening transit, walking and biking and making streets inviting to sit down and enjoy urban amenities. Many cities removed freeways and replaced them with boulevards, local streets and entire new neighborhoods. 

Rochester: Small city streets and housing instead of
a freeway ditch. (Photo: Philipsen)

Baltimore, frequently a Johnny-come-lately, years ago embraced "complete streets", a bike masterplan and a green network plan. If implemented and combined those policies would result in just such a livable city. However, until now no administration has shown enough courage to really turn the ship. Every time there was push-back from those who are stuck in the avoid-congestion-paradigm backed off, especially the city's DOT. In Baltimore one would detect fragments of complete streets but nothing close to the comprehensive implementation of those policies that one can see in Portland OR, Washington DC, New York City, Vancouver, Rotterdam, Paris or Barcelona. Of course, so far Baltimore is only studying the removal of a freeway, at best it has nibbled at some edges as in the case of the Highway to Nowhere (H2TN). The current "Reconnecting Communities" grant pays Baltimore $2 million to study how the H2TN could reconnect communities but has little in terms of a vision to show for it as of now. 

The urbanized walkable city is in Baltimore's DNA. When the City had nearly a million residents it had no urban expressways, almost no one-way streets and a very pedestrian and bicycle friendly environment, augmented by a huge network of streetcars. Nevertheless, one should not confuse the vision of a walkable pedestrian-centric city with nostalgia for the 1950s, a time of  dirty air, unhealthy crowded living conditions and rampant open racial discrimination. Nor should the vision be seen as a liberal pipe dream of  the "coastal elites" since smaller towns in rural red states aspire to safer mor livable main streets just the same.

hHighway to Nowhere, Baltimore (Photo: Philipsen)

While the walkable "20-minute-city" concept emulates some aspects that seem normal in smaller towns such as not wasting long hours each day being stuck in traffic or meeting people in the street while doing errands by walking, or letting kids walk or bike  to school, the library or the pool with having to fear that they would be run over by a speeding car, these activities can work in large metropolises as well without reversing everything that has happened in the last 75 years or so.
Yet, drastic retooling is needed, especially in zoning and the allocation of life, work and recreation, not only within a single jurisdiction, but with an entire region. It is clear that the suburbanization of America has sucked the life out of many cities and has brought car dominance to our life, especially in the suburbs.

The reurbanization of Baltimore is not done by replacing a few parking spots with these skinny platforms placed in the gutter where one can sit in front of a restaurant and eat one's food a couple of feet away from buses, trucks and SUVs, even if those COVID induced expansions of outdoor eating options are fundamentally a step in the right direction. 

Market Street Frederick, MD (Photo: Philipsen)

If Baltimore would be following architect and urbanist Chankabarti's notion of connective design plus his notion of urbanity and joy it would become a city to live in not one to drive out of. A city to be in, not one to drive through, a city that keeps its residents and grows instead of one that shrinks. Connectivity follows the removal of barriers. Free flowing traffic is always a barrier. And by the way, connectivity is also needed to bring all those many, many plans and policies in alignment that have stacked up without implementation. Connectivity also means eliminating the silos, coordination across departments and pulling jointly in the same direction.

For estimating the effects of connectivity consider how disconnected Baltimore is: Downtown is disconnected on all sides from the surrounding neighborhoods by an almost complete noose roadways designed for maximal throughput of cars, including Martin Luther King Boulevard, the JFX, President Street, Key Highway, Pratt Street, and Light Street. Those last two streets is another case where the Mayor and DOT sing a to a new tune. 

While their hopping on the wagon of MCB's HarborPlace redevelopment ideas is criticized by many, the embracing of the envisioned "road diets" and closure of the Light to Calvert Street connector is almost as revolutionary as the partial closure of Time Square for cars was in Manhattan. After languishing for years, the idea of connecting McKeldin Plaza was not only suddenly endorsed but also followed by a traffic study of the entire area that calculated the effects.  In spite of following a very traditional approach of counting traffic and reallocating the entire volume of cars, the study still concluded that the suggested lane reductions and closures would be feasible with only 14% increased travel times.

Existing and proposed Pratt Street cross section
(Dept. of Planning )

While one can certainly argue with the methodology of the traffic consultant, the benefits of making Light and Pratt Street less dominated by fast moving cars are obvious if one wants to revitalize downtown by benefitting from the waterfront and the visitors that go there or to the convention center, the National Aquarium or the other attractions. 

West Baltimore is cut in half by the Highway to Nowhere and Druid Park is isolated from the surrounding neighborhoods by the JFX on one side and the 10 lanes of Druid Park Lake Drive and Druid Hill Avenue. The beautiful urban wilderness of the Jones Falls is largely ruined by the expressway frequently running on top of it. Historic Oldtown and Jonestown have been turned into ruins by the Orleans Street viaduct and I-83. Sharp Leadenhall was disconnected from Ridgely's Delight and downtown plus it was amputated by the spur of I-395. 

All of these dividers and community destroyers were built so people could come in quickly during the morning rush hour and leave equally quickly in the evening. The new paradigm would be nothing less than a reversal. Just as the emphasis on free-flowing traffic in and out of the city helped empty it out, a reversal would help the city gain new residents and keep existing ones and it would also mean less not more traffic. If people live near where they work, shop and amuse themselves, there would be much less driving and driving and getting around in general would be organized differently. Dismantling the road barriers in favor of connectivity in all directions would not only make the city far more livable, it would also be less congested. "Impossible", most people would cry, "costs too much and is illogical to boot. The entire city would come to a standstill, and  people would want want to live in the city even less than today". 

Taking back the streets for people: Rotterdam, (Photo: Philipsen)

Actual examples of success help. As I have shown in a previous article, the Dutch city of Rotterdam and many other cities have proved that it is not only possible to take the streets back from cars that it  doesn't mean impossible grid-lock and that it can mean growth. Our neighbor DC was over long stretches considered an urban basket case, a shrinking population left many vacant houses behind, just as in Baltimore. In the last 30 years the District not only grew by many 10s of thousands of residents, it actually also experiences now less gridlock than before. Many of the new residents don't need to drive because they live in the middle of everything they usually need and have good transit options. 

Well, you may say, Baltimore isn't Rotterdam or DC, it has less transit and more poverty. True, both but the liveable city follows a different model of mobility that decreases congestion. Instead of channeling all vehicles into a few freeways and major arteries from where they are released in non digestible concentrations into local streets that have been made one way arteries with prohibited rush hour parking (such as I-395 dumping into Conway and Howard Streets or the JFX into President Street), the already much lower volumes (fewer commuters) would be much more evenly distributed into the local grid of streets. Aside from the fact that residents in older quarters often have no garage and need on street parking so that rush-hour parking restrictions are a real burden, a distributed network has redundancy that makes traffic much less vulnerable to disruptions. Instead of one route, there are always many more that will make "gridlock" less likely.

Washington DC, Center City pedestrian streets
(Photo: Philipsen)

But true, more and better transit would be needed as well. It along with the better general quality of life would then reduce the concentrations in poverty by adding additional residents.

Initially called Project Livable, that group grew to be representative of 30+ institutions who focus on downtown or are headquartered downtown. Those organizations included Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, the University of Maryland Medical System, the University of Maryland, Baltimore, the National Aquarium, and so many more. That group, under the leadership of Governor Wes Moore and Mayor Brandon M. Scott, spent significant time talking about connecting our assets and our neighborhoods, about how we help people move from one experience to another (Downtown Rise 10-year plan)

In fact, "traffic" is not a god-given constant but the result of many factors, especially local zoning and land use policies. The walkable 20 minute city would generate less traffic and the absence of quick drives across larger distances would also reduce unnecessary trips and reverse "induced demand".  Chupein, in his work about removal of the JFX, quotes research that after systematic analysis shows that up to 40% of traffic simply disappear. Let's explain how.

Subway station in DC: A different type of mobility
(Photo: Klaus Philipsen)

A recent traffic study addressing the lane reductions proposed for Pratt and Light streets concluded only a 14% increase in travel delays and suggested that even that would not necessarily materialize because some traffic would disappear thanks to "learned behavior". Critics quickly ridiculed this notion as magic thinking. In reality, this traffic study doesn't go nearly far enough in considering a comprehensive mitigation strategy.

Disappearing traffic is not nearly as magic as it may appear. To understand this, all it takes is a look at how we arrived at all this traffic in the first place. It didn't just come from sprawl alone. "Induced demand"  inevitably showed up every time transportation capacity was increased. When trip-time is reduced, people will make new decisions. They will make additional and even longer trips since they now take less or the same amount of time people previously deemed acceptable. They will chose more distant locations acceptable as their home, drive further for groceries and just about anything else until one gets a situation like Los Angelos used to be before their mayor turned transportation policy around.  In the LA of old residents zipped around on freeways on the way to daycare, jobs, shopping or the movies. LA became first famous and then infamous for its mobility woes. Freeways along with cheap energy and policies that promoted single family home-ownership induced suburbanization not only in LA but also in Baltimore. I-695 opened up Carroll County for people who work in the Baltimore core metro area and I-83 opened up north Baltimore County and even Pennsylvania to commuters. The result is that vehicle miles travelled (VMT) increased far more than population. Americans drive further per year than most anyone else in the world, and no, it has very little to do with the size of the country. 

Before and after being made car-centric

It stands to reason that these processes are largely reversible. Just as more and faster roadways induced demand, so will fewer and slower roadways reduce demand. Baltimore City can very well be re-urbanized if the City provides the amenities, the services and the type of housing modern households need. One can see how from shifting the transportation paradigm an entire comprehensive vision emerges.

While one could argue what is the chicken and what the egg in the matter of urban flight, there is no doubt that reduced livability due to car centric planning accelerated flight and that, conversely,  quality of live achieved by a new transportation paradigm will assit in attracting residents. A connected City that doesn't isolate neighborhoods and doesn't starve them from investment and people will have more resources to provide good services. New areas that are no longer impacted by the noise and fumes of high-speed, high-volume and nearly impassable roadways will become thriving communities. 

Based on his book, Chakrabarti would agree. He blames the flight to the suburbs and the resulting inefficient sprawl development patterns for isolation, health problems and the excessive energy hunger that characterizes the US. He and many others demonstrate that the denser city uses less energy and allow a healthier and happier lifestyle. And dense, he says, doesn't have to mean towers. Chakrabarti has good news for a rowhouse city like Baltimore: He identifies the connected three-story building as ideal for achieving urban density and energy self sufficiency. Calculating roof area over living area used for solar cells has a lot to do with his conclusion. Indeed, our very own row house can achieve about 50 units per acre, close to what the old style Parisian five story elevator apartment buildings also achieve, which, Chakrabarti points out would be prohibited under modern building codes.

Space for people: Baltimore Inner Harbor 
(Photo: Philipsen)

Even if downtown were again connected to the surrounding neighborhoods, it would still lack a lot to be called perfectly walkable or desirable. Yes, it has sidewalks an all streets, yes, there are crosswalks and curb cuts and at times sidewalks are even a bit wider than the minimum and at some places there are trees and sometimes even a spacial pavement that isn't plain concrete. But all of that is not enough to make anyone who has a choice want to walk along one or several city blocks. 

For that outdated bourgeois figure of the urban "flaneur" (a person leisurely walking through the city with no other purpose than to enjoy the walk) there usually must be some kind of destination and ideally "entertainment" along the way. It is true for everyone else as well, even if walking has a strict purpose. Sociologists have found out that the biggest urban enticement is other people. Not only for entertainment as in people watching, but for safety, information exchange and comfort. If there are no other people it usually doesn't feel right to be in the street. If there are plenty of people it feels safe. Just walk through Manhattan and you can see people and entertainment everywhere:

Street vendors, food trucks, storefronts, buskers, small parks, museums, benches to sit and watch, sometimes street cafes like in Paris, it rarely gets boring. But  one doesn't need a big metropolis for those types of experiences. A recent Friday afternoon on Frederick's Market Street was almost as entertaining,  as are Canton's O'Donnell Square, Federal Hill's Cross Street, Thames Street in Fells Point, Eastern Avenue in Highlandtown or Hampden's "Avenue". 

Manhattan: All day action (Photo: Philipsen)

But downtown Baltimore's streets and many neighborhood streets feel deserted, are often dirty and have not much to offer. The patrolling security cars of various benefits districts or flashing police lights on top of lamp posts only add to the unease. Complete streets need much investments in the public space, form trees to benches. But equally important is what lines the streets. Without restaurants, shops and services the prettiest sidewalk won't help. A restaurant that puts some umbrellas out and has enough space to place more than those skinny "cafe tables" in a tight row will change the character of a whole block. If traffic moves along slowly it just adds eyes to the street and is fine. But if the roadway is a speedway with four lanes all in one direction like Pratt Street even an amply dimensioned sidewalk with trees and planters and big outdoor seating areas can't compensate for the din of the roaring vehicles.  retail, entertainment and restaurants lining the streets requires residents. It easy to see the feedback loop which, by definition, has no one single begin and end point. 

For a vision of Baltimore it is as with the proverbial knot: One has to find the strand on which to pull in order to undo it. To many Baltimoreans the city appears to be tied up in a knot of urban problems that nobody can undo. I hope I could show in this article that a new transportation paradigm that emphasizes network connectivity instead of linear, radial connectivity and trip avoidance rather than trip facilitation may be just that strand that loosens the knot from which then everything else could follow. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

A vision for Baltimore (Part 1 - Successes and Questions)

Recently I concurrently reviewed the Morgan State Capstone thesis work by Nicholas Chupein about the JFX removal plans titled "Windows of Opportunity" and a new, not yet published book by internationally known architect V. Chakrabarti titled "The Architecture of Urbanity - Designing for Nature, Culture, and Joy".  This inspired me to think about what Baltimore would look like if one combines those two aspirations. 

Success story Oriole Park: Can it be replicated? 

Baltimore- What comes to mind?

Baltimore could use some windows of opportunity and some more joy. Those terms probably don't come to mind when one thinks about Baltimore. More likely: Gritty, authentic, historic, shrinking, traffic, race, crime, poverty, addiction, disparities, redlining, diversity, Johns Hopkins, John Waters, The Ravens and the Orioles, the harbor, crabs,  Old Bay, pretty architecture and yes, always "the Wire". The list has good and bad for sure, but the associations lack a clear direction, especially not a trajectory to a bright future, in short, there is no "vision"..

Before we go to the "windows of opportunity" coming from highway removal as addressed in the planning student's thesis, let's look more broadly what windows Baltimore has already opened and how its rich architecture translated into joyous urbanity in the past.

Resting on laurels

Baltimore had a series of strong mayors, including McKeldin, Schaefer, O'Malley and Schmoke who tried to seized opportunities ("The Baltimore Renaissance") and enacted numerous joyous urbanity events such as City Fair, Artscape, AFRAM, Hon-Fest and Pride. 

However, for quite a few years the City has dropped off the lists of leaders, trailblazers, or innovators where the likes of Joe Riley (Charleston) Tom Murphy (Pittsburgh), Michael Bloomberg (New York)  Enrique Peñalosa (Bogota),  Anne Hidalgo (Paris) or Mike Duggan in Detroit have had or still have a permanent perch on that list. New type festivities such night markets and light festivals came to Baltimore late and then faltered. The last pieces of national noteworthiness were the Inner Harbor, Camden Yards, O'Malley's Citi-Stat and a series of successful Health Commissioners. All this now dated, the shine has dimmed and major overhauls are needed. For more than a decade Baltimore has made the national news more frequently for negative records than leadership. Under Armours ambitious plans for Port Covington briefly made national waves even as a potential home for Amazon, but was rejected and then massively scaled down.

Some would make the argument that such top-down leadership and those grand projects aren't really desirable and appropriate in a time that calls for environmental justice, equity, resilience and healthy neighborhoods. Successful cities and Baltimore's trajectory show that it takes all to succeed: Leadership, catalytic projects, healthy neighborhoods and equity. Without a clear vision the activities of city department don't align, priorities are not obvious and communications is muddled. As a result the city goes everywhere and nowhere, maybe sideways or even backwards, in the end no-one benefits. 

There have been times when Baltimore was the second largest city in the US and known for global innovations such as the first passenger rail line, the first gas street lights and was filled with national enterprises. Charm City's architecture is still testimony to those better days. Deindustrialization has hit Baltimore hard and the successes of today are, indeed, not always physical. For example world leading higher education and health care institutions (ed and meds). Still, unlike some of its peers such as Cleveland, St Louis and Cincinnati, Baltimore has not been able to stem population loss and huge disparities.

How transportation shapes a city

On highways, specifically, Baltimore has a mixed record. Yes it defeated some highways and exactly those neighborhoods that were spared, Federal Hill, Fells Point, Canton, Dickeyville, Hunting Ridge are today's most walkable, connected and attractive ones. But in many parts the traffic engineers had the upper hand with the JFX, Druid Lake Park Drive, the Fallsway, the Orleans Street viaduct, the Russell Street viaduct, I-395 and the infamous highway to nowhere. Space that the streetcars freed was shamelessly converted into pavement, ruining once glorious streets like North Avenue in the process, not to mention the relentless one way system that converted even smaller streets into traffic sewers. All these anti-urban moves present "windows of opportunity" today.

As for its urbanity, Baltimore's DNA isn't derived from plans by Pierre L'Enfant as in the case of its famous sibling to the south, or by William Penn as in Philadelphia to the north. But the 1904 regional green plan by the Olmsted brothers isn't shabby either and that period left us marvelous parks and a number of grand civic gestures such as City Hall, the BMA and Penn Station. Olmsted's ideas and parks live on in Baltimore's Green Network Plan and there are big plans at least for Penn Station, if not for City Hall. Especially with re-thinking urban transportation many aspects of the Olmsted Plan can be revived. 

Success story: Art as incubator (MICA college)

So many projects and plans

So what would it take to again catapult Baltimore to the forefront of innovative successful cities? 

There is no lack of plans. Plenty of short-mid and long-term -plans have been prepared, especially for transportation, redevelopment and the never ending task of getting rid of vacant homes. Some are actually well underway, they just never line up like magnets to create a powerful pull. In a diverse city there are many divergent interests and aligning projects to create a larger force isn't easy. Just think of the list below and how each of those set of plans and projects have their detractors who rather wish those investments away.

Success story: Health institutions Hopkins & UMMS

• EBDI (nationally the largest sustained place based redevelopment according to the Urban Institute)
• Port Covington (Baltimore Peninsula) also initially conceived as one of the largest developments in the country now with the Insulator factory redevelopment which is well underway
• Perkins-Somerset: Well underway and in parts completed
• Madison Park (Reservoir Park)
• The Uplands (stalled after a completed phase 1 and recently revived)
• The Frederick Douglass tunnel (in progress with small scale construction started)
• The Penn Station restoration and redevelopment (small steps are completed)
• The Park Avenue redevelopment (under construction)
•  HarborPoint (the former Allied site) underway but nearing completion and build out
• Canton Crossing (underway but largely completed)
• Yard 56 (in progress but largely completed)
• Sharp Leadenhall and South Baltimore (many completed apartment buildings and some entertainment venues)
• Locust Point and the Key Highway developments
• The expansions and new construction at the campuses of Johns Hopkins, UMM, Coppin and Morgan State (largely complete)

There are even more big plans that exist mainly on paper and may never happen, each of those equally controversial:

Success story: Higher education (Morgan State University)

• The Red Line east-west light rail line (unfunded but back in planning and design)
• The redevelopment of Pimlico (mostly a concept on paper so far)
• La Cite's Poppleton Plans (stalled and in litigation)
• The Old Town redevelopment
• The removal of the lower JFX in favor of an urban boulevard
• The redevelopment of HarborPlace (requiring approval of a charter change and funding)
• The Convention Center expansion and the mixed use development between Oriole Park and the Ravens Stadium (not designed, not funded)
• The Middle Branch waterfront parks plan funded in part from casino revenues (underway)
• Downtown Rise, a vision for downtown
  

  

  Success story: Development of formerly fallow industrial
  spaces (Harbor East, Allied Signal, Canton Crossing)

  
  

Plus policies that are supposed to revert past planning errors or injustices such as 

The removal or mitigation of the highway to nowhere 

Inclusionary zoning,  

Complete streets policies,

A Baltimore resilience and climate change plan, and 

Various policies to bring more equity to city investments. 

A Baltimore Green Network Plan

A Baltimore Comprehensive Plan (still to be completed)

As noted, without focus and vision, the jumble of plans will remain more confusion than guidance. But before there can be a vison, there needs to be some consensus what the objectives are.

What is progress?

But what is steady progress? People can't even agree on whether Baltimore got any better in the last 30 years. 

A Baltimorean who would have left the city in 1994 would barely recognize large sections of the city if he returned today so many large scale investments are there across most areas of the city. The Rotunda, Charles Village, Remington, Johns Hopkins Hospital and EBDI, the MSU campus, Greektown and Canton Crossing, Sharp Leadenhall, Locust Point, Key Highway, Mulberry Street in downtown, or North Avenue in Station North or west of Walbrook. Much of these include many new housing units.

Still there is a housing crisis.The suspicion against large projects is there for a reason. Truth is that massive physical transformations with lots of new housing have not abated the bleeding. Yet, most would agree that Baltimore today appears to be physically much improved since 1994 even in Sandtown or on North Avenue. Social ills can't be addressed without sound physical spaces, so is there at least a sound foundation?  

Limited success: re-investment in redlined areas (Walbrook Junction)

Who is the culprit?

Why didn't all these developments result in a growing, prosperous, joyous and confident city on a forward thrust? 

Giving answers to that question is a favorite Baltimore pastime. The lack of vision and focus was already mentioned.

Simplistic answers are usually wrong when it comes to complex questions, but that doesn't stop residents to offer them, ranging from incompetent mayors to corruption, high property taxes, too much police, not enough police, bad schools, greedy developers, the digital divide, capitalism in general, and lately even bicyclists, to name just a few. 

Many of such answers are ideologically motivated (too much government, not enough government etc.), some racist, most are not based on facts or they sometimes come from suburbanites who actually know very little about the city. After the cherished traditional home town paper the Sun fell into the hands of the Sinclair Owner of Fox 45, cutting the council in half or throttling Baltimore's  income down in a sudden spurt of tax cuts has been added to the false set of the silver bullets. 

There isn't a scientific study that would give a convincing answer to the question why Baltimore is languishing, is the only major shrinking city in the East of the US, has the highest addiction rates in the nation, and in spite of recent progress, is still listed in the top ten cities when it comes to murders per capita takes many Abell Foundation reports to better understand and still remains a puzzle. 

Limited success: Starter homes in Druid Heights: Can it be scaled up?

Focus on a new transportation paradigm and connections

In keeping with the question of focus and vision, let's return to the  two motivational documents of "windows of opportunity" derived from highway removal and the joyous city that comes from connections and Chakrabarti's concept of  "connected design". 

What could a Baltimore look like that would systematically implement a new transportation paradigm and a consistent application of connectivity instead of separation? Together these guardrails should result in a pretty clear vision for Baltimore, to be laid out in a sequel to this article.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA